Weekly Grocery Shopping (9/2 - 9/8)

I've decided to try and lower my weekly grocery budget to $45 (originally $50). $5 a week may not seem like a big deal, but its 10% of what I've been spending! I'm doing this mainly because I think I can. I've been successfully adhering to the $50 goal for many months, and have achieved a substantial stockpile. I feel I'm at a point where I should scale back a little and focus more on maintaining the stockpile than building it up. While I expect this will be a bit of a challenge at first, I think that within a few weeks I'll get used to it and not even notice the difference. I like pushing myself to improve.

This week I did pretty good. I would have made the $45 target except I had a few problems with coupons at Albertsons (more on that below). But I have to admit the main reason for my success is there just weren't that many great deals to tempt me :)

Oh, and in case you're wondering why I'm always buying so many darn hot dogs, Ninja Hubz uses a lot them for dog training treats (he eats them a lot for lunch and snacks too).

Ralph's
As I've mentioned before, Ninja Hubz is a soda junkie, so no matter how much I already have, if a good deal comes around I grab it! Labor Day is a good time for soda sales

4x Coke 12-packs @1.99 (in ad coupon) = 7.96
Tortilla chips 2.50 - 1.00 MFC = 1.50
2x Hefty freezer bags 1.00 ea - $.55/2 MFC (doubled to 1.00) = 1.00
Barilla Piccolini pasta 1.50 - .50 MFC (doubled to 1.00) = .50
Barilla whole wheat pasta 1.50 - .50 MFC (doubled to 1.00) = .50
2x Lawry's Taco Seasoning .69 ea - $.50/2 (doubled to 1.00) = .38
2x Dannon Activia Yogurt 1.88 ea - 2x $1/1 MFC = 1.76
Milk = 1.49
Bounty Paper towels 1.00 - .25 MFC (tripled to .75) = .25
2x Ball Park hot dogs .88 ea - $1/2 MFC = .76
Radishes = .50
Lettuce = 1.69
Corn = .50
Cucumber = .79
Snickers Bar .89 - Free MFC coupon = FREE
 
Total = 23.44

Albertsons
Albertsons is not what I consider to be one of my "regular" stores, but periodically they have some good loss-leaders or other promotions so I always check the ads and will make a trip if the deals are good enough. Its not a bad store, and the employees are always very courteous, but for whatever reason I tend to have a lot of problems getting deals to work right there. Since I have several other stores nearby where I don't seem to ever have problems, life is just easier if I don't go to Albertsons.

But I got suckered in this week by their Labor Day "In-Ad" coupons, so went there instead of Vons (since the Vons ad didn't impress me a great deal). Anyway, turns out that many of the "In-Ad" coupons were actually Manufacturer's coupons (which I didn't realize because they didn't SAY "Manufacturer's Coupon" like they should have), so they wouldn't let me stack them with my regular coupons. This meant several of the things I thought I was getting good deals on really weren't good deals at all. I should have told the cashier to take those items off my order but I just wasn't thinking. D'oh. Oh well, I will write this off as a learning experience and try to get on with my life :)

 
4x Coke 12-packs @2.25 ea (In-Ad coupon which was NOT a manufacturer's coupon) - $2/3 MFC = 7.00
2x Oscar Meyer hot dogs @.99 ea (In-Ad coupon which WAS a manufacturer's coupon so didn't stack with my $1/2 MFC) = 1.98
2x Ritz crackers @1.99 ea (In-Ad coupon which WAS a manufacturer's coupon) = 3.98
Ritz crackerfuls = 3.89 (Cashier would not let me use coupon for "Buy 1 Ritz get Crackerfuls free" because of the Ritz in-ad coupon I used, which now that I think about it doesn't make sense at all)
2x Jennie-O Turkey franks @1.00 ea - 2x .55/2 MFC = .90
Bananas = 1.81
Snickers .89 - Free MFC (up to .85) = .04
 
Total = 23.00
 
Weekly Total = 46.44

So I'm 1.44 over my new weekly goal, and I'm swimming in Coke and hot dogs. I think I'm going to go enjoy some full-priced crackers, which had better be very very good :)

Check out more great shopping trips at
The Grocery Cart Challenge
Super Savngs Saturday