Weekly Grocery Shopping Results

I tried an experiment this week. I don't generally do my shopping at Wal-Mart. It's just too much hassle and takes too long to get around to make it worth my while. But, seeing how many people posted great deals over at the Grocery Gathering, I decided to give it a try. I don't guess I did too badly, but I'll have to consider how good next week's deals are before I give it another try.

Here are this week's results:
Wal-Mart
*Regular Price: $40.68
*Total Paid: $19.45
*Total Saved: $21.23
*%Saved: 53%

Kroger
*Regular Price: $110.63
*Total Paid: $41.78
*Total Saved: $68.85
*%Saved: 63%

Publix
*Regular Price: $18.71
*Total Paid: $3.193
*Total Saved: 15.52
*%Saved: 83%

Total Weekly: $105.60
Total Savings: 62%

Kroger Register Coupons Printed:
$1.50 off Black & Mild Cigars
$2.50 off any 3 Johnson's or Desitin products
$1.00 off any Uncle Ben's Ready Rice

Kroger Register Coupons left by previous customers that I grabbed:
$1.00 off any 2 bags of Eight O'Clock Coffee
$3.00 off any one box of Nice n Easy Root Touch-Up
$3.00 off any one Perfect 10 by Nice n Easy Haircolor
$3.00 off any one box of Nice n Easy Gray Solution

Fabulous deals I got:
Publix
Yoplait Gogurt - On sale BOGO ($1.45 each) and had 3 coupons for $1.00 off 1. Total price, $.45 each. To take advantage of this deal, go to Money Saving Mom and click the Coupons toolbar on the right. This is the last day of Publix sale this week though!

Kroger
*Tennessee Pride Sausage - 2.5 pound boxes of pre-sliced sausage. On sale for $5.99 per box, with coupons for $.50 off any Tennessee pride products(Found in 05/18/08 Red Plum insert), doubled = $1.00 off. $4.99 each box, which is great for Wes and I because we're low-carbing it these days. *NOTE: Kroger has Tennessee Pride Sausage Gravy on sale for $10 for 10. If you use the coupons on those, you get them for free!
*Zantac Cool Mint - Box of 8 for $4.59 with $5.00 off coupons. Made $.41 overage on each box. Total overage = $1.23 To take advantage of this, get the coupons here (page 3). Thanks again Money Saving Mom!
*Johnson's Buddies soap for $1.00 and had 2 $1.00 off coupons, so got two for free. You can get those here.

Note on using coupons at Wal-Mart: The Customer Service Manager told the cashier not to accept my internet coupons. However, I printed a copy of Wal-Mart's coupon policy to take with me, just in case! As soon as I showed them the policy, they shut up and scanned my coupons. It never hurts to go prepared. Wes was in awe of my coupon-fu this week.

How'd you do this week?

Coupons: What to do when....

Every week, I find that there are at least a couple of items on my grocery list that I've clipped coupons for but don't end up getting. Sometimes the stores are sold out of the item I need or the advertised item isn't actually on sale at that particular store. Whatever the reason, I often return home with coupons that I've clipped but did not need.

The first few times this happened, I just put all of the coupons into an envelope. Every week, the envelope got fatter and fatter, although I still sorted through them to see if I could use them the following week. As time goes on, it takes me longer to go through those coupons and it quickly became more than the effort was worth to go through the envelopes.

This weekend, I had a flash of inspiration (no doubt triggered by my love of Excel). I pulled out the envelopes of clipped coupons and entered them in a spreadsheet.
The columns of the spreadsheet were:
*Expiration date
*Number of coupons
*Manufacturer
*Item
*Face value
*# of items on coupon
*Amount saved per item

I sorted the spreadsheet based on expiration date. This made my grocery list process far easier yesterday. Rather than sort through the coupons to see if I could use any of them, I simply checked the list against what was on sale and what was listed at The Grocery Game.

