Thursday, January 15, 2009

Bargain Shopping

I've always considered myself a bargain shopper. I never, well I should say rarely pay full price for things...except when it comes to groceries. I try and try to be a bargain grocery shopper, but I just don't put the time into it, or at least that's what I think my problem is. When Jeremy and I were first married I would get all the ads and have Walmart price-match everything I bought. I guess I had more time on my hands, and we had very little money!

Grocery shopping with kids has made it even harder. I'm in a hurry to get out of there, and I throw things into the cart without thinking about it. Then I can't figure out how my bill got so high! Well, one of our New Year's Resolutions is to be better with our money. I think we say this every year, but this year is crucial. We've gone from two salaries (really two and a half with Jeremy's part-time job) to one salary, and we are living in a house very comparable to what we moved from, but double the mortgage. Ick.

We've gone back to the cash system (Dave Ramsey), which we tried for a while, but didn't do very good. I am determined to be better, and if we don't have the cash, we don't get it. Last night I spent a few hours looking at all my coupons and online ads for our grocery stores. Generally I am a Super Walmart girl all the way. I know people have their opinions about Walmart, but for me, it is a one-stop shop, and generally it is cheaper than other grocery stores.
However I noticed Schnucks doubles coupons if they are $.40 or less and you can only use up to 15 coupons. Our Shop-n-Save (right across the street from Schnucks) does $10 Thursdays, where if you spend $50 you get $10 off.

So I got up at about 6:15 thanks to Ansley, and once I got her resettled, I got ready and bundled up for the -20 wind chill outside. Jeremy stayed home with the girls while I ventured out. First I went to Schnucks and used my 15 coupons. I saved $15.00 here. Then I moved across the street to Shop-n-Save and saved $16.00 there. For all those mathmatecially challenged, thats $31! I know it's not that impressive, especially when I've heard people say crazy things like "I got $200 of groceries for $12.89." But it was a good start for me.

And for those of you who only check the blog for pictures of the kids, here is a picture of the girls. Notice Ansley's sweater? It cost me $2.98 at Target the other day! I also got Kennedy two pairs of pants that were $.98 each. I love those kinds of bargains! I also found a KB Toy store going out of business and got around $70 of birthday presents for Ansley for $30! Yeah for bargains!

4 comments:

Barb said...

I've been meaning to tell you about something CVS does. Danielle Estes told me about it. She does it every week and saves all kinds of money. She said you could go to their website to learn the details. I'll email Danielle and ask for details too. She was very excited about it!

Anonymous said...

I'll admit it is time consuming, but well worth it. Way to go! Cheryl

Mary Beth said...

It is so hard to be a careful shopper with little ones in tow. Casey and I are also using the Dave Ramsey cash system, and I think it helps. I've just started participating in www.thegrocerygame.com It matches coupons from your Sunday paper with sales at different stores. It tells you when to stock up on certain items. For example, I bought Garnier shampoo and conditioner at Walgreen's for $1. I'm only a couple weeks into it, so I'm not a pro yet, but I think it could help me save a lot of money in the end. You can try it for a month for only $1.
Good luck with bargain shopping. Let me know if you learn any new tricks!

Tracy said...

Since you're a bargain shopper, you'll appreciate this: I was @ Hobby Lobby the other day and got 4 stocking holders for over the fireplace for 1.69 each! They were marked 90% off from 16.99! I was so excited, I almost saved the receipt to frame, or post on my blog. Good luck with the grocery shopping bargains!