(Calculator - Dollar General - Note Paper, Michael's)
FULL CART!
Sorry if this is a bit long. I'm trying to be thorough! Hope this helps you out!! ;) Also, I am not being sponsored or perked by Save-A-Lot for my comments. I just plain love them! <3
This $146.38 (including tax) overfilled my cart to the point where I was pushing the cart
and carrying things in my arms up to the checkout.!
- HAVE A BUDGET!! I know you hear this over and over again, but if you don't have a MONTHLY household budget, your honestly peeing up a rope. Sorry if that's a bit crude, but it's the truth. You need to keep a tight check on how much comes in and how much goes out. Aaron handles all the finances for us. Some women cringe when they hear me say that, but Aaron has the head for figures and I just don't. I do my best not to buy even a stick of gum unless I run it by him. He handles the money, I don't, plain and simple. He gets paid twice a month with the 2nd of the payments being the larger. Usually the day he gets that 2nd check is the day we go shopping. Our budget is set and does not fluctuate per month.
- IT'S ALL ABOUT WHERE YOU SHOP!!! Kroger? WalMart? Aldi? IGA? Houchens? Food Lion? Let's face it, everywhere you turn there are grocery stores. Some advertise the best prices around. Some suck you in with promises of LOW LOW prices, and then jack the price up 10% at checkout. If you are a coupon queen, you will clip coupons for hours and hours, then drive 45 minutes to the nearest store that accepts your coupons. Did you really save money? Gas for your car is expensive. If you saved $50 on your groceries then turned right around and spent that on gas to fill up your SUV or Mini Van, you're not saving money, in my opinion. I don't look at saving money in one area, I look at saving money as a whole. We live in a small KY town that has 2 local grocery stores. 1 has all the name brand items you could want. We attempted shopping there a few times in the early goings of our current budget. We hardly had anything when we left. By the end of the weekend all the groceries we'd bought were gone. So now, we shop at our local Save-A-Lot. If you are from the south your will recognize that name. Save-A-Lot has gotten a bad rap by some people. They say the food is all expired, it's not good, it all tastes funny. Ok, let me clear this up right now. 1)The food is NOT expired. Period. I've never purchased a stale or rotten item there, and I've been shopping there for YEARS. 2) It's GREAT food. If it's not good when you cook it, maybe it's the cooks fault and not the food itself. Sorry, I calls it like I sees it. 3) Save-A-Lot is a DISCOUNT grocery store. They have LOW prices everyday! They don't carry name brand items (mostly) and that's why they keep their prices so low. It's like going to TJ Maxx. You would go there to buy a Michael Kors purse wouldn't you? What if I told you that Michael Kors purse was a fake and it was bad and ugly? It's a legitimate MK purse, right? It's a 2nd, an overstock, a leftover. Same thing with Save-A-Lot. Everything there is made on the same factory lines as what you buy at Kroger. It's no different than going to Kroger and buying Kroger brand or WalMart and buying Great Value Brand. So wipe your fears away about Save-A-Lot. My advice here, people, is find a grocery store that has SUPER low prices, and don't waste your time clipping coupons unless you are into bulk shopping. My hats off to you if you are an extreme couponer. SHOP LOCALLY, IF YOU CAN and save that extra $$.
- TAKE A CALCULATOR AND LOG EVERY ITEM AS YOU GO!! So, I just told you I shop at Save-A-Lot. Sometimes it feels weird, honestly, pulling up in my new SUV with my Vera Bradley purse and my iPhone, and parking next to a car that's front door is held on with Duct Tape. Not to brag about anything I have, I'm just saying you get a wide variety of people at that type of store. What is even weirder is when I pull a $0.99 calculator out of my Vera Bradley purse and start to shop. I got that Vera Bradley and that iPhone by strict budgeting and saving. EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS. I don't care if it's a $0.49 can of green beans or a $13 roll of hamburger meat, I log it in. This is time consuming, but it keeps me from having a panic attack at the register! They will often times have "save more" sales. 2 for $5.00 and so on. Take advantage of it. I buy at least 2 of everything. And those 2 for $5 sales are WONDERFUL! I got 4 frozen pizzas for $10.00 yesterday!
