This Week's Shopping

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So it’s almost 11. The dishwasher is running, and the sink is shiny. The kitchen is a disaster area, but life isn’t perfect!

Part of the disaster is the result of my latest shopping run, my first big run with coupons. I used a lot of coupons today, but got a lot of stuff-plus, we got $.60 off per gallon of gas when we filled the van, thanks to Safeway’s fuel rewards program. So we paid $1.39 per gallon for gas. I don’t remember when we last paid that small of an amount. So, we’ll start with that, even though we did that at the end. Over $13.00 of free gas.

To start, we went to Walmart. We needed diapers and wipes, and I wanted to check prices on Safeway’s Mix and Match deal before I went and spent the money there. Sure enough, on everything I checked, the Safeway sale price was better, and not even comparable with coupons. In the past, Walmart has often beat Safeway’s sale prices, but that doesn’t seem to be the case as much anymore. I think part of that has to do with there only being those two stores to shop at. I’ve seen larger price increases overall at Walmart than Safeway.

Here’s what we did at Walmart

6x Beef Smoked Sausage, rollback to 2/$5.00 (had coupons)
1x Smoked Ham Lunchmeat
2x Refrigerated Cookie Dough (had coupons)
1x String Cheese (had coupon)
2x Gogurt (had coupon, herein noted as “Q” cause I’m feeling lazy)
2x Margarine Quarters, for cooking. Higher than normal, cause they were out of storebrand, no Q
5 lbs Hamburger Meat
1x Spreadable Margarine
1x Huge jar minced garlic from produce area. This is the best garlic. I freeze most of it for later so it doesn’t go bad
1x Omega 3 Granola Bars for Larry (Q)
2x Kraft Mac and Cheese
2x Easter Candy (Q)
Various types of necessary clothing type articles of the under type variety for the boys
3x Deodorants, on clearance (Q)
11x Cereal (Q)
2X Rold Gold Pretzels (Q)
2.6 lbs bananas, cause Roan asked
20 lbs potatoes
1x 3 pack wipes
1x Giant box of diapers

$16.95 in coupons later, we got out of there after spending $134.61

Then we went to Safeway, where something went horribly awry. Ok, not so horrible. Certainly not horrible on the horror movie your neighbor is a freak with razors on his fingers who shows up in your dreams awry, but awry just the same.

So I’m going to break it down here and see if I can figure it out.

$.75 when you buy 10 mix and match price point

4x Lipton Green Tea Citrus
22x Rice A Roni, various flavors (Coupons made them $.50 each)
7x Gatorade, various flavors

33 items. Planned to buy 20 RAR, not sure how the two more in there. Bought one extra Gatorade, knowing it would be $1.25. So those 3 items were $1.25 instead of $.75

$1.50 when you buy 10 mix and match price point

4x Arrowhead Aquapod (Coupons made them $1.00 each)
8x Capri Sun
8x Irish Spring 3 packs (Coupons made them $1.25, I think)
9x Suave Naturals Body Wash (bought 10, but forgot Safeway had B3G1F deal) (Coupons made them $1.00 each)

29 items, planned (and put in cart) 30, forgetting about Safeway deal cost me $5.00 Mix and Match there ($8.25 over at this point, value of missed Mix and Match, overage on $.75 deals, and coupons missed and overaged amounts)

$2.00 when you buy 10 mix and match price point

2x Skippy Honey Roasted Peanut Butter
2x Lysol Cleaner (Coupons made them $1.50, I think)
4x Crest Toothpaste (Coupons made them $1.50, I think)
7x Glade Candle (Coupons made them $1.50, I think)
4x Ball Park Franks (Coupons made them $1.50, I think)

19 items. First, got one too many glade candles, and two of the bp franks I got were in the $2.50 price point. So I missed another $5.00 Mix and Match, plus $.50 on the candle because I didn’t have a coupon for #7, so now I’m over $14.00.

$2.50 when you buy 10 mix and match price point

1x Honey Bunches of Oats Strawberry
3x Promise Active Shots (Coupon made these $1.00 each)
2x Suave Aloe Lotion (Coupon made these $2.00 each, I think)
2x Deodorant (not sure what brand, but had a coupon, so probably $2.00 each)
4x Dove Deodorant (Coupon made these $2.00 each)
2x Ball Park Franks (Supposed to be in the $2.00 price point, coupons made these $2.50)

13 items. Had the 2 extra ball parks, not sure where the other extra came from, but they were out of a lot of these price point items or had only specific types marked and didn’t have enough to get what I needed, so I was off here, but no loss of money.

Also picked up

2x Low Sodium Tomatoes (on sale, plus coupons)
4x Gallon milk (cheapest price around, at $2.49)
3x 3 lb ground beef on clearance
2 steaks on clearance

Total savings at Safeway $188.77, 58%, so we paid $146.24 there. Our total was $280.85. We got $486.57 worth of stuff. So, with a $125 budget for food, $25 misc food (unannounced sales, meat on clearance, etc), and $100 for household needs (we had to raise that one from $75), I went over by $30.85. The safeway trip only explains $14.00 of it, so I’m not sure where the rest of it is, but I’m not going to obsess over it, I’m just going to be more careful next time. I had it figured that we went over by $50 when I figured it earlier, but $30 is much more reasonable. I still need to work on that, but we will for next week.

Considering that none of our stores double coupons, there’s a severe lack of competition, and that I don’t have any nifty discounts on my card, I think saving over $200 is pretty darn good! That’s a lot of money saved! And that much more food stocked for rough times. Plus the free gas. Can't forget the free gas!

By the way, I highly suggest that if you want to be serious about saving money while shopping, you need to check out slickdeals.net. The forums there are a wealth (literally) of information, especially the wiki. Each store has a forum. I studied the Safeway forum for several days before this trip. The folks there are pros!
Tomorrow I’ll detail how my purchases helped stock my bug out box. Tomorrow I have to re-organize that thing!

Off to bed!