Partial giveaway results

I'm sorry, y'all...I've been neglectful.  But the good news is that a winner has been identified and contacted.  Tricia was the winner of the giveaway and her coupons were put in the mail yesterday!  I hope you enjoy, Tricia!

Reasons for my neglect:
1) Busy times at work
2) No laptop power cord at home
3) No energy at any time...the kid has been waking between 4:45 and 5:15 every morning for weeks and we have no idea why.  We think the bottom 2-year molars are imminent, but they haven't poked through yet and if they're anything like her other teeth, they will take a few more months to completely come in.  We tried feeding her more last night and we've tried getting her to bed earlier and later with no difference.  She transitioned during the time change just fine, but now here we are. 
4) I want to type up my entire transaction at the grocery...and I just don't have the time.  But the receipt goes everywhere with me and today or tomorrow I WILL type it up and show you what I did.  But it's not nearly as impressive as you all seem to think it will be.  You ALL were way under in your guesses.

But I'm going to leave you in suspense for now what my actual total was...because I feel like it merits an explanation. 

GIVEAWAY!

Okay, so it's not *that* exciting of a giveaway.  But it could be for you!  I'm giving away 10 coupons for Ronzoni Smart Taste pasta--they're $1 off 2 boxes.  This normally isn't a great coupon, but it is when Ronzoni is essentially $0.49 apiece!  With these coupons, you could get TWENTY free boxes of pasta!

Unfortunately, I can only offer this giveaway for people local to Central Ohio because I want to make sure I can get the coupons to you before the end of the week.  I'm going to end the giveaway Wednesday, March 23rd at 10 a.m. so I can get the coupons in the mail on Wednesday--hopefully that'll get them to you by Friday.

The way you can enter:  Look at the picture below and tell me how much you think I spent on the food in the picture. 

The closest guess (you can go over--we're not going Price Is Right style) will get the coupons!  There are a few tricky things in there that weren't part of a deal to throw you off :)

Make sure your entry has a good way to contact you (you can either put your email address in the comment or make sure your email address is in your user profile) so I can contact you for your mailing address so I can put these in the mail on Wednesday!

Good luck!

Thrifty Thursday: My Grocery Planning

(Yes, this is called Thrifty Thursday....but it took me a couple of days to compile, so you're getting it on Friday.  Hopefully some of you weekend shoppers can still make use of it since Kroger's deals run Monday through Sunday around central Ohio.  Also, you'll be glad it took me a few days since I found some unadvertised freebies in the March to Savings Event!)

I thought I would walk through my process for grocery planning with you all so you can see how I generally do things.  And if you have any suggestions to make the process better, please let me know!

First I look at our meal list from the previous week and see if there's anything we didn't eat and if all the ingredients are still good.  If we didn't eat a meal, we'll usually have it early the next week and I'll pick up any replacement ingredients if necessary.

Next I look around at foods that we have that will be spoiling soon and consider how I can use them in a meal.  Sometimes it's something as small as sour cream, sometimes it's meat, sometimes it's produce. 

Then I go to the Kroger website to view their weekly ad.  I know some people aren't convinced that Kroger is better than Giant Eagle, but it works for us.  The fuel perks work better for us and the food is definitely cheaper for the things that we buy.  If I wanted to do shopping at more than one store (which I'll do for a great sale), I'd probably hit up Aldi.  But with my time being valuable as well, I usually just shop at Kroger.

When looking at the weekly ad, I first look for meat deals.  This week (3/14-3/20) Kroger has the following meats on sale:

As I'm looking at the meats, I realize Kroger is running (another) promo where you buy a certain number of items and get a dollar amount off your order immediately.  This time it's buy 10 items and get $5, essentially taking $0.50 off each item when you buy any factor of 10.  When I see promos like this, I usually seek out a blog that covers Kroger deals because they've already done the coupon match-ups for the promo.  I look for things I use on a regular basis (no use paying for something you won't use) or for items that are free or money-makers. 

