I've just arrived home from the grocery store and while my average daily spending for the year just shot up I also had a big shopping trip and shouldn't need to run out for awhile. I just had my best shopping trip ever saving 50% on my bill. I pretty regularly hover around a 30% savings rate but I don't remember ever hitting 50% on a cart full of groceries.
If you can imagine the shopping equivalent of spiking the football after paying your grocery bill picture me doing that today. I exclaimed to my little shopping buddy, "Yeah! I feel like I just won a major battle! Woohoo!!!" And there was a little dance of sorts and flailing of arms involved. The store was pretty busy with other shoppers checking out and several people looked at me with strange expressions on their faces as I waved around the mile long receipt in one hand while doing my happy dance. I imagine none of those people had spent an hour of their son's afternoon nap going over digital coupons and the online ads and writing a very complicated list of must-buy-this-combination-of-items at such and such different price points in order to save that-amount-of-specified-dollars.
Of course on a Saturday evening before the sales expire there are going to be a great deal of out of stocks and so my very well planned out long, long list was foiled by this or that being gone. I had a little melt down half way through our trip. I found myself sort of pacing back and forth in the main grocery aisle scratching my head, looking at my list in dismay, and freaking out a little, "oh, what to do? what to do?..." I recovered of course, regrouped, and my $105.96 goal was only exceeded by $4.77.
Total spent $110.73
Total saved $110.53
Plus I earned $13 in store rewards for my next shopping trip.
I picked up two furnace filters
Cat litter
Some bathroom stuff
Dish soap (which I need to figure out how to use less of; we go through it way too fast)
Dishwasher detergent
And a bunch of food
I really have not done that well tracking my spending, planning my shopping trips, and saving as much as I should this month but this trip has redeemed me at least some. I honestly don't think I purchased one single thing that was not on sale... wait, no, I bought a donut for little Abe at full price. But that's it!
Average daily spending for 2015: $18.20
Good job....high five.....doing a Happy Dance here for you!
ReplyDeleteNow did you get Rain Checks for everything they were out of?...or doesn't that store do RCs?
On the dish soap I'd but a quality brand(something very viscose) and then dilute it to help it go further....if the reason you go through it b/c of DH especially. Men mostly think more is better when it comes to that sort of thing. lol
Thank-you, thank-you, . In this particular scenario there was a long list of items that all themselves were on sale but if you bought them in any combination of 8 items then you got an additional $8 off the lot of them. This sale comes up fairly often but a lot of the time there isn't anything I'd normally buy, this time however there were great sales on TONS of stuff I always buy so I ended up getting a combination of $16 items and getting $16 off the lot of them BUT I kept running into things I'd picked out that were out of stock and since all the items had different price points on them and I'd totaled my list with coupons on these items, as well as their sale price and the additional $1 off each item I was REALLY thrown off by the ones that were out of stock. Plus I didn't want to do the "last minute" thing and grab items I didn't need just because they were part of the sale and I couldn't find stuff on my list. Gah, shopping is exhausting!
DeleteIt also wouldn't have gotten me that extra $1 off each item to get a rain check. My store does RC's but they are very picky. Many sale items aren't rain checkable. I hate to admit it but maybe because shopping is already so exhausting for me (and I think that's partly to do with working at the store; I just can't stand being there on my free time, haha!) I had never even thought to ask for rain checks on the out of stock items that are on great sale. Gee, where is my head!?!?!
On the dish soap front, watering it down sounds like a really good idea. I do actually buy the blue Dawn. Dish soap is one of the things that I've experimented with and I've found that I use SOOO much more of the cheaper stuff and it ends up costing more. But I'm still amazed at how fast I go through the Dawn.
DeleteYou did AWESOME!!! I have never been able to do that well!!! Of course, I have never been able to get myself to do the whole coupon thing either - too lazy I guess!
ReplyDeleteI found that the foam dishwashing soap lasted much longer than the liquid - just didn't seem to use as much (i.e. couldn't squeeze half the bottle on the sponge because I wasn't paying attention!!!)
Thanks :) I can get 50% on a $30 or $40 trip with a few items that are on a great sale but I don't remember ever getting 50% off on a $220 bill. It was awesome!
DeleteThe foam dish washing soap sounds weird. I've never tried that but I also don't use sponges, just old rags (mostly socks, haha!). I think my husband might wash his hands with it. I think I might need to get religious about putting the bottle under the sink and keeping hand soap by the sink.
Hi! Thanks for stopping by my blog :-) I always try to make grocery shopping a fun game, especially with my kids along...to see what deals we can find, what we can save, coupons, etc. They are a part of the planning too. I agree with you completely some days are better than others and some days it may be grilled cheese for dinner ;-) Have a great weekend!
ReplyDeleteBlessings
,Jill
Your chickens seriously look awesome. You are all going to have so much fun with them. It sounds like you already are too :)
DeleteMy son actually really likes grocery shopping (even though it's one of my least favorite past times) but mostly for our little traditions. I probably only take him with me twice a month and he gets a donut pretty much every time (that we share); he doesn't get to eat it until we're done shopping though. He gets to ride the penny horse and he gets to look at the fish in the fish tanks. Just recently he gets to walk next to the cart, instead of sitting in the kids seat and he's LOVING the new freedom of walking around in the store with me.
I love grilled cheese for dinner days!