Archive for grocery shopping

This Week’s Grocery Shopping

August 11, 2009 at 3:00 am · Filed under grocery shopping ·Tagged , , , ,

So here’s how this week is going. Saturday I spent $2 on two boxes of cereal, and my husband spent $8 for 4-12 packs of pop. Today I spent $12.52 for 1 1/2 pound of bulk cheese, 1 pound shredded cheese, one tub of cottage cheese, one six pack of yogurt, one gallon of milk, two loaves of organic bread and a little more than four pounds of bananas at Kroger.

Then at Meijer, I spent $4.19  on two packs of cherries, two packs of pitted prunes, a pound of lasagna noodles, one package of six 100-calorie cookies.

So far, then, $26.41. I don’t intend to shop anymore this week, so I don’t think that’s too shabby.

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Aldi Comes Through

August 7, 2009 at 2:55 am · Filed under grocery shopping ·Tagged , , , , ,

For me, this is the start of the new week (I go Thursday to Thursday, as the paycheck comes in). Today I spent $4.19 on two gallons of milk at Aldi ($1 each). Large ketchup ($1.19) and one pound of strawberries ($1)O…all at Aldi–Aldi comes through again).

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Grocery Shopping on $10 or less finished

August 7, 2009 at 2:51 am · Filed under grocery shopping ·Tagged , , , ,

I finished my grocery shopping. In my last post, I had gotten up to $3.93. I paid $1.50 for a loaf of organic bread (day old) and $1.95 for green beans and strawberries at the clearance rack at Meijer, bringing my total to $7.38!!

I don’t think I can do this every week, but maybe once a month I could do it to use up some of the pantry!

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Is Sam’s Club Worth it?

April 8, 2009 at 1:49 am · Filed under grocery shopping

Last week, in our newspaper, a Sam’s Club one-day pass came out at us. Our adventure began in the parking lot, where a double shopping car make schelpping my two preschoolers around easier.

At the door an unsmiling greeter, seeing my one-day pass, directed me to a womanned table, where a friendly woman asked me questions about my monthly budget. Using a computer, she said that I would save $55 to $791. Pretty exact, huh?

She sent me to the customer service desk. Neither of the women at the customer service smiled, said hello, or showed any pleasantness. When I asked if I could purchase gas  (a few cents cheaper than the local station) today, one of the unsmilers told me I could if I purchased a membership. I declined, explaining that I live eight miles away.

She grabbed a list, obstensively of other Sam’s Clubs, but didn’t do anything with it or mention it again.

Again, the other workers at Sam’s Club seemed to be penalized for smiling. The few that I saw seemed surly and put upon.

I wasn’t going let a little surliness ruin our day. My kids enjoyed the wide variety of samples from the smiling samplers (note they don’t work for Sam’s Club, so they can smile).

The selection is poor.

The prices: eh… A 60 ounce coffee creamer was $5.47. At the dollar store, I can buy 60 ounces of creamer for $5.

Skinless, boneless chicken breasts were selling for $1.99. The butcher shop across the street where I live routinely sells it for $1.39.

An eight-pack of Del Monte canned vegetables was $6.80, or about .80 per can. The local Aldi, two miles from me, canned vegetables are .49.

A Miracle-Gro potting mix for 55 quarts was more than  $11. I have no idea if that were a good price or not because there were no others with which to compare it. 

Since I just bought a digital camera, I was curious to see  what Sam’s Club had. Sam’s Club offered about five models, far fewer than even Target offers (about 20). I would feel reluctant spending a large sum of money without much comparison.

While at the camera section, I noticed the prices on printing digital prints: 13 cents. Walgreens usually runs a special for .10 per.

On the way out, we made our only purchase, an ice cream sundae, from another unsmiling worker.

Is Sam’s Club worth it? Maybe for some:

  • People who shop once a month and don’t follow supermarket sales papers.
  • People who live in rural areas without much competition.
  • People who live or work nearby and want to take advantage of the gas sales.

So is Sam’s Club worth it for me? In short: NO.

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Costco

November 20, 2008 at 9:46 am · Filed under grocery shopping ·Tagged , , ,

This weekend, my family and I went to Costco. It was a special occasion, since we don’t have a membership, but the local newspaper had a coupon for one free shopping pass.

So we went, we saw, and were unimpressed.

Costco is big, very big. Free samples abounded, which was the best part, especially for the kids. Greek yogurt, dried blueberries, and small cartons of chocolate organic milk were a few of the highlights of the snacks available for nothing.