Here is the blog I typically use for my Kroger deals: Deal Seeking Mom (sometimes her prices differ from mine, so I've started comparing my ad to the prices she lists)

These are the best deals that I've found for this coming week:

FREE after coupons and instant savings (the price I list is BEFORE coupons or instant savings):

Ronzoni Healthy Harvest, San Giorgio, or Smart Taste Pasta: $0.99
Coupons: $1/2 printable  HERE and HERE
               $1/2 SS 1/23/11

Pedigree Dog Food: $0.99
B2G1 printable coupon on coupons.com
BOGO RP 3/6/11
The “free” price when entering coupons should be $0.99. So you could use one BOGO: $1.98 for two - $0.99 = $0.99 then subtract $0.50 for each item for the promotion and you actually make $0.02.

Dole Fruit Crisps: $1.99
$0.75/1 SS 1/9/11

(And here are these unadvertised freebies)

Heluva Good Dips: $1.49
Printable coupon HERE for $0.50/1

Frank's Red Hot (12 oz): $1.99
$0.75/1 SS 1/23/11
Printable coupon HERE for $0.50/1 (this would make the final price $0.49)


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Cheap (remember to take $0.50 off the price when you buy 10 participating items):

Rice a Roni or Pasta Roni: $1.29
B3G1 RP 1/2/11
$0.27 ea when you buy 4 after coupon and instant savings

Hershey’s Pieces, Drops, or Reese’s Minis Candy (The Hubby loves these): $2.49
$2/2 SS 1/30/11
$0.99 ea when you buy 2 after coupon and instant savings

Dannon Yogurt: $1.99
$1 DanActive SS 3/6/11

Philadelphia Cooking Crème: $2.49
$1.50 SS 3/6/11

Bumble Bee Tuna Pouch: $0.99

Annie’s Mac & Cheese: $0.99

Del Monte Tomatoes: $1.19

Tombstone Pizza: $2.99

Fuze, Vitamin Water, SmartWater: $0.99

Powerade: $1

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Voskos Yogurt (found in the Organic section): $1.69 regular price
$0.75 printable on coupons.com

Kroger Frozen Veggies: $1 (I have seen these for $0.88 each, but this is a decent price--regular price is $1.19, I think)

A lot of these items are more for snacks, but I make note of the Philadelphia Cooking Creme and all the pasta and will keep those in mind when determining a meal plan for the week.

The last thing I look for in the ad is produce.  Meat and produce drive my meal plans for the week (although I'm currently at the point where our deep freezer is full of meat so I'll only buy it if it's on a crazy sale or I find some on manager's special).  The best produce deal I found was red, yellow, and orange bell peppers for $1.25 apiece. 

Now I take all the pieces I have--look at the cheapest meats, cheapest produce, what I have in my kitchen already, and formulate a plan.  If I really want to use up something but don't know how, I visit All Recipes and use their Ingredient Search to find meals using my ingredients.  You can save recipes in a recipe box there as well.

Edited to add:  I forgot to mention that once I have my grocery list in place, I go to Coupon Mom and look for coupons from any brand for the items I need to make my meals and clip or print the necessary coupons.
Once it's made, I'll post my grocery list and my meal plan for the week (this time before Monday) so you can see how it all comes together.  

How do you do your groceries and meal plans?  What do you think of my preferred method?  Any suggestions for improvement?
Has it been helpful to see Kroger's deals?  I go through them weekly, so would it help you for me to compile them here?

Thrifty Thursday?

Because so much of my life and time revolve around saving money (both out of pleasure and necessity), I would like to bring back Thrifty Thursday.  I would, however, like to hear from YOU, my readers, what you'd like me to discuss.  Would you like some current deals (online?  brick & mortar stores?)?  Grocery sales?  General dealing tips?  Most of my blogging is really for myself, but this feature would be for YOU. 

I love sharing tips for saving money to as many people as possible--it PAINS me to see people paying full price for things at the grocery store.  So please talk back and let me know what you'd like to hear about!

