Super Savings Saturday

You know I go back and forth on coupons.  I love them and I hate them (you've heard that before).  Hey I don't claim to be perfect (if you know me personally you are well aware of this).  I do change my mind.  Last night after looking at our utility bills my husband and I decided we would try out the Money Saving Mom's way of grocery shopping for a little while to see if it would work for us.  Now I do try to get natural products and organics when I can and I won't compromise on my beef but I will be okay buying a few things here and there that might not meet all of my criteria.  On Friday night after the kids went to bed I put together my list of deals that I wanted to do and then on Saturday I took all three kids by myself and went to two different stores.  One of the ladies in the aisles looked at me and said, "You're brave."

The kids were actually really well behaved.  I gave them a talk before going into each store.  I said that mommy was trying to save as much money as I could because daddy works really hard for the money we get and we need to be good stewards of it (then I explained what stewards meant).  So I told them that meant not asking for candy or other things.  I had a very specific list and that was all I was getting.

I used Money Saving Mom and Bargain Briana and copy and pasted my deals to a Word document.  I then printed off coupons and paper clipped them to the specific store list.  I then went through any coupons I already had and added them as well.

I picked items we needed and then a few extras that we would eat that were really cheap.  I went to Target earlier in the week so those items aren't pictured but I got 3 tubs of Huggies baby wipes, a bag of Hershey's special dark kisses, Target bread and 2 dozen eggs and Reach floss.  I spent $7.23 there.

Today I went to Meijer and spent $9.00.  I only had a few items there and so I went through the self check out lane but the cashier became really annoyed at me because she kept having to come over and log in because the Meijer Mealbox coupons kept messing up (which they always do).  I explained to her that I was not trying to cheat the system and she just didn't like coupons, but I knew exactly how much I was going to spend and I was not going over.   I bought Yoplait Greek yogurt (I had a free coupon), 2 KC Masterpiece BBQ sauces, 2 Hidden valley dressings, 2 Fiber one bars, Cascade, Always pads. 

Lastly, I went to Marsh where I spent the most money.  I spent $23.16.  I bought 2 10 lb. bags of potatoes, 2 bags of apples, 1 package of turkey bacon, 4 pizza roll boxes, 2 packages of Oscar Meyer lunch meat, 2 bottles of V8 Fusion as pictured above.

I did forget to buy milk so I will be buying a couple gallons tomorrow but otherwise this will last us the week.  Remember though I have a lot of home canned stuff and I do have some meat and chicken in the freezer from previous weeks.  This is the first week I am trying this so we will see how I incorporate the higher cost of meat into the budget.  I am hoping to stay between $40-$60 per week (grocery budget only).  I will probably be making some freezer fries this week with all of the potatoes.

So I spent $39.39.  And my husband is laughing at me right now for blogging about this.  Oh well, at least he will have food for the week.