Preparing For Shopping Trip (Phase 2)

Time to make the grocery list. The sales ad around here come out on Wednesday, so on shopping weeks I'm checking ads Wednesday morning as kids allow and making my list.  The older ones are used to it, Grace is not very happy right now despite having a full tummy and dry diaper. 

I subscribe to get emails from the grocery stores I shop at, this gives me the link to the ads easily available along with the digital ads and special savings set out by the particular store in the chain.

I have added a few stores to my routine this month. Dollar Tree is getting thrown back in the loop as I stopped going to them for awhile because I was getting dollar items from our store (Salem Dollar), we are strictly online now except for the few locals who still buy from us.  I'll stop there first and get what deals I can. Shopko is added for an extra, but it is on the list because the sale is this weekend and I will be in town. We received their sale magazine and found a toy bin organizer I have been wanting on closeout. $29.99 for a normally $100 item as long as supplies last. Yeah, we're getting it. 

I was a little excited as I glanced through my email as I had extra ads from two stores that they are having a four day sale, usually means I can fit more groceries in... but the sales weren't as good this time. Most of my list is normally done at Sam's Club-so you won't see that until I do my post on my spending on my trip. This post is just the sales I found that will help us. 

When I look at the ads I have my spreadsheet up that has a place for each store. Under each store I have the heading of: item, unit, price, how long the sale lasts and the total. On the same spreadsheet file I have a separate page for the final list. This page also has a place for each store, price of one item, total items needed, total price for the item, and running total of the store. My budget is $300 MAX for groceries and paper goods needed for the month. I do try to go lower as we spend about $50 through the month on eggs and OJ, but that's not always possible.

I make a note of anything in the ad that we might be able to buy, whether it's on my list or not. 

Sunshine Food Stores 

• Whole Turkey $.99 per pound
• Digiornio 12 inch pizza $3.99
• Cantaloupe $0.69 per lb
• Country Crock Soft Butter 45 oz $2.99
• Crystal Farm Cream Cheese 8 oz $1.19
• Land O Lakes Cottage Cheese 16 oz $1.99
• Chicken Drumsticks $.89 per lb
• Creamette Pasta 10/ $10

Fareway Food Stores

• Folgers Coffee 34 oz $5.99
• Ground Beef $2.99 per pound
• Leaf Lettuce $.99 

Hy-Vee

• Hy-Vee Vanilla Ice Cream 1.75 quart square $.99
• Brown Sugar or Powdered Sugar 2 lb $.99
• Ground Beef 1 lb chubs $.99
• Oscar Meyer Lunchables $1.00
• Hy-Vee canned Pineapple 15 oz $.99
• Red Bell Peppers $.99
• Midwest Country Fare Cat Food 16 lb $8.49

Now that I've collected sale prices, I make my final list by store.  I will tweak my meal plan if my list needs changed to fit my budget. I have already gone through my list and marked off what I have in the cupboard. Most of this is done on the computer then the final list will go on paper so I can take it to the store.

Personally, I don't use coupons much because I have found store brands to be cheaper even after the coupon. The few things we do buy name brand, I snag coupons when I see them. 

Hy-Vee does have fuel saver items-you sign up at the customer service desk and they scan your card to load any savings on to scan at the gas pump. With that card they also have digital coupons. Sometimes we use it, sometime we don't. But I don't shop by the fuel saver ad because most of what's there is name brand. 

Happy ad hunting!

Preparing for Shopping Trip (Phase 1)

This is the week for our shopping trip. I have started my meal plan. I plan about 9-10 meals before I even see the ads. Sometimes my husband helps, sometimes I can figure out enough by myself. 

Spaghetti is a staple in our house, so that's always planned on for at least three meals. 

Also on the list is pizza, tacos, fajitas, lasagna, chicken parmesan, lasagna roll-ups and ravioli. Most of these meals we will have more than once. The lasagna, lasagna roll ups and fajitas depends on prices. Those might change to something more budget friendly, those might not. We haven't had lasagna in a few months so it might just stay and I will fit it in. 