For any of you who have missed this feature, here are a few of the past Thrifty Thursday entries:

Making Money
Online Coupon Resources
Buy BEFORE You Need It

Thrifty Thursday (on Friday): Gift Cards

'Tis the season, y'all!

Yep, this is the time of year when many restaurants start offering free gift cards when you buy a certain amount of gift cards.  For instance, Bob Evans will give you a $10 gift card when you buy $50 in gift cards from them.  20% extra exceed what you'll ever earn in fuel perks by buying your gift cards at the grocery store.

The idea behind this is technically that you could buy your friend a $50 gift card and keep the $10 for yourself, but if you typically eat there, why not keep all $60 for yourself? 

Look around at your favorite restaurants--you'll see many are participating in something like this.  We're creatures of habit, so we go to the same restaurants all the time.  We'll be buying at least $50 in Bob Evans gift cards, probably at least one gift card to Chipotle (or more!) (they are giving you a free burrito for every $25 gift card you purchase), and maybe an Outback Steakhouse gift card as a special treat to ourselves.

No reason not to treat yourself (and save money you would've spent anyway!) this holiday season. 

Enjoy!

New words and how my Thursday was thrifty

I'll try to do a real Thrifty Thursday post tomorrow, but since I was home today, I spent the day with my family.

First of all, Baby Girl has some new words that are adorable.  She says "garage" when we say we're going out to the garage or even when we're heading that way sometimes.  She also says something that sounds like "I did it" (which would be her first phrase if that's what it ends up being...).  I love how expressive she's getting and it feels like she's learning more every day.  Today when I picked her up from the sitter's (The Hubby and I worked around the house and sent her to the sitter's part day) she turned to the door and asked "Daddy?"  I told her Daddy was at home and we'd see him when we got there.  Then we were in the car and I asked her if she'd like to take a walk when we got home and she said, "walk".  I said, "yeah, maybe we can take a walk when we get home" and she says "Daddy".  It amazed me that she remembered that Daddy is at home, the walk is at home...so the rest of the ride she was saying some combination of "Daddy", "walk", and "home".

And because I can't write a post on Thursday without mentioning how thrifty I am...

The Hubby wanted to do something a little special with Baby Girl before we sent her to the sitter's (you know, to help us feel a bit better about it), so we went out to breakfast.  We went to Bob Evans because we had a gift card--hello free breakfast!  As a side note, Baby Girl ate almost an entire sausage link, almost a whole piece of bread, and then almost a whole scrambled egg, only AFTER we put ketchup on it, which she'd never tasted before.  Yuck.  lol

Anyway, we then went to Low.e's to pick up some lawn bags and maybe a utility sink.  We found a sink for a decent price and also picked up a furnace filter.  We had a gift card for there, too.  If I'd known we would be going, I could have gotten a coupon...see what happens when you don't plan ahead??  :)  The gift card didn't cover it all, but it was helpful.

Lunch was breakfast leftovers. 

Dinner was chicken parmesean (well, just chicken with pasta sauce over it with some pasta & peas) and I used some sliced French bread I'd bought on Manager's Special to make some cheesy garlic crostinis.  Yum :)

And now I'm baking chocolate chip cookies, just because (and because I had all the ingredients here).

It was tempting to go out for lunch or to go shopping while home, but we resisted and have had a great day. 

Happy Veteran's Day to all of you.  We are incredibly thankful for the service of our men and women who help preserve the freedoms we all enjoy.

Thrifty Thursday: Buying Coupons

This might seem completely counterintuitive, but there are situations where you need to spend money to make/save money.

One example of this is buying coupons.  If you find out about a deal more than a week before it ends (or even begins), you can buy coupons in addition to what you would receive in your paper.  For instance, if I find out that Colgate is going to be on sale for $1 at my grocery store through the next two weeks and I know there's a $1 (or $0.50-$0.75 if you store doubles coupons worth less than $1) coupon available, sometimes I'll order 20 of them so I can stock up. 

My favorite source for coupons is Ebay.  You can search based on the product type ("cheese coupons") or brand ("Colgate coupons") and survey what is available. 

