Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Grocery store bargains

A few months ago, I was introduced to Five Dollar Dinners. I'd like to say I'm good at saving money at the grocery store, but wow! I'm always so impressed at what Erin comes up with for only five dollars!

Each week, she posts about her grocery shopping trip and takes a picture of everything she bought and explains how much she spent. I'm always so intrigued by this, especially because she uses the same grocery store chain that I do. While we don't live in the same area, a lot of the sale prices are the same, so I like to get tips from her when I can! :)

I thought I would post about some of the great deals I found during our shopping trip today. I was quite excited about a few of them! Hey, everybody needs a hobby! This is mine.

Stop laughing.


Bought today at Kroger:
  • Two loaves Healthy Life bread, on sale for $1.39/loaf, plus $0.35 off coupons, which doubles to $0.70 off (two coupons means I bought two loaves of bread) = $0.69/loaf of bread
  • Bisquick pancake mix, regular price of $3.59, with $0.60 off Shortcuts e-coupon, plus $0.50 off coupon, which doubles to $1 off = $1.99 for the box (40 oz.)
  • Dole salad mix, on sale for $1 {with what I assumed was a $0.75 off e-coupon, but apparently was for a different flavor... maybe? Going to have to look into this...} = $1/bag of salad... FAIL. Thought it was $0.25!
  • Yoplait Greek yogurt cups, on sale for $1, plus $0.45 off coupon, which doubles to $0.90 off = $0.10/yogurt cup!!
  • Two packages of hummus, on sale for $1 each (regular price is 3.99!)
  • Dawn dish soap, marked down to $1.39?!?, plus $0.50 off coupon, which doubles to $1 off = $0.39 dish soap!
  • No Sugar Added Del Monte fruit cups, marked down to $1.39, plus $0.75 off coupon = $0.64 (This is the kind of thing I won't usually buy because individual packages are almost always more expensive... but for sixty-four cents, it'll be handy to grab and go!)

The last item pictured is this trail mix from the produce section. I never EVER buy these unless I have a coupon, but I love me some trail mix! It ended up being on sale for $3.99 (regular price is $4.49) and I had a store coupon for $0.75 off, making this good and healthy snack $3.24. Not too shabby, considering how spendy these "specialty" mixes typically are!


Last but not least of my good deals today -- two whole chickens for $0.98/pound. Every once in a while, I like to make a roast chicken in the crock pot. It's so moist and delicious, but I absolutely DETEST the clean-up! However, when I wanted to make a roast chicken a few weeks ago (and use up some of my produce drawer for flavorings), I bit the bullet. I threw some things together and was very pleased with the honey citrus chicken that resulted. I was not pleased, however, when I got home from the store and realized the bag was leaking chicken juices all over my kitchen. Yuck! So, it went straight into the crock pot for dinner the following night. Because it wasn't done cooking until it was time for me to go to bed, I just stuck it in the fridge overnight and sliced it up the following day. I could not believe how much easier it was slicing the bird COLD rather than freshly cooked! I feel like I always waste so much meat when I'm trimming it off while still warm... like it's hard to tell what's good meat and what's yucky parts. By letting it sit in the fridge overnight, I could get entire chicken breasts and tenderloins off whole, and just sliced them up from there. So easy! I also felt like I got a TON more meat off of it than usual. It was enough for dinner for three PLUS a small Pyrex dish full of leftovers that were frozen (which are going to be chicken enchiladas tonight... yum!). So I'm going to try that method again and just freeze the meat in bags this time. I'll just pull a bag out as I need it.

TWO CORRECTIONS:
  1. The price for the whole chickens was $0.88/lb., not $0.98. Even better!
  2. After posting, I filled out a dispute form at Shortcuts about the coupon that wasn't applied to my bill today, and I already received a response. They've credited my account with $0.80 (five cents higher than the value of the unused coupon), which will be applied to my next grocery bill. Woo!

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