This marks week 2 of my quest to lower our grocery budget by $200 for the month. (See week 1 here!) I am very happy to report that I came in well under my budget of $100 for the week, paying just $72.81 between two stores! That puts us at a total of $207.36 for the month – just $7.36 over my goal for this point. I am confident we can make that up over the next 2 weeks. So where did I shop and what savings did I get?
First up was Kroger. I spent $17.56 here. We generally don’t shop here much, but when I was comparing prices at our local stores they had the best prices for meat. Hubs requested steaks for Sunday night dinner which was NOT in my budget at all. There were a couple options at Kroger that I thought I could make work but Hubs wasn’t impressed with those and wanted the $20 steaks instead – these came out of ”his” grocery budget. In our family budget, we include a “his” grocery budget for items I might have him pick up on the way home and that is not figured into the general grocery budget. What I did get was a pork loin for $1.99/lb that we will turn into a couple meals of pork chops and a pork roast (total $9.07). I also picked up a head of green leaf lettuce and a tube of Butt Paste for the little. I used our Kroger card and a $2 coupon for the Butt Paste. The diaper cream probably could have been purchased for slightly less elsewhere, but we weren’t making another trip. Overall with the card and the coupon, I saved 36% off the total bill.
Then we finished up our trip at Ingles, our local grocery store. I paid $55.25 for $93.99 worth of groceries – a 41% savings! I had 3 coupons that doubled (from $0.40 to $0.80), a few higher dollar coupons ($1+), a Catalina for $3 off the total, and used an in store “coupon” for a free gallon of milk (a savings of $3.79). The rest of the savings came from using our store card for sale prices. We stocked up on baby water which was on sale for $0.88/gallon – the first time I’ve ever noticed this on sale and we go through about 1 gallon per week. We also stocked up on taco shells (3/$2.75 after coupon). I got 9 various Pillsbury cookies, biscuits, and cinnamon rolls – used 3 coupons that were doubled, got $2 off instantly at the register, and got a free gallon of milk! (with the combined savings I paid about $1 per item) My “big ticket” item was lunch meat for the hubs that cost $5.50/lb. The store had a BOGO promotion going and then I also used a $0.75 coupon making them about $2.38 each!
I feel like we did pretty well in the savings department this week! I would love to reach a 50% or more savings on a trip, but overall 40% is still great! In total we should have spent $120.89 and spent just $72.81. That’s almost $50 back in our pockets… or to paying off debts! I also have rebates coming from a few smartphone apps because of certain grocery purchases we made!
Today the hubs asked me why we haven’t been doing this all along. I thought I didn’t have the time. I thought we didn’t have access to coupons we would use. I know now I didn’t have the right tips & tricks in my arsenal to make it happen. With some new tips and perspective, a few minutes cutting/printing coupons, and a few more minutes organizing my list and matching up menus, deals & coupons getting this savings is easier than I ever thought it would be. Why haven’t we been doing this all along?
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