One of my friends invited me to her house a couple of months ago for a class about saving money on groceries. I realized I have not been doing very well at sticking to a grocery budget, so I thought I would go. We learned how to use a website Grocery Smarts. You do have to enter a passport, g84ckp, but there is no cost to using the site. The website matches weekly grocery ads to coupons in the Sunday newspaper. Albertsons frequently has "doublers" that double the value of a manufacturer's coupon up to one dollar. So today I used three doublers (that is all you can use per shopping trip) to match the coupons I had. I printed a 75 cents off coupon for milk at this site which is Group A. Milk was on sale for $1.67, and I got 75 cents off plus another 75 cents off with my doubler, so total cost for a gallon of milk was 17 cents! Hamburger Helper was on sale for one dollar per box. I used my coupons for 75 cents off when you buy three boxes. Each box ended up costing 50 cents. I don't love Hamburger Helper and try to not eat a ton of packaged food, but it is a quick and easy meal for a crazy night. My mom taught me to buy ground beef in bulk, cook it all up, and freeze in small portions. I already have the meat cooked and ready which makes preparing some meals very easy. I started gettting four copies of the newspaper so I have four sets of coupons. In the class we learned to try to buy enough when something is on sale to last for three or four months because nearly everything in the store goes on sale that often. So by having multiple coupons you can buy several of the same item at a great price. There are quite a few printable coupons that I have used. I printed some several weeks ago and was able to use my doublers to get a pound of cheese for free.
I spent close to the same amount of money this month that I have in other months, but I also have about 20 boxes of cereal in my basement and several other things to add to my three month supply of food. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints encourages us to gradually build a three month supply of food that we regularly eat, and this has helped me to work on that a little bit more. Here is a great article about building up a reserve.
2 comments:
Impressive savings. First of all, I can't believe that they sell milk for $1.67 a gallon. The cheapest I have seen in my town in a year is $2.50--which seems like a bargain after paying nearly $3.50.
I think the most interesting part is having multiple copies of the paper. I think that is where your best savings come in--because you can get more than one at a lower price. SMART!!!!! I read the linked article, too.
Hey! You're a good shopper!
Post a Comment