I’m going to detail our spending for the month of October… it is my hope that we get our grocery spending down to $150 for October for our family of 6.

It’s a lesson in “journaling” our spending… reducing our grocery budget and overall responsibility with our finances.

Starting October 1st I will post a snippet every single day describing any spending we did in the previous day and why, what for, etc.  I’ll maintain a detail for you as well.  You can also check out the “grocery challenge” link above for the breakdown.

Although this trip isn’t as impressive as some others, it’s still great!  The Progresso soups came out to 30c each (regular price around $2.50+) and the rolls were 79c each (regular price $2.99+).

How did I do it??  Albertson’s had the soups on sale $1 each.  I had coupons for $1.10 off 3, plus the Albertson’s doublers.  Bought 12  cans of soup, had 6 coupons and 6 doublers.  The rolls were on sale for $2.79 and I had $1.00 off coupons, plus the Albertson’s doublers.  Bought 4 packages, had 4 coupons and 4 doublers.

Now, if you know Albertson’s, you know you can only use 3 doublers per transaction so I had to ring up 3 different transactions, which is no big deal for me!

$6.76 plus 92c tax = $7.68 oop

Edited to add, this is even more impressive when I back out the sales tax (yes, unfortunately I’m in Idaho and there is sales tax).  The truth here is that I was paid $2.01 to buy all of this food. I was paid money to buy food - how cool is that?!

I found a great deal!!

I went into Safeway to take advantage of a “Joint Juice” deal that is currently running…. No we don’t drink Joint Joice, however, it’s free and hubby takes glucosamine when he’s working out so we are willing to try it … read on.

Thanks to Krazy Coupon Lady, I found out about this great deal… First of all, I obtained 4 BOGO coupons.  I went into Safeway, bought 8 joint juices for $1.49 each which ended up costing me oop (out of pocket) $6.68… however, I received a $10 oyno catalina AND a coupon for $5 off 7 joint juices… well, let’s repeat this process only this time, using the $10 as cash.  So….

I got 7 joint juices at $1.49 each, used my $5 off coupon, added 5 aquafresh toothpastes (on sale for 88c/ea) and paid out of pocket 72c.

The Safeway store was now out of Joint Juice.  Since there is another Safeway store just a couple of miles away and in my driving circle today (in other words, I didn’t go out of my way to do this), I decided to take my 2nd $5 off coupon and $10 oyno catalina and see if that store had any in stock.

SCORE!

I decided to roll this one.. unfortunately this store only had enough for me to make 2 purchases, so that is what I did.

My first purchase I bought 7 Joint Juice’s at $1.49 each (plus a $5 off coupon) and 6 pop tarts at $1.49 each (plus (3) $1.00/2 coupons) for total cost oop of $3.59 (I had to buy 5 pop tarts to get the $1.49 price and my coupons were for 2 so I ended up having to buy 6, which is why my oop was higher than it could have been had the store had enough toothpaste in stock!!).  Remember, I got another $5 off coupon and $10 oyno so I used it again:

My second purchase I bought 7 Joint Juice’s at $1.49 each (plus a $5 off coupon) and 5 aquafresh toothpastes (on sale for 88c/ea) and paid out of pocket 72c.

And, I still have another $5 coupon AND another $10 oyno.

My total oop was $11.71 but I also have the $10 oyno so my actual cost was $1.71.  Not bad!  Sales tax edit:  $7.99 oop before tax.

I’ll be stopping by Safeway the next few mornings so I can continue to roll this catalina and make $4 every time I buy Joint Juice!  Hopefully tomorrow’s sale flyers will actually have some great sales at Safeway so I can get some awesome deals.

4 boxes of crackers

4 packages of cookies

2 boxes of cinnabon bars

1 hotwheel

Had to throw the hotwheel in just cause I had a $1 left to “spend” from my freebie stuff!  How did I do it???

Albertson’s is running the following deals this week:  If you purchase 10 boxes of select Kelloggs or Keebler items, you’ll get each item for $1.50.  I then had coupons for every single item above, mostly $1 off 1 item, PLUS, Albertson’s was so kind as to offer “twice the value” coupons in last weeks advertising mailer… I was allowed to use 3 of these in 1 transaction.  This meant that I spent $15.00 (10 things at $1.50/ea) and I had $11.00 in coupons.  So $4… however, I also had a $5 “catalina” received from another purchase last week (same as cash) and used this to pay for this purchase… which was why I needed to add something so that I could utilize the full $5.00 catalina.

This is what couponing is all about… getting all of these items for 25c and feeding my family on pennies.

(yes, I’m in the middle of painting my kitchen which is why there are no face plates on!!)

I love having a full pantry, especially when I’ve found things for phenomenal prices (such as free or almost free!!).  Anyway, having a full pantry enables us to help others when they are in need.

I’ve been going through my pantry and freezer today pulling out “meals” in order to help friends of ours going through a tough financial situation right now.

While I’m working towards a monthly grocery budget of $300 for our family of 6, I’m still able to pull from our pantry and give to those in need.

Financial responsibility gives us so many opportunities, thank you!

Years ago I used to do this every week… however hubby and I changed our food consumption to literally only meat, fresh veggies and limited fresh fruits. We pretty much ate nothing else. Not too many coupons available for those limited items so I quit even bothering to look for coupons, although I’d watch for meat sales.

However, we are now a family of 6 with 4 boys that have ginormous appetites and they are only getting bigger. So, our diets have changed and for now, that’s going to have to be ok. Our diets will be dictated by our budget. Our “healthy” eating will simply be that we do not eat at fast food places or restaurants. We will have some version of protein at every meal and it will be very plentiful.

Anyway, the first trip this week was to Albertsons… I used their circular and coupons that I found on coupons.com. I spent a total of $64.00 and this is what I came home with:

• 20 dozen eggs
• 4 boxes general mills cereal
• 2 gallons whole milke
• 1 loaf white bread
• 5 half gallons of minute maid brand limeade/lemonade
• 10lbs chicken thighs
• 8 lbs cheddar cheese
• 2 one and a half quarts breyer’s ice cream

This is just one trip and not everything we need for the week, nor is it things we always eat each week.  Because of the coupons and discounts, I was able to take advantage of a few things we don’t normally eat such as cereal, the drinks and the breyer’s ice cream.

As I said I am not concerned about organic or “perceived” healthy foods (ie: low fat, lean meats, etc.)  I am concerned about getting as much “balanced” food for my family as possible, with the lowest price possible.  In fact, our current grocery budget is $500/month but my goal is to get our grocery spending down to $300/month on average.