A favorite source of some friends (especially if you want to buy an entire insert) is The Coupon Clippers.  There are many other services out there--just search for "coupon clipping service" and you'll find many websites that offer this for various prices.

Just remember that you want to do this if you're going to use an item.  If I find a great deal on dog food, I might take a package of free dog food, but I'm not going to pay $5 for coupons to buy a ton when I don't even have a dog.  This is a really simplistic example, but just *think* about what you're stocking up on--will you actually use it?

Another example of spending money to make money is at places like CVS or Walgreen's.  We'll talk more next week about how these work, but to give you a sneak peek:  You buy an item at CVS for $1 after coupon but you get $2 in Extra Care Bucks to spend at CVS in the future.  You've spent $1 to make $2 to spend later.  Yes, if you never walked in there, you wouldn't spend ANY money, but if you're spending money there anyway (or *could* spend money there), you're making money by spending money. 

As always, please post any questions you have--I love talking through this stuff and explaining dealing to people!

Thrifty Thursday: Don't Cost Yourself Money

This, as many of the tips I offer up, may seem like an easy concept.  The thought here is: don't cost yourself money!

I'm not even talking about (for today) spending on cable if you watch it or paying for insurance, even if you're paying more than you should.  There will be another time for shopping around to get the best price.  I'm talking about times when you might as well light that dollar bill on fire and throw it out the window into the mouth of a waiting rottweiler who will then chew it up, spit it out, and bury it under a mound of dirt, which will then get washed away, down the drain, to hang out with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and then Splinter will do a big karate chop and disintegrate it. 

A few examples:

Return library books on time.  Library books are FREE.  But they aren't free when you forget to return one of the CDs in a 2-CD set, tell the husband, forget again, and don't return it for another month.  Trust me, I've been there.  It would've been cheaper to buy that CD in the first place.

Don't hang onto a gym membership you don't use.  If you haven't been to the gym more than one time since before you got pregnant in November 2008, CANCEL THAT MEMBERSHIP!  (yes, this is also me speaking from experience...)

Eat, cook, or freeze your food before it expires.  I talk a lot about stock-piling and buying a lot of something when it goes on sale.  But that only works if you're going to use it or do something with it so that it will keep until you use it.  You might find a great deal on a big butternut squash, but unless you use it before it gets funky (do squash get funky?  I might find out soon enough...), it's not a savings if you weren't going to buy it in the first place.

Don't buy items just to use a coupon on it unless it's somehow going to make you money or you're going to use that item.  I've done it.  I've gotten sucked into those MEGA SALES (and yes, that deserves all caps), bought all sorts of things I *think* we'll use, but then they expire.  Or we find that we're getting fat because I'm saving spending money.

Trust me on these.  I've done them all (not the throwing away money, though...how crazy do you think I am?). 

And I'm going to try to remedy them all by the week's end.  Wish me luck.

What sort of things are you needlessly spending money on?

Thrifty Thursday--Making Money

In honor of my missing Thrifty Thursday posts over the last few months, I'm giving you a MEGA post!  Hope you enjoy!



Every little bit helps, right?  Well, I'm going to tell you today about little things you can do to make a bit of money.  It may not seem like much, but it adds up over time.
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Product Rewards

Do you drink Coca-Cola products?  If so, sign up at My Coke Rewards, where you can enter in the codes you find inside the caps of bottles and inside the cardboard packages of 12, 20, and 24 packs of cans.  You can use the points you get to buy all sorts of products--I've got my eye on a programmable crockpot!

To get extra codes, I've done the following:

• I've started to solicit co-workers, who bring me their caps and flaps and I put in their codes as well. 
• The Hubby and I used to walk around after sporting events and take caps off of 20 oz bottles of Coke around the stadium.  We would fill up an entire popcorn box (or our pockets) in just a few minutes!  (And then we washed our hands.  Three times.)
• I also ask family to give me caps and flaps
• I know people who go through neighbors' recycling bins on the day it's picked up and take flaps off their boxes.  We don't have recycling in our neighborhood, but I'd probably consider it if we did!

