I am a lucky woman this week. He did the grocery shopping.
I should clarify, he is always willing to go to the grocery store with me, and even happy to go on his own, however, when I throw in the need to price match and provide coupons, he starts getting a bit faint at heart over the grocery shopping experience.
I admit there are weeks I think that the grocery shopping is becoming a frustrating, full-time job, and I wonder if it is all worth it. After all, when I was IN debt, I didn't DO any of this ~ I just bought as little as possible as cheaply as possible. Coupons and food ads were simply dangerous temptations.
I do it because of the weeks that I save 45 - 50% of what I spend. That makes me feel like it's worth the time. However, I am always trying to streamline the process (and set up weeks where he can do the grocery shopping without either of us feeling like more money was spent because there was no time-consuming price-matching).
Our food ads arrive every Wednesday. That evening, I sit down with the ads, a pad of free post-it notes I got some years back and am always trying to use up (aka, scrap paper), and a pen.
Living in Omaha, which is a per capita champion for restaurants and grocery stores, my free ads cover 9 or 10 different grocery store chains each week. I look through each one, even the ones I have never shopped at, and I write down on a scratch paper anything I MIGHT buy that is listed in the ad. If nothing gets written down for an ad, I can toss it in the recycle bin right away, otherwise I save it for price-matching purposes.
Once I have all the lists written down, I compare them, and CROSS OUT the duplicates. This is an important step, for me. In fact, it's this step that inspired this blog post this week!
Spring is coming, barbecues are coming out of hibernation and KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce is on sale all over town. I have a 50 cent coupon, as well.
The first ad I looked at advertised KC Masterpiece for $1.48 per bottle. Not a bad deal, and significantly better than the next ad, which was offering it for $5 for 2 bottles. However, it was the 8th ad I looked through that was selling the same size bottle for $0.99! With my $0.50 coupon, that's only $0.49 a bottle! I want to be sure to cross of those other prices so I don't accidentally end up buying 2 for $5!
Usually, the pile of ads and scraps of paper get set aside until Saturday or Sunday morning. At that time, I dig them out, and use a new scrap of paper to write a list of meals I think I can make using the food I STILL HAVE. On another paper, my grocery list ~ without looking at ads or coupons yet ~ this is just a list of things I need to buy for this week, in order to have four solid dinners, 20 servings of fresh fruit, 20 snacks for our work day, and a few lunches for the days we don't have left overs. Sometimes it's even loose, like "Morning Snack something," that can be specified based on what's on sale.
Then comes the compiling. What is on my grocery list gets compared to what was on the papers from each store (much easier then looking at the ads). Things that are truly good deals on non-perishables get added to the list as well, though, due to the size of our pantry, these have to be REALLY good deals.
I aim to be able to hit only one store, but not all stores do price-matching, so it takes some balancing, and I often end up hitting two stores. Luckily, the store closest to me does price matching, and offers Our Family brand store items, as do several of the other stores, so I can even price match store brands.
List completed, then out come the coupons. As I go through the pile pulling ones for items I will be buying, I also pull any that expire in the next week. If I don't want to buy the item, I toss the coupon.
At that point, I am almost complete. The last stop is to the computer. www.smartsource.com for any additional coupons on ITEMS I ALREADY PLAN TO BUY. The website for the grocery store I plan to visit ~ Our Family brand offers coupons, usually on the items already on sale, and they also have Nash Brothers coupons, which is the organic store brand. Bakers (a division of Kroger), not only offers store coupons, but lets you "load" them on to your customer card ~ so you don't need to print them out or remember to take them with you (and you can send your less Type-A-personality family members to the store). If you haven't visited your store website yet, do it ASAP!
If I am lucky, after all that, I have a week like this one, where we could get by with shopping at one store, buying mainly items that were in the weekly ad, and using only one coupon.
(The 99 cent bbq sauce I will pick up, with coupon, later in the week when I am close to that store, anyway.)
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