Some of my free stuff: free bacon, free english muffins, free eggs, free orange juice, free pasta sauce, free pasta, free croutons, free salad dressing, free Kleenex and free Progresso Beef Broth.
It was so time consuming though. I got the circulars on Tuesday and started scoping and planning. I matched coupons to the ads at both Safeway and King Soopers and decided to head to Safeway due to the better deals they had going on for this week. I had to have the paper spread out for a few days on the island taking up room that I normally use for food prep. I went online and checked the coupons.com site for the weekly specials from the paper. I also went through the Safeway shopper rewards stuff to add coupons savings online. For instance I got an Au Gratin potato box coupon from the coupons.com site, but I also added the same coupon onto my Safeway rewards card too. So it was double the savings.
I spent $61.23 and got $175 worth of groceries. I got brown sugar, flour, box mashed potatoes, croutons, dressing, pasta sauce, pasta, onion powder, two boxes of juices for the soccer team thing, butterscotch chips, beef broth (2), V8 Fusion, Caribou Coffee was a steal at $2.99 lb.--I had two coupons so I got two of them, Kleenex (3), Eggs, milk (.99/gallon) OJ, Pizza, Butter (2), choc chip cookie dough precut, english muffins, loaf of wheat bread, bagels, turkey for Thanksgiving ($6.88) Bacon, 4 bags of grapes.
So I had a successful trip, but what do I serve this week for food? Spaghetti with a salad (have some lettuce leftover from last week,) omelet and bacon for breakfast tomorrow. I have chicken from last week to grill and I'll marinate it in the salad dressing. I used the mashed potatoes tonight to go with the ham I bought last week and some peas. We'll have some blueberry pancakes for dinner (I didn't make them last week and I've had some begging...) and I'll get started on my Christmas cookie baking for gifts for teachers. I'll still have to head over to King Soopers and/or Sprouts for some meat (the shrimp I was going to buy was published as $4.99/lb but came in a two pound bag, so my coupon wasn't good enough for it to be affordable.) I have plenty of fresh fruit and veggies, so I'll be scanning the fliers mostly for protein sources, so not more than $20.
What I've learned. Take all the coupons with you. I left a bunch behind that didn't present as specials on the flier, but there were several good deals I knew I had coupons for that weren't listed. Focus on the cost per meal. I think that deals are great and exciting, but if you have too much flour/sugar/butter/cereal, it's not going to feed your family adequately. If I focus on the per meal cost, it is so much better. We had a meal last week that cost approx $.80 per person. It was fajitas and had vegetables and protein and calcium etc. THAT was a good deal. My chili last week? Cost about $.75 per person. We stretched that for 4 servings of leftovers after the dinner, a total win on cost.
I'm all stocked on baking items, and pantry supplies. I really need to make sure I'm saving money on the healthier whole foods as well.
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