Everyone who has to shop for their family and has some sort of a routine. Mine has been every other Monday. I normally buy 2 weeks worth of groceries with a planned menu of at least 14 dinners, lunches, breakfasts and snacks. I have decided that I would like to keep our grocery bill to $200.00 every other week, not impossible to do for a family of five. I was inspired by one of my friends at a gathering we had, she said she saves her family $400.00 a month just by shopping the adds and clipping coupons. In retrospect, after the experience of shopping with millions of coupons trying to coincide coupons with sales etc.. I am wondering, was this her total savings or did her bargain shopping actually give them an extra $400.00 a month. You can get a bunch of "GOOD DEALS" on stuff you don't really need.
I usually plan my meals around the sales between
Albertsons, Smiths and
Harmons. Also, I sometimes shop at a place called Market Square. Which I lovingly call "The Junk Store". The reason for this nickname is the fact that they have a bunch of junk food for really cheap! Most of which I do not need and try to avoid. Or if I do need it then that's where I go. They do have a lot other things such as healthy food, brand name toiletries and house ware items that are an awesome deal! Also name brand clothing, shoes etc...
It's all hit or miss there, due to the fact that they buy out over stalked stores, get items from Internet stores that didn't sell. So you never know whats going to be there.
I like to get my meat from
Harmons but will sometime settle for Smiths and
Albertsons {depending on sales} I do not like to get my produce from
Harmons as it seems to spoil faster. But I do hate going from store to store {but will} I also refuse to price match at
Wal-mart for a few reasons. I hate their meat and some cashiers are so nit picky about every price matched item. You have to bring all the adds in for proof and sometimes they do not carry an item and will not substitute! Plus,
Wal-mart is the devil and I try to avoid it when I can.
This week however I decided to clip coupons from the Sunday paper and I also got a bunch of coupons at
http://www.kraftfoods.com/ I am sure most of you who do coupons know about all this stuff. But hey, I like to think I am brilliant in figuring this all out for myself. I found that
Albertsons really designs their sales around the coupons that are out. It took me all day planning my grocery shopping tactics. Planning out my list according to sales and coupons. Making sure nothing was bought just because it was a good deal. Manipulating all the
coupons with sale items to fit a dinner menu, snacks, lunches and breakfasts for the next two weeks.
When planning my meals, I try to make sure that all the meals that have fresh produce are eaten the first several days and save frozen, canned or dehydrated fruits and veggies for the end. Leaving some money aside for milk and produce I may have to buy here and there. I have to say {as for now I think} it was worth it.
I did all my shopping at
Albertsons, I even bought diapers and wipes which are not part of the grocery budget.
I bought $400.00 dollars worth of groceries for $235.00 {9.63 tax included}. My baby rashes out on all brands of diapers except
Huggies Supreme! Two packages of
Huggies Supreme and large bag of wipes on sale and with coupons total around $26.00 and is not part of my grocery budget. It is part of our "BABY STUFF" budget. Which will last well over two weeks.
Down side is I bought a lot of things that I normally do not buy and or snack on..I spent hours of blood, sweat and tears shopping.
We are the crazy family you see in the isles. You know the types. They are the ones you think 'why didn't one of the parents stay home with the children?'. Well I'll tell you why. We shop as a family for a family activity because we do not have money to do other actives. So this is a way for all of us to get out. Now you are thinking 'you can go on walks, go to the park, on a hike or a drive {gas cost money}, a lot of activities do not cost!' and yes you are right and we do do all those things plus grocery shop together too!
But this time I was already frazzled and trying to match coupons with the right item while my baby ran around
grabbing everything {she was
suppose to be supervised by my husband who was busy trying to avoid cleaning up a 2lb bag of apples he was carrying that broke and spilled all over the place!} plus my oldest two were complaining they were thirsty and needed to go to the bathroom, also thy were
tired because we started our shopping trip way late due to the fact that I was figuring out my plan of attack! It was just way too crazy! I sent my husband out to the car about an hour and a half into the shopping experience and they {my husband and kids} waited out side in our mini van for another 1/2 hour until 11:30 pm! While I continued to plug away
entirely determined that I wasn't going to let fist full of coupons get me down.........CRAZY!
Hence this novel of my coupon shopping thoughts and experiences!
I know I should keep a binder and I know there are web sites that I must look at that do all the planning for you, right down to meals. I am even kicking myself for not going to the enrichment night where
the "Shopping Guru" takes us shopping. But I'll be damned if I am going to pay that man $10.00. He is totally taking advantage! $10.00 a pop from 50 women, hello $500.00, I'll figure it all out by myself thank you! I am also kicking myself for not attending my friend Liz's open house where someone taught you how to do this.
So go ahead give me all your tips and I may do this again. I better go now because this is what my daughter did to herself while I was typing up this post!
She told me she was a wrestler!
I better go supervise my idle children now!
Oh, and of course if my oldest is doing it then my youngest is all over it too!
I have been reassured that..."they are washable markers so it's okay!"
Can we say glam rock! Is that a little boy or a little girl?
All I have to say is AWKWARD!
whats wrong with this photo???? It is a little more discrete, someone has a little pee pee on his pants! 
Everyone who has to shop for their family and has some sort of a routine. Mine has been every other Monday. I normally buy 2 weeks worth of groceries with a planned menu of at least 14 dinners, lunches, breakfasts and snacks. I have decided that I would like to keep our grocery bill to $200.00 every other week, not impossible to do for a family of five. I was inspired by one of my friends at a gathering we had, she said she saves her family $400.00 a month just by shopping the adds and clipping coupons. In retrospect, after the experience of shopping with millions of coupons trying to coincide coupons with sales etc.. I am wondering, was this her total savings or did her bargain shopping actually give them an extra $400.00 a month. You can get a bunch of "GOOD DEALS" on stuff you don't really need.
Now this is hilarious! I am in there, I'll let you try to figure out which one is me. My friends and I re-did some Abba songs and sang them at a R.S. function! We were quite the entertainers! Because there is nothing like four hot mama's acting like freaks on a stage! 
