We spent money this weekend…sort of

February 17, 2008 · Posted in Frugal Spending

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We are home for one weekend before hitting the road again, so we spent some time running errands. I mentioned how we are trying to control our “extra” purchases here, and thought I would start to report on how we are spending our money a little more often.

First, I hit CVS again. Because it was a Saturday, a lot of the deals from the ad were already out of stock, but I still managed to do ok. Here’s what I got:

1 bag of Hershey kisses (discounted from Valentine’s Day) - $1.49

1 Fusion razor - $9.99 ($6 ECB)

1 Gatorade G2 - $1.29 ($1.29 ECB)

1 Hallmark card - $2.29 (I usually make my own cards, but I know I’ll be busy this week and our friends just had a beautiful baby girl).

I used one coupon for the razor ($4 off) and $10 in Extra Care Bucks, and paid $1.06 out of pocket. I got $7.29 in Extra Care Bucks back. Good stuff!

We also went to Walmart this weekend. I hate Walmart, but we still end up going there ever so often. We got some shelves for the bedroom (we had seen these before, and now they were on clearance, so we grabbed them), some Play-Doh for the boy (his new obsession - I plan on making my own soon), and a bin to hold our overstock from the bathroom. This came to $30.08, and we used part of our $50 Visa gift card from Boomertowne. I like free!

I’ve also ventured into the world of using coupons at the grocery, and am still figuring out how to do it efficiently. This week my total before savings was $61.26, and after savings was $37.42 (this includes coupons and the store deals from using their silly little card). Considering that I bought $10 worth of meat, 3 half gallons of organic milk, and some fruits and vegetables, I was pretty happy.

How do you think I’m doing? I think that I could do a little better at the grocery, but I am trying to balance time with finding the best deals. I do a majority of my grocery shopping at one store - they have pretty good prices, and the best selection of produce in the town (without going to the market). Also, sites like The Grocery Game and Coupon Mom do not have my local stores listed - I use a site called My Grocery Deals, but it does not match coupons from the circulars with the weekly sales. This site does compare my local stores, but I have found that not all the deals for a given store are listed.

Comments

4 Responses to “We spent money this weekend…sort of”

Cassie on February 17th, 2008 11:21 pm

Looks like the grocery shopping is great to me! If you only spent $40 for the week and got some organic things in the mix, I am impressed. I am shopping for 6 and usually make it for about $50/week. Unfortunately, that rarely includes organic products or lots of fruits and veggies.

Cassie’s last blog post..Happy Valentine’s Day!!
moneyloveandchange on February 18th, 2008 1:48 am

Thanks so much Cassie! I have to admit that I did run to the store again to pick up a newspaper (for the coupons, of course!), peanut butter (I have no idea how my husband goes through it so fast), and bread - so I need to add about $5 to the total for the week.

The fact that you spend $50 for a family of six is amazing! By this logic, I should be spending $25 a week - I can do this sometimes when the cupboards are fully stocked and I just need to pick up staples, but that’s about it.
MGDCyndi on February 21st, 2008 1:28 pm

Hi All: I work with MyGroceryDeals.com and just wanted to make sure that we do have National Brand printable coupons on our site. Look for the button on the top left of the Home page (once you have logged in) with Coupon Gallery on it. There are usually about 75 coupons available.

Hope this helps!
moneyloveandchange on February 22nd, 2008 2:11 am

Thanks so much for the clarification. What I meant to say was that MyGroceryDeals does not match coupons along with the sales for the week (the way that The Grocery Game and Coupon Mom does). Knowing if there are coupons (from the Sunday circulars or online) that match the local sales for the week would make things so much easier. I am changing the post to reflect this.

Thanks again!