As promised, my blog will show you how to save money getting groceries. I work off of a $300/month budget to feed 3 people. Yes, I know that sounds almost impossible without eating Ramen noodles every night, but I do not have to ask my family to sacrifice, and we are still able to have good healthy and filling meals every day. Here are a few of my tricks for saving money:
1.) Look for great sales (I look at Ads from all of my local stores to find out if any stores are having mega sales or any great deals)
2.) Don't drive to 5 different stores hunting down good deals. Target, Walmart, Market Street/United, and I think Albertsons all price match. That means if a good deal is in an ad from another store, they will honor that price. I split my grocery trip between Target and Market Street now, because I figured out that I actually save about $50/month doing so.
3.) Look at Store brands also. One of the main reasons I shop at the two main stores I love is because they have AWESOME store brands. You want to find good store brands that taste/work the same as the regular brands. But, you also want to check store brand vs name brand w/ coupon. For instance, if you need paper plates, and the 28 pack of Dixie brand plates is $3.29, and you have a coupon for $.50 off, and the store brand is only on sale for $3.19, that's not a better deal. But, if the store brand was on for $2.50 for a 28 pack, that's a great deal!! Target and Market Street are both awesome stores to find these deals at! The only other thing I would reccommend with this is to make sure you try the store brand before buying a lot of it. It's rare that I find a store brand that doesn't taste/work the same as the name brand, but it happens sometimes.
4.) Also look for good deals on if you buy more than one product. My biggest example of this is with Pillsbury items, all of their coupons are for if you buy more than one, and it works out to your advantage in the long run. I can serve my family a great breakfast for just around 50 cents/person because I buy lots of the cinnamon rolls and biscuits when they are on sale and I can use coupons!
5.) One of the really awesome things about Target is that they will let you use 1 manufacturer coupon and 1 Target coupon on each item. So let's say for instance, Bounty paper towels are on sale right now for $9.99. I have a $1.50 off Target coupon and a $0.50 off Manufacturer coupon, I can use both of these on this product, making it $7.99!!
So, this weekend I went to both Target and Market Street, and the way I decide what to buy at each store is I have shopped a lot at both places and in general I know how much they charge for items before they're having a good sale.
I had lots of free item coupons, and I found the best deals at each of the 2 places, maximizing my savings! I saved $51.71 at Target with coupons, and I saved $4 at Market Street (bought a lot of items I didn't have coupons for).
A great example of buying store brand vs name brand, Market Street sells their milk for $2.29/gallon as opposed to almost $5 for name brand! Target has their chicken nuggets (dino shaped ones) on sale for $3.99 as opposed to the smaller bag of Tyson which is going for $6.99!
One of the really good deals I got was I had a coupon for Nivea lip care buy one get one free. Then I had another coupon where if I bought 3 Nivea lip care I got a free big bottle of Nivea lotion! So I bought my 3 nivea, only paying for 2, and got a free bottle of lotion!
I usually buy Digiorno pizza, but I saw that Freschetta had peelie coupons on them for $1 off, making them cheaper than Digiorno, so I got the Freschetta instead. Looking for these types of deals and just being willing to try new things will help you save money as well!
I spent $269.80 total on my groceries, and I was able to get an entire month of food for 3 people. That means I can feed my family 3 meals/day for 31 days. Now this cost was including hand soap, body wash, shampoo, a pack of sponges, a scrub brush, and a lot of other non-food related items, plus lots of snacks. I would guestimate that I actually spent about $169 on actual food that we will eat dinner/breakfast/lunch with, making it $1.81/day per person for us to eat.
I also got a great deal at Kohls which I will probably post about tomorrow! Make sure to check the other blogs which I check daily so you can get some awesome freebies! Have an awesome week and email me if you have any questions or need any shopping advice!!
couponmommy85@yahoo.com
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