Grocery Shopping Planning

Now that I am a stay at home mom, money has to be dealt with completely different.  My husband is salary where he works and only gets paid once a month.  So, that is our money for the whole month.  So, now .. grocery shopping takes a lot more planning.  Instead of buying for a week or two, we are buying groceries for the entire month.

April was the first month we did this.  I printed out an April calendar and started writing on each day what we would be eating.  I didn't care if we stuck to it specifically on the exact days, but it gave me an idea of what we were going to be eating.  Then, I made a list of what we needed to buy at the grocery store for every meal.  We went to Walmart for the majority of our shopping.  We also made a trip to Meijer to get a few things they had on sale.  I know Walmart price matches, but certain sales, they do not.  The sales we wanted, they do not price match.  Between the two trips, we spent $250.  In our trip to Meijer though, we ended up buying diapers (Meijer brand that was on clearance) and a baby monitor (also on clearance).  So, that wasn't strictly groceries. Now, we had a few items that we didn't buy and a few items that I missed getting on the list.  Overall though, we have maybe spent an extra $25 on things we didn't get in those 2 trips.  I'm very happy with $250-$275 for a month's worth of groceries though for our family of 5!

Making a list of meals and supplies has helped us lower our grocery bill a ton.  We are not buying things that we don't end up using.  We made sure to check for sales on the items we needed and got the sale price by matching at Walmart.

Now, that I am starting to use coupons more though, I will probably not be shopping quite as often at Walmart.  They accept the coupons, sure, but other stores double them.  Walmart does not.  Too bad since Walmart is so close to my house though!!  I probably should figure gas prices in to see if it is really worth driving somewhere else to shop lol.

Free Blockbuster Kiosk Code 4/22 and 4/23

If you use one of the Blockbuster kiosks, you can get a free rental by entering the code THANKYOU.  You still have to return them by 9pm the next day to avoid being charged the $1 rental fee.

I know in Lafayette, the kiosks are at some Speedway gas stations (on 231 and Teal Rd, I believe).  You can find the locations at http://www.blockbusterexpress.com/find-kiosk/

Deal Websites

Along with starting to clip coupons, I get loads of emails from different websites about their daily deal.  I never had any idea there were so many.  I also never realized that department stores also had a deal of the day on their sites too.

Now, DailySteals.com, we have ordered from and haven't been overly happy with the items we received.  We ordered a Pillow Pet (though, not named that) for Emma for Xmas.  When we got it, it was very small.  Luckily, she is little herself and she didn't care at all.  She was just happy to have a ladybug pillow.  We also ordered a rechargeable WII remote batteries and docking station.  We got an excellent deal on these.  $4.99.  Problem is, one quit working within the first couple of days.

Now, Woot.com .. we have been happier with.  We got a great deal on a car seat for Kaitlin.  We have also ordered some of their rather amusing t-shirts they have lol.  "It's a trap!"

Some other sites I visit to check out their deals:

kidsteals.com
babysteals.com
target.com (they have usually about 5 daily deals and weekly deals also)
walmart.com
meijer.com
toysrus.com

Are there any sites you like to check out for things like this?

Couponing .. is that a word?

I'm very new to the coupon world.  It's become sort of a game to see what kind of good coupons I can get though.  With the recent decision for me to stay home with the kids, rather than work .. we need to cut corners where we can.

Dan and I watched Extreme Couponing the other night.  We actually got a fairly good laugh out of the guy we were watching.  I am all for getting stuff free, but who needs 150 years worth of deodorant??!!  After saying he has that much, we watched him buy more!  Umm.. can we say donation???  Can we say care packages for the troops?  I mean, come on!  Then, we also saw him buy 1100 boxes of Total cereal.  At least he did say most of that was going to his local soup kitchen!

I can't ever see me going to the store with a trailer to bring it all home!  lol  But, I am enjoying looking for great deals.