You can do the same thing with Pepsi!  I'm not much of a Pepsi drinker, so I haven't joined this site, but it looks comparable to My Coke Rewards.

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Buy diapers?  Both Huggies and Pampers have programs that reward you for buying their products.  You just find the code on the product and enter it online.  The nice bonus is that there are frequently extra codes available that aren't one-time use (the ones on the products are one-time use only) that will bolster your points balance.  The Frugal Girls keeps a running list of codes for Pampers and here's a master list of Huggies codes that I've found.

When you get enough points, you can redeem them for toys or gift cards (refer to their rewards catalogs for more information)
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Surveys

Join survey sites!  I've belonged to quite a few of them over the past few years and have deposited quite a few checks and used a lot of gift cards.  Here are a few:

Opinion Outpost (earned $50 from them and haven't done hardly any surveys recently)
Test Spin (have $24 ready to cash out)
Toluna
Pinecone (you have to keep on the lookout for a banner asking people to join--it's more selective, but a great company to work with)
Survey Saavy
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GPT (get paid to) sites

These are a little trickier, but fun to do.  You just click through some ads, enter your information (I got an email account just for these since they like to spam you) and make some money.  I made a lot of money one year doing this.  I think it's a bit less lucrative now, but still something fun to do :)

My two favorite:

Cash Duck
Treasure Trooper
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Click-through emails

These sites send you emails (so get a separate account specifically for them!) and you just click on a link in the email to note that you've read it and earn money (or points, which is the case with My Points). 

My Points (no referral link, but just leave a comment if you'd like a referral--if not, just join on your own :))
Send Earnings (have about $23 to cash out from them right now)
Inbox Dollars (have gotten about a $30 payout previously from them and you get $5 just for signing up)
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Cash Back Shopping

Use these sites when you're doing online shopping--you get money back just for buying the things you were going to buy anyway.  I've saved a ton of money using these!  The GPT sites also have cash back shopping as well.

Shop at Home (you get $5 with your first purchase)
Ebates
My Points
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Search Sites

Swagbucks--this is my favorite site right now.  You go to this site instead of Google (although in the interest of full disclosure, I actually get better results from Google, so if you don't find it on Swagbucks, go to Google) and earn Swagbucks for some of your searches.  They also offer Swagcodes that you can enter onto the site for extra Swagbucks (if you send me your email address after you join, I can email you all the Swagcodes I get sent to me).  The best reward on this site is Amazon gift cards--I've redeemed my Swagbucks for 22 $5 Amazon gift cards.

Swagbucks also has surveys and clickable offers that can earn you even more Swagbucks!

Thrifty Thursday: Online Coupon Resources

Hello again!  You don't have to buy the Sunday paper to get coupons and I'm going to tell you about different places you can get them.

Printable coupon sites:

Coupons.com
Smartsource.com
Redplum.com
Coupons, Inc.

For most of these sites you'll probably need to install a coupon printer plug-in, but once you do that, you can print until your heart's content! 

Coupons, Inc. is a bit different than the others because it's a source for all coupons that are hosted by Bricks, which is a company that has many printable coupons.  The key to Bricks coupons is that you can print two copies per computer by hitting the back button after you print the first one. 

Product websites:

If you're going to buy a specific product, check their website!  Many times there are coupons available on the product website.  Look for a link called "Special Offers" or something like that.  Colgate is one of my favorites and you'll notice that Special Offers is the last link in the top bar of links.

Coupon Databases:

There are a lot of sites out there that track all available coupons, including mailers (flyers mailed to your home), inserts (those that come in the paper), printables (those you can print online), peelies (coupons attached to products found in stores) and blinkies (coupons in little coupon machines found hanging on store shelves).  Here is a list of those that I've used at one time or another:

CouponMom (you'll need to create a login*--I've never received any spam from them)
Bargain Briana
Deal Seeking Mom
Hot Coupon World

Many of these databases function so that you could enter in something you're going to buy, like "beans" and it will pull up coupons for any brand of beans that is available.  That way you can comparison shop when at the store and decide which coupon matches up with which product for the best deal (but remember that generic with no coupon may STILL be cheaper!!!).