As I make my meal plan,  have my shopping list on a separate sheet right beside it.  This step is typically done on notebook paper because it's easier to change as needed. Every time I make write a meal or snack down on my meal plan sheet, I write down every ingredient I need for that. If I need the recipe, I make a note that I need to find the recipe for it-usually off my Pinterest page, but sometimes out of my cookbook or recipe box. If it's not something I make all the time, I check the recipe to make sure I get all the ingredients. The spaghetti we get variety from different flavored sauces, sometimes a sauteed onion is added to it, sometimes not. Honestly, that depends on if I have baby Grace in the moby wrap cooking or not and if I remember or not. 

As I'm making my meal plan, I make a note of anything special happening in the month. Such as birthdays, dinners with grandma (that we know of, sometimes grandma surprises us), holidays, husband on vacation.. You get the idea.  This month we have Andrew turning 4, possibly a Passover dinner happening (not sure, we haven't decided but I think it will depend on the sales), the kids and I are going to my parents' so we have to have snacks for the trip and Dennis needs food for when we are gone (he can't cook, so needs stocked up on food). Basically, I try to plan on anything and get everything in one trip. It doesn't always happen, but I try. 

Before I check the ads, I will check my pantry stock spreadsheet and usually end up eliminating four or five items off my list because I already have them in the pantry. 

As of right now, I need to update the pantry list to what I have used lately with my list I keep on the counter and then I will be ready to look at the ads on Wednesday morning when they come out. 

Today we get to go for a walk and get food for lunch for the next three days because the kids and I were pigs this month and ate all our lunch food.. Since I REALLY don't want pancakes for breakfast and lunch for three days, we are going to spend over our budget and get probably some supplies for pizza, although homemade lunchables sounds good, too.  

I'm trying to figure out how to add a recipe link to the page so I can post recipes and pictures as I make them.  I'm not exactly knowledgeable about computers, so it takes me awhile to figure things out. But I'll get it. Even if my husband has to set up the page. I'll get it! LOL I'll post more in a couple days including links to the sale ads I use. 

Bulk Buying

                     40 pounds of Coconut Oil


We buy in bulk what we use all the time. The past few months we have bought (outside of the normal grocery trips) Himalayan Salt, vitamins and supplements, organic oats, organic raisins, organic seeds for the garden, laundry soap, organic garlic and the latest-40 pounds of coconut oil.

There are a staples I buy about once a year from Azure Standard. They are basically an organic online grocery store.  You can order whatever you want off their site if you are willing to meet the truck in Sioux Falls.  If you don't want to mess with that, or just want a little, you can pay attention to what you order and have it shipped UPS (there are notes in the item detail when it can't ship UPS).  Once a year I buy laundry soap (BioKleen), raisins, and garlic. Last year we also had diatomaceous earth which is fossilized remains of some sort of bug crushed up (technical terms LOL) that kills creepy crawlies. It will tear into the exoskeletons of the creepy crawlies making it so they can't breath. We have luck with it for flea and tick control with the animals, but we have so much left we didn't need more. It's also good for a detox drink (not tasty good, just useful)...if you do that, my husband says that guzzling is the only way. Next year I need to remember to buy more raisins because they taste SO GOOD.  I love their garlic and the smallest amount,  which gives me about 8 cloves-a six month supply in our house, is around $5. One of those will be sacrificed to grow my own. The oats and seeds were a new thing this year. We are loving the oats and the seeds have been planted and are growing near my window sill to be planted outside if it ever warms up.  You can check out Azure Standard at www.azurestandard.com 

When we stock up on vitamins and supplements we get prices from Vitacost then we start surfing the web to see if a different site has a cheaper price. I thought I had my list all ready for this order..but since we ordered we have ran out of 3 different supplements so far.  So we are taking what we have and those are back on the list for when somebody else has a sale.

The Himalayan salt was something new for us. In our quest to eat healthier we have found that salt IS good for you, as long as you eat the right kind. Himalayan salt has vitamins and other vital minerals that white table salt does not. And it's REALLY good. According to my 2 year old, it's also pretty. It's pink. But beware, it's strong, a little goes a long way. The first time I put some on my eggs I discovered this the hard way.

