Some great deals this week, however you really have to watch prices. Basha's advertised their brand of shredded mozzarella cheese in a 2 lb. pkg for $7.77 but I found Safeway brand 2lb. pkg for $6.99. Since I was totally out this was a buy price for me. They also advertised fresh cherries for $1.88lb. which would be a great price since SuperWalmart has them at 4.88lb. and Safeway at 3.88lb. but my produce market had them for $1.59lb. Here are my shops:Canned Soup - This not a necessity to buy. There are many recipes to make your own cream soup that you use in other recipes. Chicken broth and beef broth can be made from bones and the bits of meat on them and then frozen for when you need it. Vegetable broth can be made from all the parts of things that you throw out - like onion skins, carrot tops and peels, etc. You get the idea. Just load a soup pot with a bunch of these things that you have been saving and water and simmer. I save veggies, gravies, pastas and little bits of meat or poultry left over from dinners in a freezer container in the freezer. When it is full, I make soup.
Milk- Here is another very expensive item. Use dry milk in baking. Buy milk on sale with a coupon when you can or buy the store brand whichever is cheaper. Lots of times, milk is cheaper at the gas station than the grocery store. So watch those prices.
Store Bought Birthday Cakes - Are these really a necessity for you? They are not for me. I can bake my own cake for just pennies. Even kid's cakes can be made easily. There are a lot of recipes here: http://www.easy-birthday-cakes.com/kids-birthday-cakes.html
Onions, Celery, Green, Red, and Orange Peppers - Buy these when they are really cheap. Then slice them and dice them the way you want and freeze in recipe size quantities. When I want red pepper in the middle of the winter for stir fry, I am thrilled that I paid $.33 for a whole one when they are going for $2.99 each.
Chicken - Always buy this on sale. When chicken breasts go on sale for $1.67lb, I buy 10-20 lbs. and freeze in meal size portions. When I don't have any chicken and there are no sale chicken breasts, I buy whole chickens at $ .57-.67 a lb and cut them up myself. You will never get cheaper chicken than buying the whole ones on sale. If you don't want to cut them up raw, cook a bunch of them at once and then take the meat off and freeze for future meals. It will be so easy to throw a bag in casseroles, stir frys etc. I also roast one for DH and I and serve it as dinner one night, stir fry another, fajita chicken wraps the third night and then I make soup! 4 meals from one chicken or more depending on how big it is.
Bread Crumbs- Make your own from from stale bread, cereal and crackers.
These are just a few ways to save when things are not on sale. I am off to watch a movie with DH. I will write more another day. I hope everyone is having a great holiday!
I haven't been shopping at the grocery stores much lately because the sales of things that I have needed just haven't been good. But, that said, I had to run out to Fry's for a few things for our cookout today so I did a little shopping there and the produce market.1 lb. strawberries - $ .50
1 Cantaloupe - $ .34
Total Out of Pocket was $ .84
I could have gotten the buns cheaper but it wasn't worth the drive and gasoline to save $ .26!
It is a beautiful day here so I went shopping for me and the food pantry. Just 2 quick trips:2 Chex Mix - .99 ea. - used $1.00/1 IP coupons
1 Colgate Wave Toothbrush -$.99 with in ad cpn- used $1./1 IP cpn
Total Out of Pocket was $.05 which was all tax.
CVS:
3 Revlon Nail Enamel- $3.99 each - used $2./1 mfr. cpns = $ 1.99 each and I received $3.00 in ECB's for each(Sun. & Mon. Only Sale)
4 - 2 ltr.- Sierra Mist on sale on B1G1F- used B1G1F IP cpns = All 4 were Free(Sun. & Mon. Only sale)
4 Frenchs Classic Yellow Mustard - .66 ea. - used B1G1F mfrs. cpns - .33 each (Sun. & Mon. Only sale)
2 Excedrin Migraine 24 ct. Bonus Packs(B1G1F)- $1.99 ea. - used $ 2./1 IP cpns
4 -12oz. Lays Potato Chips on sale for B1G1F
Used $3./15. CVS cpn
Used $11 .37 in ECB's
Total Out Of Pocket was $ .58 including .10 in tax and I received $ 9.00 in ECB's
Don't worry, I didn't eat it all. The chicken breasts were huge, so I have 1/2 leftover along with rice and veggies left to make a stir fry tomorrow night. DH also saved 1/2 of his dinner for stir fry. Next time I will cook one chicken breast for both of us! So this is what we had:
Lunch is healthy and cheap too! I had:
Some of you have asked me how much per meal do I spend and what kind of meals do we eat.