- TAKE YOUR TIME!! It isn't a foot race.Grocery shopping is time consuming, especially when your price logging. Don't "run in" to the store. Whether your shopping alone or with your husband. We did a last minute "run in" a few months ago and didn't take the calculator. We basically grabbed everything in sight because they were literally shutting the lights off behind us. Thank God for small towns, they waited for us to finish, helped us to the car, and then locked the door behind us. When we got to Checkout our bill was $279.00, twice our normal budget. Aaron was furious and I was just plain old sick. Talk about tightening our belts that month! So always go to the store when you have plenty of time. I know it isn't the most fun thing to do on your day off, but that is an ideal time to go. Mosey up and down the isles. Really decide on what you want. You'll be so happy you did in the end.
- PLAN AHEAD!! Most of us know at least a day in advance before we need to go to the grocery store. Get up early the day of. Clean out your fridge. I always clean out any forgotten leftovers, or things of that sort, and then wipe my fridge down with an antibacterial cleaner. Clorox wipes are great for this too! Then I clean out my snack cabinet and throw away anything that needs to go. And then I go inventory in my pantry. More on my "pantry" later. I make a list of things that I need to restock in each location, whether it's cans of green beans, boxes of cereal, popcorn or milk. I tend to make my list according to the isles in the store. I have a photographic memory and I literally walk the store in my head when I'm making my list. It's a little scary. ;) Then I get myself ready and off I go. Don't stress yourself out. It's food. Not brain surgery.
- BUY OFF BRANDS AND STORE BRANDS!! Save-A-Lot, and places like it, offer a good variety of foods. Just because a bottle of Ranch Dressing is $1.89 doesn't mean it's the best deal on Ranch Dressing that they have. Save-A-Lot also has their own brand, the "TODAY" brand. Like the above mentioned Michael Kors purse from TJ Maxx, the $1.89 ranch is the overstock for a larger brand name. The TODAY brand is the overstock from the off brand. Same exact product, just the little extra left over. Am I making sense? So instead of buying the $1.89 Ranch, I get the TODAY brand ranch that is $0.99. Same amount of product, same ranch dressing we all know and love. $0.99. 'Nuff said. Honestly, you may find that you like the off brand better than the store brand, that's fine, be sure it is allowed in your budget. There is a $0.09 difference between the two, and while that may not sound like a huge deal, when you are budgeting as tightly as we are, $0.09 might as well be $9.00! S-A-L has a "Velveeta" off brand called "MARVELLA." It's the exact same product for way less. $2.49 for a pack of single slices, when the Velveeta brand is twice that much. They also offer the big blocks of "Velveeta/Marvella" for making nachos etc for a steeply discounted price. I'm a Cheerio's girl...ok. No other brand will do. I don't do off brand Cheerios. I gladly pay $3.99 for a box of true blue Cheerios. Sometimes there is just no substitute.
- MEAT SALES!! The GREAT thing about Save-A-Lot is there PICK 5 MEAT program. You can choose between 5 for $19.99 (red sticker) or 5 for $24.99 (yellow sticker). It's like their meat is on sale ALL THE TIME. I've been getting my meats there for years and haven't come across a bad selection. They have it all. Roast, ribs, chicken, pork chops, boneless pork chops, chuck, steak...it's a very well stocked section. BUT not all their meat is in the PICK 5 category. You have to be sure you look as to whether they have the red or yellow sticker on to be sure. Sometimes I'll splurge and buy the $13.00 hamburger roll. It's a 5 pound roll of hamburger. When I bring it home I slice it into 5 equal pieces, which equal up to a pound each, wrap them in glad wrap and a zip-lock baggie and off to the freezer they go! It's a great way to save $$! Hamburger meat for every occasion!
- BUY A 12 PACK INSTEAD OF A 24 PACK! Some people are very picky about their "cokes." You've heard the joke that in the South a "coke," is any dark soda. Coke a Cola, Pepsi, RC, Dr. Pepper, it is all considered a "coke" below the Mason-Dixon Line. In our house, we drink RC and RC Products....mostly because they're cheap, and very Southern ;) I try to keep a close watch on how often Aaron and I drink a "coke." If I buy him a 24 pack of RC he will drink them all in a week. Can't have that happen. So I buy the 12 pack and whether he realizes it or not, he makes a greater effort to watch how many "cokes" he drinks. Plus, there is nearly a Dollar and a Half difference in a 12 and a 24 pack.
I hope you got some tips out of this. Like I said in the beginning, it may not work for you. But it works for US. The point here is MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU! Find a system that works for you and stick with it. I've learned that "flying by the seat of your pants" when trying to run a household just.doesn't.work. You have to put a little thought, effort, and planning into nearly everything to make it work.
Happy Shopping! Have a great day!
Missy
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