We started on coconut oil two years ago. We started off just here and there, mostly using it for dry skin and diaper rashes. Then, after my husband was reading posts online, I now do almost everything with it. Diaper rash cream, lotion, all natural antibiotic ointment, oil pulling, nipple ointment now that I'm nursing all the time again, ear infections, bloody noses... The kids eat it straight out of the container when they can get into it, it's like contraband candy to them.  I cook with it, season my cast iron pan with it. I'm sure I use it for much more, but that's all I can think of right now. There are many more uses for it and it's naturally antiviral and antibacterial. What we purchased is 40 pounds of machine pressed coconut oil.  It should last awhile. I'm guessing at the very least a year. It cost us $60 plus S&H from www.bulkapothecary.com.  To us, it's worth it. We started off with 5 gallons last fall sometime, when our bucket ran out we decided to get the big size. If you start with coconut oil, you might want to try both hand pressed and machine pressed. Hand pressed you will be able to taste coconut, which makes it great for a butter substitute on toast or just eating plain. The machine pressed you can't taste the coconut, which makes it great for cooking when you don't want that coconut flavor but need the oil. The only cooking I don't use coconut oil for is spaghetti and rice. Those two things just taste better with olive oil.  The oil will be solid in cold temperatures, mine actually froze when it was below zero for what seemed like a month straight, the bucket was against an outside wall. But it will melt at 76 degrees, so if you need it in a liquid or soft solid state, just put it by someplace warm.

One of the tricks I have discovered with bulk buying is to make a note of when you buy something, that way you know how long it lasts and know when you will need to buy it again so you can fit it in your budget.  I made a column for this in my pantry stock spreadsheet.

I have been buying more and more in bulk. It saves us money in the long run. It may seem like a lot to begin with, but it is better on the budget than continuously buying small amounts at a higher cost. You just have to remember the most important trick (in my mind) of buying in bulk, make sure you figure the cost per unit versus a a regular size.  Sometimes it LOOKS like a good price when it's really just the same if not more.

Preparing For the Next Grocery Trip

So we are at two weeks into the last trip. Like typical, we are running out of eggs and orange juice. And I'm out of flour, which means no pancakes, waffles, coffee cake, pizza and *GASP* cookies (or so my kids think)... Well, you get the idea. Normally I would the necessities at our local store, which costs more but a trip to the city for anything under $100 is just not worth the gas. However, I'm going to be in the city tomorrow anyway so planning on stopping at Sam's and getting eggs, orange juice and flour. We'll see about the flour. 

Usually about this time, I get a rough layout of a meal plan. I keep last month's meal plan so we don't eat the same food a lot. Except for spaghetti, we love spaghetti, it's cheap and usually gives us two meals out of it. I buy angel hair spaghetti, it seems to last longer. I would say we eat this staple at least 4 times a month. 

I have four main helps on my computer to help with the shopping trip:

1) A spreadsheet I have a calendar on.  On the columns I have heading of the days of the week along with the date separated into weeks. At the end of each week I make a list of what is needed for each meal. 

2) A spreadsheet to keep track of what I have in my cupboards. I keep a little notebook on my counter in the kitchen and write down every time I use something that way I don't buy something I already have.  I redo the inventory every three or four months just to make sure I have everything right. This spreadsheet has sections for each part of my kitchen: fridge, Freezer, meat, baking, pantry, canned goods, fresh produce, spices. 

3) A spreadsheet to keep price comparisons of the grocery store regular prices so I know when I get a good deal on a sale or not. This spreadsheet has different tabs (on the bottom) for each grocery store I go to. The bakery prices run pretty much the same-around $1.50 for each loaf of bread or package of buns, so if I find a sale cheaper than that, I pick up bread at that store. The columns on each tab are: item, price, amount in container and price per (oz, lb..whatever it comes in of the size I typically buy, if I need to get it down to smaller than the big container then I just do the math). 

4) A spreadsheet to keep track of sales I find. I don't get a paper in print, so I look at ads online. I know I could save some hassle if I would get ads because my favorite store (Fareway Foods) will price match if you have the paper ads. But something I have learned about Fareway is they price match anyway. When shopping there there are weeks you will see a few different sale tags, they either look at the ads or send somebody around because they will match if not go lower than the competitors.  They also are a full service grocery store-which means they walk out to your car with you and put your groceries in for you. Which means I can buckle kids while somebody else is putting groceries in. :D Usually I go to Sam's, then Fareway, then see if I even need the other three. This spreadsheet has sections for each grocery store, then column headings of 'item', 'size', 'price' and 'final price' for each grocery store. 