Today I needed to do a long list of things including some shopping. Since I am always trying to save on gasoline, I ran all of the errands in a large circle. I also saved my DIL gasoline by doing her produce market shopping while I was doing mine and picking up something at Safeway for her while I was doing mine. Since we are babysitting for my grandaughter tomorrow, we do not have to make an extra trip to deliver her things to her.
Thanks to Erin for letting me know about the clearanced Humidifiers. I was able to get 2 for my grandaughter. The air is so dry here in the desert that one will be nice for her room and one could go in her playroom or anyplace else in the house that my DIL chooses to use it.
DH and I rarely do fast food but when I went out shopping this morning, I realized that today was the day that McDonalds was giving away the Free Chicken Biscuits and Sandwiches. So wanting to try their iced coffees, I went through the drive-thru twice and got one for DH and I and a Free Chicken Biscuit for DH and I. Since we had already eaten breakfast, we will eat them for lunch. They look delicious!
All of these purchased at Safeway:
Thank you so much Erin for the heads up yesterday on the Free coffee. I went to Super Target this morning and got 30 bags. Here is everything I purchased there:
Since they are so expensive, I thought I am going to find a way to get these as cheaply as possible. Then I remembered that I had found another RR yesterday so I had 2 of the $10. RR's to spend. I quickly grabbed the Walgreen's flyer from the paper and scanned through it. Sure enough the Hefty Cinch Sak Tall Kitchen Garbage Bags were on sale at 2/$12. So off to Walgreens I went and purchased 2 with each $10. RR. After RR's it cost me $ 2.97 for each 2 including tax. We now have a CHEAP stockpile(about .03 a bag) for at least a year of tall kitchen garbage bags.
I hope everyone has a wonderful day! After getting everything set for Mother's Day here, I took a quick trip to CVS. I did 3 separate orders:
Remember I purchased the laundry basket at Walgreens earlier this week with my RR's? Well here are the things going into it. My DIL and I have been purchasing these items over the past 5 months or so for friends who are having their first baby next month. All I have to do is arrange them in a basket and wrap it with shrink wrap or a cellophane gift bag and put a big pink bow on it.
Thanks to Erin for telling me about this deal! I just kept going in and out of the same Walgreens. After two trips, I got brave and just wheeled a cart up with a bunch in it and kept doing them on separate orders. I have 13 of the new Gillette 2 in 1 Body Wash that I only paid tax for.
I did two separate orders at Walgreens this morning trying to use up some of the RR's from the P&G deal. What you see in the back of the picture is a neat laundry basket that I picked up there to use as a gift basket for friends who are having their first baby next month. I had lots of clothing, a stuffed bear, baby bottles, lotions etc. to put in it but no container. I had just asked some of the girls on a message board I frequent to give me ideas on what to get. Just one half hour later, I spotted this at Walgreens and thought, this is perfect since Mom's of babies can always use another laundry basket or just use it to store baby items and I can buy it with an RR.
I am on the reader panel for a major magazine. Yesterday in the mail, I got an invite to take the Dannon 2 Week Challenge. They sent me 4 Free coupons to pick these up. All I have to do is take the challenge and fill out the survey at the end. Life is good!
While I was coming home from Safeway, I decided to stop at our local produce market. There was this big box filled to overflowing with bananas! I have already given the neighbor next door, 6 huge things of bananas, so those aren't in the box. But believe me when I say it was overflowing. I was looking at this box and it was marked $3.50 for all. A man that worked there saw me looking and asked if he could lift it into my cart for me. I told him I really didn't think so because I didn't want to pay that much for it, especially not knowing if there were rotten bananas underneath. So he says to me that I could have it for $1.00! Well, I took it! We only found 2 bananas that were bad. Most of them will keep for another few days and are firm enough for banana splits and to put on cereal. I took 1/2 of them down to my DIL and son and I will slice the rest and freeze them for banana bread and for smoothies! This has been a great week for deals!
Everything you see in this picture was FREE! More than free( I made $1.50 on this haul) and I will explain that in a minute.
I finished up my P&G RR shopping this morning until I find more coupons. Lots of trips to 3 different Walgreens. Here is what I got:
Thanks to Hot Coupon World for this great deal at Walgreen's:
Since we are babysitting our beautiful grandaughter for the afternoon, I had to make a quick run for just a couple of things at CVS. I will do more later in the week. But today I got:
While running another errand, I stopped at Frys for:
