I’ll admit it, I love shopping! Love it! But, what I love the most is finding great bargains and being able to get the most for the money. In the last several months, I’ve really been making an effort to curb our grocery spending. What I generally do is get out the sale papers on Sunday, go through those and figure out which of the sale items we need and cut out as many corresponding coupons as I can. I make sure to hit our local Publix on Sunday because on Sunday and Monday they have a “mystery coupon” item that only costs a penny with the coupon from that week’s flier. That’s right, one cent! The item varies from week to week. I have gotten things like a 5lb bag of sugar, a roll of papertowels, a bottle of juice, a gallon of bleach, a loaf of bread and a package of toilet paper. All for a cent! I can never pass up the mystery coupon item on Sundays. It’s too good to let go.
This week I had to do our “big” grocery shop on Saturday. Generally I have the sale paper to help me make a list before I go, but since I went on Saturday I was on my own. Most weeks I average a savings of about 25-30% off which is quite good. I think on Saturday I saved around 20% which was still pretty decent, all things considered.
We still needed just a few things on Sunday, so I grabbed the sale papers for Kroger and Publix to make my list. I did REALLY well shopping at these two stores on Sunday. Check this out:
Kroger
Tyson Chicken Breasts – $3.32 (saved $4.18)
Tyson Chicken Breasts – $3.26 (saved $4.10)
Yellow Squash – $2.51 (saved $1.78)
Red Bell Pepper – $1.25 (Saved $.24)
Pilsbury Cinnamon Rolls – $1.00 (Saved $.69)
Pilsbury Cinnamon Rolls – $1.00 (Saved $.69)
Tropicana Pure Orange Juice – $4.99
BBQ Rotiserrie Chicken – $3.99 (Saved $2.50)
Then, I had coupons!! I got the Tropicana Pure orange juice FREE, so that coupon was $4.99. I also had a coupon to get $.50 off 2 packages of Pilsbury rolls, so that doubled to $1 off!! That meant I got two packages of cinnamon rolls for $1!! Score!
Total Spent: $15.91
Total Saved: 20.17
Savings Percentage: 56%
After Kroger, I made my way to Publix so that I could get the Mystery Coupon item.
Publix
Cheerios – $1.75 (BOGO)
Cheerios – $1.74 (BOGO)
Orville Reddenbacher Kettle Corn – $1.98 (BOGO)
Orville Reddenbacher Popcorn – $1.97 (BOGO)
Ragu Pasta Sauce – $1.13 (Saved $1.12 via BOGO)
Publix Butter Quarters – $2.39 (Saved $.30)
Fruit Snacks – $2.00 (Not on sale)
Publix White Bread – $.01
I had a coupon to get $1.00 off two boxes of Cheerios and since they were BOGO, that made them even cheaper!
Total Spent: 12.23
Total Saved: $10.83
Savings Percentage: 47% (would have been slightly higher if I hadn’t gotten the fruit snacks)
GRAND TOTAL SPENT: $28.14
GRAND TOTAL SAVED: $31.00
AVERAGE OF SAVINGS: 51.5%!!
How cool is that?! I’m pretty geeked about it. If only I could do that well every week. Maybe I can. I certainly aspire to that level of savings on a weekly basis. But, hey, even my usual 25-30% saved is pretty good, right? Still, I can’t help but be proud of my big savings yesterday. YAY!!