Next week, when I get ready to make my weekly grocery list, I will pull out the coupons that I didn't use and brought back from this week's shopping trip, put the expired ones in an envelope to send overseas to the military base, delete those from my spreadsheet, log any new ones that go into the envelope, and save myself some time in the long run.

Does anyone else actually keep the coupons they don't use during their grocery shopping excursions, or do you just throw them away?

Weekly Grocery Shopping Results

Well, this week's shopping trip was kind of disappointing. Most of the things we had on our "needs" list weren't items I had coupons for. I did great on our stock ups though. I went to three stores this time. CVS, Publix, and Kroger. Against the norm, I did fabulously at CVS and Publix but not so great at Kroger.

CVS:
*Regular Price: $12.97
*Coupons/Sales: $2.00
*Total Paid: $10.97
*ECB PRINTED: $10.96
*Savings: 15% (Won't count ECB till I use them)

Publix:
*Regular Price: $85.34
*Coupons/Sales: $66.20
*Total Paid: $19.14
*Savings: 78%

Kroger:
*Regular Price: $103.89
*Coupons/Sales: $21.72
*Total Paid: $82.17
*Savings: 21%

Total Weekly: $112.28
Total Savings: 44%

Great deals I got this week:
Publix:
3 - FREE boxes of Honey Bunches of Oats with Chocolate Clusters
2 - FREE 8 oz. containers of Daisy sour cream
4 - 4 packs of Atkins TRD shakes for $3.00 each (Regularly $7.99)
2 - Reduced Fat Pillsbury cake mixes for $.15 each
CVS
2 - Bottles of Crest Kids mouthwash for $2.49 each ... and got $3.49 back in ECB each
2 - Packages of CVS Bandages for $1.99 each ... and got $1.99 back in ECB each

Want to share some of your awesome finds this week?

Give Expired Coupons New Life

As of Saturday, two months of my Proctor and Gamble coupons expired. It inspired me to leaf through my binder and pull out all of the expired coupons. I'm not really into clipping coupons until/unless I need them, so had a TON ($989.99) from the last 3 months that were gathered. Some of the coupons were ones I just let slip through the cracks... but if you've read my posts about couponing before, you'll know that I don't do that often. Some were just for items I never use.

You may be scratching your head at this point and wondering why I am deranged enough to tally the dollar value of the coupons I can't use anymore. That's because they are neatly clipped, separated, and put into labeled sandwich baggies so I can mail them out to the Navy base in Yokota, Japan. Turns out, on overseas military bases, the PX and Commissary will allow service members (and families) overseas to use manufacturers coupons for up to 6 months past their expiration dates.

So, if you don't want to throw out your thousand dollars of expired coupons, send them overseas. *Note: It might be a fun project to see if we can start a group effort from the PF Bloggers. They have a ton of organizations that send tens of thousands of dollars worth in coupons to sponsored bases. If you're interested, email me at sunshinedavidson @ Gmail.com.

Weekly Grocery Shopping Results

I just got home from my weekly excursion with the grocery shopping. I have to admit that I had to work a little harder at it this week. I've been spoiled by the Grocery Game consistently having the Kroger list up early. This week it was running "on time" and not a day or two early. BUT, I don't have another free night this week so I had to do the legwork on my own :)

Without further ado, the results:
Publix:
*Regular Price: $53.37
*Coupons/Sales: $39.32
*Total Paid: $14.05
*Savings: 75%

Kroger:
*Regular Price: $202.12
*Coupons/Sales: $99.94
*Total Paid: $102.18
*Savings: 49.5%