Please let me know if you have any questions or any other good suggestions for online couponing resources (I will cover online resources for shopping other than food/toiletries/paper products later)! 
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Next week Thrifty Thursday will be on a hiatus because I'll be spending the day with my daughter and husband celebrating Baby Girl's FIRST BIRTHDAY!  But stay tuned--I will turn the following week and hope to dive into answer the question, "How do you match up coupons with grocery ads to get the best deals"? 




*Because many sites require a login to get the best deals, I suggest creating an email address that you can have all your accounts tied to.  That way if you do end up getting a bunch of spam from the site, you don't have to weed through it every day.

Thrifty Thursday: The Sickness Edition

Yep, I realize it's Friday again, but this time I have a real excuse--I was sick!!!

Over the last few days, I've gotten a couple of thrifty ideas for you, though, so I'm calling this "The Sickness Edition"

First, if you have to go to the pharmacy to get medication, look around online or in your flyers for coupons to get a free gift card when you fill a new or transferrred prescription at the pharmacy (Target has them in their flyer fairly often).  Even if you are pretty loyal to your pharmacy, most of them will take competitor's coupons.  I was able to find a coupon for KMart's pharmacy to get a $25 gift card, take it to my CVS, and get a $25 gift card when I filled my $5 prescription. 

My second tip really has very little to do with being sick besides that my head was cloudy and I didn't realize what I'd done until this morning.

I've preached and preached about buying stuff (especially meat) and freezing it.  So I had purchased a huge package of chicken and had 4 different chicken meals planned, so I pulled the package out of the freezer and put it into my sink.  Baby Girl's bedtime was a teeny bit rough, so we didn't get dinner until after she went to bed.  By that time, neither of us felt like cooking so we had leftover pizza.  The Hubby did all the cooking while I ran to the pharmacy.  I thought he would put the chicken in the fridge, but he apparently didn't notice the ginormous package of chicken in the sink.  So the chicken sat out overnight.  You all know what happens when you assume.  And there's $8 (good thing I bought it on sale!) gone.  Wasted. 

So the moral of the story is to USE what you buy!  It's the same thing with produce or anything that can expire.  Think of all the effort you go to to save a few pennies with coupons and think about how many DOLLARS you throw into the trash when you waste your food.  If you aren't going to use it, find a way to freeze it.  Or at least don't leave it in the sink overnight to spoil.

Thrifty Thursday: You Don't Have to Use a Coupon

It's true!  You do NOT have to use a coupon.

You could very well be thinking "duh", but I wanted to make this point very clear.  You do NOT need to use a coupon for items that you could have a coupon for (most of you time you won't have coupons for meat, milk, or produce...although they do come around every once in awhile!). 

All of us have things for which we're brand-loyal. For those, make sure you're always seeking out the coupons for that brand.  But re-evaluate every once in awhile.  Give the generic or the other brand a shot if it'll be cheaper.  If you still don't like it, that's fine.

But for things that you're not brand-loyal to, check the unit price on everything.  Take your coupons with you, so you're prepared, but it is absolutely okay to buy the generic (or cheaper brand name) if it's still cheaper than the brand you have a coupon for.  I see way too many people in the store, for instance, buying something for $3 after coupon when they could get it for $2 without a coupon if they just bought a different brand. 

Just don't get sucked into the common belief that if you're using a coupon, you're getting a deal!

Thrifty Thursday: Shop Holiday Sales

Sorry for the hiatus, folks...I wasn't in the best place to post last week, but I'm back today!
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Think holiday sales are only for electronics, clothes, furniture, etc.?  You'd be wrong!  With the Fourth of July coming up, I wanted to make sure to get this post out!

Think about what foods you typically eat during holidays.  Ham for Easter.  Turkey, stuffing, rolls for Thanksgiving.  Burgers, corn on the cob, hot dogs (plus all the fixings) for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. 

