I've been trying to type out my grocery shopping post but it is getting way, way too long. I think I have some good hints and tips plus I'd love to hear some feedback on what works for you as well. So it'll get published here eventually, I just need to figure out a decent format so it's not 10,000 words long.
In the time being, I will give you a summary on what I saved this week by taking an hour to "shop the sale ads", make a weekly menu, and clip/match up a few coupons beforehand. For the record, I used to be great at the "grocery game" back in Ohio. But I've slacked off here in Maryland to the point that I've been shopping at one store (Safeway) without checking the sales ad first and using maybe $5 worth of paper coupons if I remembered them. Also this week the pantry was really bare with no meat stocked up in the freezer and I needed some household stuff (batteries, trash bags, etc).
Giant: spent $56.60, saved $45.35 ($11.05 paper coupons, $34.40 sales), percent saved 45% Highlights: 200 tea bags for $4, 3 jars spaghetti sauce at $1 each, two 4lb bottles of Heinz ketchup for $6 total plus a pound of free hamburger, 4lbs of pork chops for $6
CVS: spent $15.66, saved $13.99 ($7.10 paper coupons, $6.89 sales), percent saved 48% Highlights: 16 Duracell AA batteries for $6, 2 big boxes of band-aids for $4
Costco: spent $17.78 I have to throw in my "you don't have to have a warehouse membership to save" speech here. The big reason I went to Costco this week is because I'm doing my own version of a price book (except not that extreme, will explain in a moment). I know it is completely possible to combine regular store sales with coupons to get a cheaper price than a warehouse store's bulk rate. I can check both Safeway and Giant online so I needed to write down all Costco's prices to compare at home. I think I will be shopping at Costco more since they make buying in bulk easy ("easy" can be worth more than "savings" sometimes) and I will need "bulk" when I cook 30 meals in 1 day. So what did I buy? 300 kid vitamins for $10.89 and a big box of the new Fruity Cheerios at $6.89 so the kids would have something to be excited about while I wrote down prices.
Safeway: spent $176.00, saved $66.18 ($8.00 coupons, $58.18 sales), percent saved 28% Highlights: 6lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $11, 10 boxes Kraft mac-n-cheese for $5. Like I said, I didn't have much stocked up so this wasn't a huge "savings" trip, more like a normal "we need food to eat" trip with a few coupons thrown in.
Total spent: $265.52, total saved: $140.52, $26.15 in paper coupons (figuring $15 savings at Costco) Also none of the above stores offer double coupons.
So without trying very hard and with nothing stocked up, I managed to save 35%. Next week my goal is 40%!
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