Total Weekly: $116.23
Total Savings: 55%

Some fun things I tried this week, I loaded my Kroger Plus card with quite a few BOGO (buy one get one free) offers from Procter and Gamble, Unilever, and AOL’s eCoupons. I also had paper coupons for the same items.
*Pantene Shampoo and Conditioner: BOGO @ $3.33 with a coupon for $1.00 off two. Total for shampoo and conditioner - $2.33
*Aussie Shampoo and Styling Gel: BOGO @ $2.50 with a coupon for $2.00 off two. Total for shampoo and gel - $.50
*Oil of Olay body wash: BOGO @ $3.50 with a coupon for $1.00 off two. Total for two bottles of body wash - $2.50
*Wisk laundry detergent: $1.50 off eSaver with a coupon for $1.50 off one. Total for one bottle of laundry detergent - $.49

The fun one was the cereal. I've been having a blast stocking up on the cereal (why yes, I do know I'm a little odd!). Kroger has General Mills cereals on sale for $2.00 a box. I brought the following coupons with me: 1 store printed coupon for $2.00 on 5 boxes
1 - coupon for $1.10 off Curves cereal
1 - $.50 for Total that doubled
1 - $.50 for Cheerios that doubled
1 - eSaver coupon loaded to my Kroger card for $1.00

So, the final total on the cereal was $.78 per box for 5 boxes of General Mills cereal. GO ME! Although, I suspect that if I bring one more box of cereal into this house … we have 29 … Wes may mutiny.

Coupons - Making them work for you

There is an interesting discussion going on over at BoingBoing about coupons and how much they aren't worth the effort. Now, the girl given in the short example post isn't very realistic... sorry Christy. For one, she does her couponing at seven stores, primarily Publix, and even with coupons they're often significantly more expensive than (my favorite) Kroger, although sometimes they have FABULOUS deals and I snatch them up too.

So, the down and dirty plan for grocery shopping that has been successful for me goes something like this:
*Buy 2 copies of the Sunday Paper - If you buy them on Sunday, you can get them in one packet for $2.35 at Kroger or $2.36 at Publix. They are next door to one another where I live, so there's no real difference for me where I get them.

*Go to Grocerygame.com** on Monday and access the List for Kroger, Publix, and CVS. Check the running list of what I need against the sales prices and coupons I have for them.
NOTE: Grocery Game lists the week of the circular for the coupons, so I never clip them before I need them. I use a 3 hole punch and keep the circulars in chronological order in a binder until I need them.

*Check the personal finance blogs for tips on printable coupons for sale items that will make the price free or next to free. A few of my favorites are Money Saving Mom, Freebies 4 Mom, and Centsible Savings.

*Check my Miscellaneous Coupons pouch for any coupons I've received in the mail with my free samples.

*Do a quick Google search for any printable coupons for items on the list that I need but don't have a coupon for.

All of the gathering probably takes me an hour total. Then,

*I print the list for each store and put all of the coupons I need in the envelope for that store with the list.

*Mentally map my route to make one circle and not waste gas.

*Go to Publix and ONLY get what is on the list. - 10 minutes
*Go to Kroger and ONLY get what is on the list. - 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the checkout line.
*Go to CVS and ONLY get what is on the list. - 5 to 10 minutes.

As a general rule, I can feed my family of 5 on $75 to $80 a week, including all toiletries and miscellaneous household items. It takes me roughly 2 to 2 1/2 hours per week, including the shopping itself. This saves me a LOT of time. Before I shopped with a list and did my research before leaving the house, I made 3 to 4 trips to the store every week to pick up forgotten or needed things. I also ended up spending lots of extra money on impulse buys.

No additional expenditures on gas because I plan my route to maximize fuel economy. I also don't have to make those emergency runs to the store during the week anymore, so I am actually SAVING money on gas. I shop for gas at the grocery store, so I don't have to make extra trips to stop for that either.

Happy Dance Note: Yesterday I was out and about and stopped at Kroger just because I had cereal coupons. I got 4 boxes of Honey Bunches of Oats and 2 bunches of bananas for $.94 ...behold, the power of coupons.

**If you sign up at Grocery Game, please list sunshinedavidson @ gmail.com in the referral link.