One of the things I stock up on the most around Memorial Day or July 4th is pop.  I know a lot of people avoid drinking pop, but not in our house!  The Hubby is a big pop-drinker, although I have gotten him to switch from regular Coke to Coke Zero, so at least he isn't drinking those empty calories.  Coke just doesn't go on sale that often, but leading up to Memorial Day and July 4th there are typically quite a few sales.  I know at Memorial Day Walmart had Coke and Pepsi 24-packs for $4 apiece.  My stock-up price for pop is $2 per 12-pack, so it was time to stock up!  Our garage has about 8 24-packs of Coke products in it right now. 

Remember that freezer, too.  If hamburger is on sale, buy a bunch and freeze it.  Same with hot dogs, cheese, ham, and other meats.  Many condiments are shelf-stable for awhile, so look for coupons and stock up when things get really cheap.  There was a point that I had four bottles of mustard in my cupboard...and I don't even like the stuff.  But when it goes on sale for $1 and you have a $0.50 coupon that doubles...you buy it!

I actually found this link that shows you the best time of year to buy anything, both food and non-food.  I'd seen it before and found it really useful.

I have all sorts of topics ready to discuss, but if you think of anything you want tips on, please feel free to let me know!

Thrifty Thursday: Shop Around

Welcome back!

I hope you all are enjoying Thrifty Thursdays.  I'm loving discussing something I'm passionate about--saving money! 

Today I want to talk about another way to save on your grocery shopping--shopping around.  There are different degrees of this and it's up to you how much you want to do.

When I'm planning my meals for the week, I go online and get the sales insert for the three stores that I typically consider for grocery shopping--Kroger, Giant Eagle, and Meijer.  I've done shopping at Walmart before, but typically assume the prices will be good there and don't shop according to the sale--gasp!  I then look at the produce and meat sales and see if there's anything that jumps off the page.  If there aren't any fantastic deals, I'll default to Kroger because it's close and easy to get into and out of.  If there are great deals at one of the stores, though, a decision must be made.  Is it worth going to that store just to get that one thing?  Or if I'm going to go to, for instance, Giant Eagle for chicken breast, should I just plan my whole shopping trip there?  Honestly, it depends on the week which one I choose.  If it's a busy Sunday (and which ones aren't these days??) and I just want to make a quick trip, I'll go do all the shopping at one store.  If I have an evening that I will have extra time, I'll go do the rest of my shopping at one store, then get the chicken at Giant Eagle.

I have friends, though, that will always shop at 2-4 stores per week.  No matter how much money I want/need to save, I just don't have the time for it most weeks (but I can't say I've never done it!).  It's totally a personal decision.  You can save a lot of money by shopping at different stores--it's a balance of opporunity costs (the loss of time) and financial costs.  (Wow, I did learn something in Econ 200!)

All that said, be flexible about what store you do your grocery (and, really, any!) shopping at.  Shop the sales and be prepared to go to the store that has the best sales for that week.

Next week: Coupon Match-ups (it's much easier than you think!)

Thrifty Thursday - Buy BEFORE You Need It

(Nope, no nifty little icon today, folks.  You're lucky to be getting a Thrifty Thursday post at all, as I've been home all day with a baby who apparently has an ear infection and has been battling the same cold for the better part of a week.  She's been in bed since 6:25, though, so I've got a bit of time on my hands now)

My tip for the day is to buy non-perishable or freezable items BEFORE you need them.  This may sound odd, but think about when you last ran out of shampoo.  You had to run to the store (or at least pick it up next time you were there) and buy it, no matter whether it was on sale or there was a good coupon out for it at that time.

This is especially true if you're brand-loyal.  Keep an eye out at all stores for a good sale on your favorite brands and keep tabs on the newspaper and printable coupons for coupons for your brand. 

I, for one, am only partially brand-loyal.  I use my specific brand of deodorant, have a few acceptable brands of shampoo and conditioner, but can use any type of toothpaste.  I have a big stockpile of all of these toiletries on hand, waiting for me to run out of the bottle I'm using.

