So how did I do?

Stop & Shop went fairly well. I walked in and went "woah, they have a Dunkin' Donuts in here... I might never leave!" but I quickly realized that the caffeine affected the shoppers, and not in a good way. It might have been me shopping in the afternoon instead of my normal morning trip, but I had a lot of rude people cut me off or shove by me, or stand in front of the milk while chatting on their cell phone, not even moving when I tried to reach around. I ended up spending $84 and saving $36. I needed to spend around $85 for my catalina to work, so I was buying more stuff than I normally would, but it's getting to the point that I can't IMAGINE spending $150 (my weekly grocery budget) in one trip. I used to spend over $200 in a trip... what the HECK was I buying?!?

I've been keeping a savings spreadsheet since mid-October. At this point I've spent $698 on groceries and saved $312. I average a savings of around 30% per trip with my coupons. It's not great, it's not anywhere hear as good as the pros do, but as a normal mom who only gets 1 newspaper a week, I am VERY happy with it.

I was putting Rice Krispies in my cart today and I knew I was going to pay $1 a box, and I found myself mumbling "that's because I'm AWESOME." Then I realized I said it out loud, and I laughed, which made me look even crazier, but so what! $1 for Rice Krispies! GO ME!

Menu Plan Monday!

I don't normally shop at Stop & Shop, but I will this week. See, last week I headed there to pick up 2 gallons of milk (they have a 2/$5 promotion going on and once you buy 6 you get a free gallon) and when I went through the self checkout I realized someone else had left a $5.50 oyno catalina at the machine. I really can't turn that down, and along with dollar doublers this week, it just seems like a good plan. I've never done a full shopping in the S&S near us, but it's HUGE and fancy and I hope I won't get lost!

ANYWAY. Time for Menu Plan Monday! In mostly no particular order:

Monday: turkey grinders (that's subs, or hoagies, for all of you non New Englanders)

Tuesday: salisbury steak (rolled from last week)

Wednesday: taco salad/nachos

Thursday: mac & cheese

Friday: Pizzeria Mia (my 2 year old's 3rd birthday party!)

Saturday: pasta & meatballs

Sunday: chicken fried steak, gravy & potatoes (cube steaks are 2.99/lb this week)

Wow... lots of red meat this week. Luckily most of these are made with ground beef- everything but the chicken fried steaks- and what we have is actually half beef, half ground turkey. So there's SOME poultry in there...

CVS haul 12/4

My husband mentioned this morning that he could use some more shaving gel. Really, he should realize by now that comments like this send me into a drugstore tizzy, since I suddenly have a "real" reason to play the Rite Aid or CVS game. Today, it was CVS. Here's my results:

(sorry for the crappy cell phone picture!)

Transaction #1

Gillette Fusion Shave Gel, 4.79

-$2 coupon (P&G)

Gillette Fusion Razor Cartridges, 15.49

-$2 coupon (P&G)

G-Series Sensitive Shave Gel, x2= 6.00

- 2 $1 coupons (P&G)

-$4 off $20 or more CVS coupon

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$26.28 retail total, - $10 in coupons= $16.28

paid most of it with ECBs rolled from my last trip

TOTAL OOP: 2.91

earned a $4/$20 purchase coupon, and $10 ECB

Transaction #2

Charmin Ultrastrong, x4= 21.32

- 2x $1 off 2 coupons (P&G)

Huggies Pull-Ups 13.49

- $2 off coupon (pullups.com)

-$3 off $15 or more CVS coupon

-$4 off $20 or more CVS coupon (I didn't realize you could use these together- I was distracted and hadn't noticed I handed him 2 but it worked!)

--------------

$34.81 retail total, -$11 coupons= 23.81 OOP

earned $5 ECB

GRAND TOTAL: $26.72 OOP (saved $61.09), earned $15 ECB

My plan was to use the $10 ECB from transaction #1 to help pay for #2, but the $10 ECB didn't print out. I wasn't sure if I hadn't purchased enough in Gillette products to earn the ECB, so after I did transaction #2 I stepped aside and grabbed a flyer to try to figure it out. One of the cashiers saw me and asked to scan my receipt- THEN the $10 ECB printed. So I still got it, but transaction #2 doesn't look quite as impressive as I'd hoped!

But again, considering that we needed all of these items, and the Pull Ups weren't on any particular sale, I'm very happy with this haul!

Gift of Savings

Are you curious about how your Gift of Savings dollars will be added up? Here's the detail from my latest Rite Aid trip, where I spent .15 for a bunch of stuff. This is the detail that shows on the GoS site about my transaction.

12/02/10 WELLNESS PLUS COUPON $5.00 1 ($5.00)

12/02/10 $5 OFF $25 NONPERSCRIPTION 1 ($5.00)

12/02/10 MERCHANDISE TAXABL 1 ($1.00)

12/02/10 WELLNESS PLUS COUPON $2.00 2 ($4.00)

12/02/10 RA MIGRAINE CAPLETS 50CT $4.94

12/02/10 Command Dsgnr Med Hoo 2 $8.44

12/02/10 DOUBLEMINT BIG E 60PC1 $2.50

12/02/10 Foam 3D Jewelry Box Kit 2 $4.48

12/02/10 ELMERS SCHGLUE STKS 2PK $1.79

12/02/10 Ra Invis Tape 2 $1.00

Doing the math here, that's $23.15 purchased, and then $15 in coupons, meaning they gave me credit for $8.15 worth of product towards GoS. As I said, I paid .15 for this transaction (the gum was filler!) so I'm not quite sure exactly what they're not taking off... but it's interesting to look at, isn't it?

menu planning... Wednesday.

Yeah it's not Monday. Sorry!

Wednesday- Rebekah's pork chops

Thursday- chicken stew with biscuits

Friday- Salisbury Steaks

Saturday- Christi's Wild Rice Soup

Sunday- chili w/ cornbread

Monday- chicken parm