I would love to say that I don't have to cut things off my list, but usually I do. 

Things are easier now because my oven is fixed. We were without an oven for about 10 months. But now it's fixed and you have no idea how happy that makes me. I missed baking so much I went through 10 pounds of flour in two weeks. Which is good because that means we are eating more baked from scratch foods which is always cheaper and healthier because it doesn't have the preservatives. We still buy more ready-made products than I would like, but we are working on that. Slowly but surely. 

I almost always forget something-go figure-no matter how detailed I get. This time it was mayonnaise. We ran out and had to stop yesterday to eat hamburgers for lunch. Man alive has mayo got expensive! 

I have found the trick to shopping monthly, is planning..Lots and lots of planning. And a list. Don't forget your list. If you are a coupon user, then I write down beside the item on my list if I have a coupon. I don't do many because I have found buying store brand to be cheaper. There are a few items we want the name brand simply because of taste, so when I find a coupon for those, I get it. 

Some More Subjects To Discuss

My husband read my first post and suggested I do more than just shopping.  So as I get projects done, I will post pictures too. I have a lot of sewing projects to do, once I get material that is. In order to do those projects I have to figure out how to work a 1920s series Singer sewing machine. 
I'm going to try it out on nursing pads and patching holes in sheets until I get the hang of it, hopefully by then I will have material to make skirts. I plan on converting most of my jeans and capri-type pants into skirts. I have a pattern, so just need the material. 
I have also been crocheting. A lot. So those projects will get posted on here, too. Mostly coasters and pot holders, but have also been making Christmas tree ornaments that are cat and kid-safe. We have 3 under 4 and a one year old cat. We were driven crazy by cat and kids last year who were very curious about the tree. 
My biggest project this year is a vegetable garden. I'm just planning on onions, tomatoes, bell peppers and cucumbers outside. The onions, tomatoes and bell peppers are all preplanted and I have a good amount coming up of everything but the bell peppers. The cucumber package said to plant when the soil outside was ready. I do plan on doing a bigger garden, but I'm starting small and will add more plants each year. We have a lot of flower gardens around our century-old house and since I'm REALLY bad about gardening (great idea to start a vegetable garden, huh?), the beds need some major work. Anybody need some saplings? Since the kids love to be outside, I know I'll have plenty of time to work on the backyard. The front yard will have to wait until I get more help because we live on a busy road and it's not fenced in. 
We are also starting homeschooling this year, informally. Our son will be 4 in a few weeks, but he's ready to start learning how to write.  He is forming letters with cars and anything else he can think of, so it's time. If the two year old learns along with him, then it can't hurt. 
Well, that seems like all the projects I have planned for this year, I will share as I go along-with pictures of course. 

Opening Post

Hello everybody!

I am starting this blog to share mostly my grocery savings after I grocery shop, but also my meal plan, recipes and anything else that I think might help other moms. I'm a stay at home mom so we are a one income on a tight budget. We only grocery shop once a month.  We are trying to eat healthy but find it hard on our tight budget, so we do what we can. I keep reading blogs on this subject, but it seems everyone I find is from Ohio and those prices are a lot cheaper than here, and stores are different. 
My husband and I have three kids and my child from who is with us part time.  That gives us a 9 year old, a 4 year old, a 2 year old and a six week old. As any mom can imagine this makes a grocery shopping trip very interesting. We live in a small town and have to commute 45 minutes to get to Sioux Falls. I typically shop at Sunshine Foods, Fareway Foods, The Old Home Bakery, Hy-Vee and Sam's Club.  But that list also depends on the ads.  
I plan on sharing my grocery list with prices and sale prices, what I actually finish at-each store and total.  Also my meal plans (although it does vary through the month sometimes) and recipes.  
You can follow me on Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/twoodyhidalgo/ 
As soon as I figure out how to put the link on, I'll get it on there so you can pin.  

Tabitha