Super Savings Saturday

It's Super Savings Saturday!! Hosted by Crystal at Money Saving Mom.

Edited to add: I'm also linking up at BeCentsAble for Shopper Show & Tell, in hopes to win a $15 gift card!

It's been a while since I participated in SSS because I haven't been very diligent in seeking out the good deals and clipping/using my coupons. But I'm back on track and I'm actually having fun doing it!

I have a goal to cut my grocery budget as much as I possibly can. I've been reading several awesome blogs about how to do it best. I'm still not getting deals as awesome as some of these ladies are who have been doing this for a while, but I plan to be "one of them" as soon as possible! I'm taking the tips from all these great women and at the moment I'm working on stocking my kitchen. All the "experts" say that if you have a well stocked kitchen, you can get by with a much smaller grocery budget because you aren't forced to buy things at full price because you ran out. You can watch the sales and combine then with the coupons to get excellent deals. You get the best deals on the things you use this way. And I'm on my way to being a Super Smart Shopper!

Anyway, I'm participating in SSS today and sharing my shopping trips (with pictures) from this week and last week as well since I didn't get it done in time to have a post up last Saturday. This is going to be kind of long, so if you aren't interested in my groceries, go ahead and click away now! Don't say you haven't been warned!

First up - I am just a bit excited that I have an Aldi not too terribly far from me! I've read over and over again how people are saving so much money by shopping there, and I was just a bit jealous! So I was happy to make this discovery. It is 20 miles from me, so I won't be running there every week. I had to go to the chiropractor the other day, and it is right on the way home, so I decided to run in and check it out. And I'm glad I did. I was very pleased and I think a trip every 2-3 weeks to stock up will work great. And if I can plan it so this is a stop when I go to the chiropractor, it works out perfectly, and I haven't spent any extra in gas!

I only got a few things, but I was definitely pleased. Here is what I purchased:

That's an almost 7lb. ham, 2 gallons of milk, orange juice, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, onion soup mix, 2+ lbs. of bananas, peanut butter/cheese crackers, animal crackers, hot dog buns and tortilla chips for a grand total of $21.23.
Now, I don't know exactly how much I saved, but my guess is at least $15.00 had I bought the same items elsewhere. And you know what? EVERYTHING I've tasted is just as good as the name brands or store brands I usually buy. Even my husband commented today that the tortilla chips were good!

Next is Kroger. First I'll share what I got last week. I ended up taking a second trip when I realized I had forgotten to buy hubby's Diet Coke with Lime and also realized I could print more cereal coupons. Gotta take advantage of FREE cereal!
Sorry the picture isn't better, but here's what I got:


Total of merchandise pictured (both pictures combined): $238.60
I spent: $139.60
That's a savings of $99.00! Not amazing, but I think that's pretty good!
That included (I'm not listing everything):
10 boxes of cereal
5 boxes of Hot/Lean Pockets
4 lbs. of ground turkey
3 lbs. of ground chuck
Approx. 10 lbs. of chicken thighs + a whole chicken
2 lbs of bacon
...and obviously much more.
I think I did pretty good!

Today I went to Kroger again and Ingles. Ingles is about 3 miles from me, and Kroger is just around the corner, so it makes it pretty easy to take advantage of sales at both stores. I only bought the toilet paper (had coupons!) and the Vienna sausages there. (There sale price beat Sam's price which I have found to be the cheapest so far. And my kids LOVE these things!) The rest is from Kroger:

Yes...that is another 8 boxes of cereal. We LIKE cereal! (It happens to be one of my favorite late night snacks!) And with the deal they were offering plus my coupons (had them for every box), how could I NOT take advantage? After the sale and my coupons, I paid 81 cents a box!!!
The Loreal Kids shampoo and de-tangle spray cost me a total of $1.48 because the were B1G1 and I had a coupon for each! Also had a coupon for the B1G1 Vive shampoo/conditioner.
The Diet Cokes/Pibb Zeros were 4/$12 which isn't bad, but I love when I can get them cheaper than that - that's when I really stock up!
The only thing in this photo that was not on sale was the creamer (I have to have my creamer) and the pepperonis.
Everything pictured here was a total of $94.93 before sales/coupons.
I paid $42.72
Savings of $52.21
Yeah, I'm having just a little bit of fun with this.

I really can't wait to be saving MORE!

OK now on to CVS. I'm still not saving as much as I'd like on these trips. Usually, after I've figured out my plan, I have to re figure everything when I get there because my store is out of everything. But I found out when they restock and now I'm planning my trips accordingly to have a better chance of catching everything.

I was really hoping to take advantage of the vitamin c, toothpaste and toothbrush deals this week, but they still had not restocked those. Oh well. It's an all-month deal, so there's still hope!

Anyway, here are pics from 2 shopping trips (one last week, one this week):


Total of merchandise before sales/coupons: $79.50
My cost out of pocket (oop)- $10.32 PLUS I earned another $8 in extra bucks that I can use later, AND I made $10 CASH! (I'll explain in a minute.) I did have a little extra help in the form of a gift card. I filled a new prescription there and got a $25 gc for doing so. That really helped keep my oop cost down.
As for the $10 cash - I was doing the Excedrin deal which should have generated $10 in ECB's. I picked up the two that would give me the correct total for this deal. When they scanned, one of them scanned a dollar less than it was marked, so I was 52 cents under the mark to earn the ECB's. I asked the manager if I could possibly exchange one of them to get the deal to work and he said since I was that close that he'd just take care of it. I guess I thought he was going to somehow give me an IOU ECB or something, but he opened the register and handed me $10!
Now if I had been really smart, I would have gone and bought another bottle of Excedrin and still would have gotten my $10 in ECBs on top of that. But I didn't. Oh well.
Anyway, I think the combination of these two trips has been my best deal yet! Yay!

And if that brings this to a close. And if you are still reading, you deserve some kind of award!