Frugal Grocery Trips

This post is for my loving husband who doesn't always appreciate my efforts at living healthier and more frugally.  While I'm always striving for the best food value for my family, that doesn't always mean buying the cheapest product at the store.  I will sometimes pay a premium for items that don't have certain additives and preservatives I'm cautious about.  I do other frugal things to offset that, like doing lots of home cooking from scratch.  I've tried growing some of our own food in a small garden, supporting local farm markets and buying as much organic food as possible.  I cook at home 95% of the time, and we often take along our own sandwiches and snacks for outings.  I never buy sodas for our family and we try to keep processed foods to a minimum.  I've even canned some free fruit that was given to me.  That's pretty frugal, along with trying to be healthy.  If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that while I appreciate couponing and price matching to a point, I'm not an extreme couponer.

Just to assure my loving husband that I can use coupons, I will post today about my latest visit to the grocery store, where I purchased $89.29 worth of groceries for only $7.29.  Add the tax and that means I only had to pay $14.73.  This purchase included some fresh fruits and vegetables, oatmeal for breakfasts and recipes, free-range eggs, organic milk, all-natural ice cream that was marked down to its typically lowest price and can be saved for months in the freezer, a few extras for school snacks, dish soap, foil, and a better brand of lean ground beef that was on Manager's Special.  It was 39 total items for $7.29, which is less than 19-cents per item before tax.  I had a couple of manufacturer's coupons for items, but the big "coupon" was a voucher that we get via a store loyalty program every few months because we use that store's credit card.  (We never carry a balance so we never pay interest.)

In addition to this loyalty program, I regularly get coupons for 5- 10- or more dollars off my total bill at another store as a reward for curbside recycling.  I like this kind of coupon best because it doesn't require me to purchase brands or items that I wouldn't otherwise want.  I'll spend a minimal amount of time looking for other coupons, especially at the websites of brands I already like.

So there, loving husband, I used some coupons this week.  Oh, and last week I used similar loyalty "coupons" to get $50 in completely free groceries, walking out without paying a penny and actually getting some cash back.  But I won't go into detail about that because I don't want to brag.