For instance, today I was in CVS and saw that Colgate Total with Whitening was originally priced $2.79, but was $2 off, and I had a $0.75 off coupon.  A tube of toothpaste for $0.04?  That's a 98.6% savings off the shelf price! 

This also holds true at the grocery and sort of feeds off the discussion from last week.  If you use black beans on a regular basis and find them for a great price one week, buy 5 cans!  Why buy them every week and take the chance of it being regular price when you get get them all cheap? 

All this stockpiling, so to speak, does require a bit of storage space, but you could just devote one cabinet or one shelf in a linen closet to some extras, as long as you don't go hogwild (I, for one, have gone hogwild, but that's okay--we've adjusted accordingly). 

Have suggestions for next week's post?  Have any questions for me?  Have any great "buy it before you need it" stories?  Just want to say "hi"?  Post a comment!!!

Thrifty Thursday

I'd like to start doing a weekly post to tell you about thrifty ideas that I have.  I've been called a "coupon queen" by a lot of people, but there are thrifty (but not crazy) things you can do other than using coupons (although I'll probably give some couponing tips, too).  You know I'm a busy lady and my top priority is Baby Girl, so I'm not going to tell you things that will take a ton of your time, either.

The first topic I'd like to cover is cooking things to go into the freezer.  I've tried to get into freezer cooking, but haven't done a lot of it.  But this past weekend, I did some a bit and I think it's going to help a lot in the future.  I went to the grocery store on Sunday morning and found big packs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.99/lb. (they've actually been on sale for $1.79/lb at Kroger recently, but I didn't go there this week and in the interest of saving time, $1.99/lb is a great price--I always aim for around $2/lb for chicken when I'm stocking up).  I went home and found that some of the meat I'd purchased the previous week (we ended up eating out more than planned because of Baby Girl's weird sleeping) was a manager's special (meaning it was close to expiring) and needed to be cooked up before the night we were planning on using it.
We were grilling out that evening (the grilled hawaiian pizza--it was delicious!), so I had The Hubby also cook up some other meat.  I had: 1 package of garlic brats (purchased for just over $2), 2 tubes of ground sirloin (low fat cut of beef--purchased for just over $2/lb--I bought 10 tubes and put them straight in the freezer (we'd thawed two tubes for planned use last week)!), and the chicken.  One meal we're having this week calls for already-cooked chicken and another is for uncooked chicken.  I pulled out the amount we needed for the meal using uncooked chicken and had The Hubby grill the rest of the chicken and the brats up while the grill was heated for the pizzas.

We also cooked up all two pounds of the ground sirloin and made it into taco meat (we plan to have one meal of tacos this week). We put one pound into a Tupperware container, then put the other pound into a freezer bag and put it in the freezer for future use.  If more was thawed, I would have cooked more and frozen that as well.

We then put a couple of the grilled chicken breasts into a baggie to go into the refrigerator, then I sliced up the rest and put it into a freezer bag and put it into the freezer.

We used the brats last night for dinner.

This is really helpful in both saving money and time on the weeknights.  We did all this preparation in less than a hour and that also included cleaning up toys, cleaning the kitchen and preparing the pizzas for grilling and now we have over a pound of chicken in the freezer, a pound of taco meat, and also had meat for three meals this week cooked, so all we have to do is reheat it.  You can buy your meat when it's very cheap, cook it up, and freeze it if you don't think you'll get to use it right away just by cooking when you're already cooking other things. 

There's also a part two to freezer cooking--making entire meals (specifically casseroles) and freezing them for use later.  If you're already making a meal, why not make a double (or triple!) batch and freeze some for use later.  I haven't done a lot of this, but hope to in the future.  One of my friends suggests Shepherd's Pie as a great candidate for this sort of preparation.  We also made some freezer meals before Baby Girl came along and were able to reheat quickly once she was here.

So that's my first installation to Thrifty Thursday.  What other topics would you like me to cover?  Do you do any freezer cooking?  If so, what is your favorite recipe to make for freezing?