Monthly Archives: January 2013

Day In the Life- Eating Like You Are Rich While Shopping Like You Are Poor

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Today is the first Thursday of the month, this was good news for us in several areas. First it was my first paycheck of the year, which I was really unsure about because of taxes and some major changes I made this year during open benefit enrollment. I was pleasantly surprised today. Next the news keeps getting better, I will be receiving one of my “extra” paychecks this month as well. Because I am paid every 2 weeks, 2 months during the year we receive this “extra” check. Our budget is based on the 2 checks a month so it makes this an extra” check. Matt and I sat and looked at our budget this morning and currently the plan is to pay off 4 of our outstanding debts with this check. I will definitely let you know when this happens. After paying bills and getting excited that we actually are ahead this month, it was off to the grocery store. Thank you, Matt for the second part of the title.

I have mentioned before that currently we have quite a bit stockpiled but that I felt our stockpile lacked meat. One of the stops that I have been wanting to explore was our local meat processing plant. We decided to head there first today. I am so glad we did. We were able to purchase 18 “meals” of meat for $115.00. WOW! Last stop of the morning, Food Lion. They are currently having their house brand sale for each “house brand” item you buy you earn 0.25 toward your next order. I have spent probably an hour collecting coupons and working out the 2 transaction. We ended up spending  $43 and saving $49 or 54%. I used most of the Catalina that I collect over the past week. I also added 4 additional meals of frozen shrimp to the list. So all together today, we have spent around $165 of our grocery budget but really have enough meat for an entire month!!!

I do have to add a final shopping trip in it was on Wednesday to CVS. I needed make up removal wipes. I expected to receive 5ECB due to the beauty club purchases I made on Sunday. I was not expecting to receive 8.50 in quarterly ECB or a $4 of 20 facial care purchase. I was able to grab enough wipes for probably 3 months and spent $1.35, 94% savings!!!

Saving at Food Lion

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Last Thursday, a friend let me know that Food Lion (our only grocery store in town) had put out a gift. A coupon $5 off $5 purchase, this coupon was available from their website in a pdf file. So I took advantage of this and print some to use. The expiration date on the coupon was 12/29/2013, I realized that this was probably a mistake. After a day the company corrected the date to read 1/1/2013.  I knew that it would take a few days for the company to stop excepting these. But also thought I will use as long as they let me, the gravy train stopped tonight.  I am sad but not surprised. I have been able to treat the family with items like potato chips, cookies and ice cream over the past week.

I/We stopped a total of 10 times to use this coupon, spending a total of $9.23, saving 67.99 or 88%. I could qualify for extreme couponing with this one!  Most of the transactions ended up costing less than $1 except for the one I completed on Sunday afternoon. In the process of using these coupons, Catalina have been printing at the end of each trip. I wanted to know if they would limit the number of these I could use so I tried. I purchased a roast $6.54(using a $1.50 off $6 meat purchase), a bag of shredded lettuce $1.99 and 3 tomatoes $1.48(using a $1 off $3 of produce), 4 2L drinks of store brand $0.83 each(coupons for $0.75 off three, the fourth was to raise my total), 2L Diet Coke$1.66 (Free with minimum $10 purchase). I had a $1.50 off $15 and the $5 off 5. My total came to $3.83. The current plan is to go for one more trip to Food Lion on Thursday, they are having their brand sale that basically gives you $0.25 off each of their brand items you buy. I will be stocking up on mustard and ketchup as well as using the rest of my Catalinas.

On a very personal note, I have been able to do something with everyone of my 2013 goals today!