But hubby and I quickly realized that Costco wasn’t for the likes of us. The inventory seemed skewed to the upper class. Burberry and Coach handbags, True Religion jeans and $300 bottles of wine were common examples of what Costco carried.

True, there were some ordinary items, but often they were not really bargains.For example, a big box of Kirkland diapers: $37. Cost of Target diapers for the same amount: $27. Similar unsavings were found on other items.

In the end, we left stuffed with free samples and satisfaction. Satisfaction that we weren’t Costco customers, and that was OK with us.

Other comments re Costco, even ones that disagree with mine, are welcome.

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Kroger Bargains

November 12, 2008 at 4:54 am · Filed under grocery shopping ·Tagged , , , ,

My local Kroger is doing a radical thing…reducing the price on dented canned goods. The workers seem to be a bit clumsy, and that’s all to the good. That means that there are a lot of canned goods half-off near the bottle return.

The prices are especially good for Kroger brands, but even the name brand prices aren’t that bad.  An extra bonus is that you can use coupons on the stuff. For example, I bought three cans of Chef Boyardee for .49 each, with a coupon that had .35 off for three cans. Since Kroger doubles their coupons, I paid a total of .80 (about .26 a can) for my Spaghetti-os.

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October 28

October 29, 2008 at 1:33 am · Filed under grocery shopping ·Tagged , , ,

I’m fortunate to have insurance for prescriptions. Walgreens’ had this promotion that if you transferred a prescription for a $25 gift card. (My previous prescription came from Rite-Aid, which gave me a $30 gift card for transferring my prescription from Walgreens.

I used prescription gift card. I bought diapers on clearance, laundry detergent (50 loads for $1.99), olive oil on sale ($3.99 for 17 oz.) My uncle recently died, and I made copies of his family photos. Luckily, Walgreens had a sale on making copies of photos, and I used to pay for that by the gift card, too.  See www.walgreens.com

On the way back from my daughter’s school, I stopped by Agrusa. I bought skinless, boneless chicken breasts for a $1.25 a pound, a dozen oranges on clearance for .99,  and three pounds of apples for $2.49.

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The Little Steak That Could

October 7, 2008 at 10:42 pm · Filed under grocery shopping ·Tagged , , ,

Kroger, the supplier of most of my food needs because of their awesome manager’s specials, had some steak on clearance—$2 a pound, when it was originally $9 per pound. I bought all they had—4 1/2 lbs.

Then I fried up the steaks, and my husband salivated. But I had big plans for that steak, and it became:

  1. Spaghetti with bits of steak (the pasta and its sauce were also on sale)
  2. Macaroni and cheese with spinach and bits of steak (the spinach came from Aldi and the mac and cheese was from the reduced rack)
  3. Egg noodles in cheese sauce with cut green beans and steak (egg noodles and the canned green beans had been on sale)
  4. Rice, canned tomatoes with garlic and bits of steak. (the rice and tomatoes had been on clearance)
  5. Beef stew from cans with extra bits of steak (you guessed it, the cans of beef stew had also been on clearance)
  6. Lima bean soup with rice and bits of steak (the rice was the same one from number 4, and the dry soup mix had been 75% off).

I should say that the rice, pasta, etc. had all been bought on sale, on clearance or from the reduced rack earlier, awaiting a transformation.

And so that was the little steak that could.

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Frugal Friday

September 22, 2008 at 1:58 am · Filed under grocery shopping ·Tagged , ,

Went to Kroger and had a blow-out time. They were getting rid of their bakery goodies…up to 90% off. This is the stuff that they bake at the store, and it was GOOD. Bought a dozen of bagels for .99. Coffee cake .50, cream cake $1, apple pie $1.99, and my favorite Hershey’s brownies with cream cheese icing for a dollar.

The savings didn’t end there, I bought two loaves of bread for .40 (from an outside bakery), and a gallon of organic milk for $2. Their regular milk due Sept. 29 was .99 a half gallon. Sweet!

I also bought chicken chunks 75% and bottles of mustard for .35 each. I also bought produce on sale, so that was a lot of fun.

I had to go to the community center and I found that they have a book shelf of free books! Great, new books, so I got an armful.

Lots of frugal fun.

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Kroger Bargains

September 13, 2008 at 1:47 am · Filed under grocery shopping ·Tagged , ,

I do most of my shopping at Kroger. Why? Two words: manager’s specials. Using that, the last few weeks have really been grocery heaven. My deals of this time have been numerous: the boxes of organic cereal for .99, a dozen bages .99, half-gallons of milk .25 are just to name a few. I generally make most of my meals out of what’s on sale, what’s on special and what’s in the pantry. And I’m doing fine.

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