Super Savings Saturday

As you may recall, our goal for this month was to only spend $75 on groceries, to only buy dairy and produce, and to eat from the pantry.

January is almost over and we made–well, almost!

We went shopping for the third time this month yesterday and spent $23.63 on groceries bringing our total for the month to just shy of $75. And we have plenty on hand to finish out the month so, unless some major catastrophe happens, we should finish out the month hitting our goal.

I did buy contact solution and trash bags this week, so I didn't completely meet the goal of only buying dairy and produce. But I'm happy with how it all went nonetheless–flopped pizza and all!

Here's what we bought:

3 pounds of organic Braeburn apples
Dannon vanilla yogurt
2 bags of frozen mixed stirfry vegetables
International Delight Creamer (used free coupon)
contact solution
1 gallon milk
Cheddar cheese
1 dozen eggs
Trash bags
1 bag mixed organic apples
2 bunches reduced organic bananas (will freeze most of these for using in banana bread)
2 Happy Baby organic brown rice cereal (used free coupons)
4 Happy Baby organic snacks (used free coupons)

Total: $23.63

Stay tuned for Monday's post with our last Eat From the Pantry Menu. We also have another Freezer Cooking Day in the works for the first week in February. More details will be coming on that shortly.

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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways?
If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link
below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you
personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order
to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in
their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content
other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to
make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your
link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.

{ 23 comments }

Well, we survived another week of Eating From the Pantry. We only made one quick trip to the store and purchased the following:

A bag of grapefruit
A bag of oranges
A gallon of milk
A 16-oz. block of Cheddar cheese
Organic lettuce
4 packages of frozen veggies

Our total was a little less than $25–which is all we've spent on groceries this month and it's halfway over. I think we're going to make our goal of only spending $75 total on groceries this month.

Except, we are definitely going to have to buy eggs. Because I came out to the kitchen earlier this week to discover this:

I'm not exactly sure what that was all about but I do know that it involved two little girls who were apparently trying to "help" by concocting something in the kitchen.

And I couldn't help but be a little cracked up about it. (Yes, I know, I just had to throw that in there!)

I'm glad my girls are eager to learn how to make things… now I just need to teach them to learn how to clean up after they cook and we'll be all set.

Ahem.

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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.

{ 21 comments }

After a four-week-long hiatus, Super Savings Saturday is back! Only I have nothing to report on the shopping front because I didn’t go shopping this week.

I was planning to go in the middle of the week, since we’d been gone for almost a week, but I challenged myself to make the milk and produce stretch until Saturday–and it did! We didn’t eat the most varied meals ever, but we didn’t go hungry by any means.

(But lest you think I was really being heroic for skipping shopping this week, I confess that I had a rather selfish motivation: I was trying to avoid having to take three children out into the bitter, bitter cold we’ve been experiencing here to go shopping!)

We’re stopping by Aldi later today to snag some of their produce deals and also to pick up some milk and cheese. I’m hoping to spend about $25 total and make that last for another week and a half. The rest of the food will come from our pantry.

I have to tell you all that I really appreciate the encouragement you’ve been for me in the Eat From The Pantry Challenge. Your blog, Facebook, and Twitter updates have kept me going this week when I really wanted nothing more but to pick up carryout. It was just one of those kinds of weeks and had I not had your inspiration, I am pretty sure I would have given in to the temptation.

So thank you. It was a good exercise in self-discipline for me–something which I feel like I’ve not been as good at recently.

I had planned to write a detailed update this week on what we were eating and how we were pulling off the Pantry Challenge. But it just didn’t happen. The children have been cranky and fighting colds, Silas has been teething, and I have just been plain tired and uninspired, so blogging has gotten shoved to the bottom of the pile.

Here’s to hoping for warmer weather, cheerful children, and a little uninterrupted sleep this next week. And look for an Eat From The Pantry update and link-up here bright and early on Monday morning.

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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways?
If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link
below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you
personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order
to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in
their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content
other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to
make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your
link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.

{ 22 comments }

I spent $11 total out-of-pocket at the health food store and Walmart this week–and I got a lot of great deals and yummy food! But alas, I didn’t get a picture because I was so busy the day I went shopping that taking a picture was the last thing on my mind.

So just imagine a mountain of healthy foods on a table–most of which were significantly marked down at the health food store. I also price-matched some deals at Walmart (like $0.18/lb bananas!) since I already had to make a trip there. All in all, it was a great shopping week–despite the fact that I didn’t get a picture!

I don’t know about you, but bargain shopping is going to be on the back burner around here for the next few weeks. My freezers are brimming full and my cupboards and pantry are packed. So I’m planning to just lay low in the grocery shopping department until January and in favor of spending lots of relaxing and fun times with family and friends.

Don’t worry, I’ll still be posting here over the next few weeks (just likely in a lighter fashion!), but we’re going to take a break from Super Savings Saturday until January 10, 2010. I hope you can join me in mostly setting aside your coupons and just enjoying time with family and friends!

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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways?
If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link
below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you
personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order
to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in
their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content
other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to
make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your
link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.

{ 12 comments }

Whew! It's been a big week here with the Freezer Cooking Day and yesterday's Giveaway Day! Thank you everyone for playing along!

I only made one quick shopping trip in preparation for the Freezer Cooking Day. You can read more about it here.

And then I stocked up our freezer on Wednesday with all sorts of goodies. Read more about that here.

We should be well set as far as meals go through January. And with all the extra events and dinners that December often holds, it's possible our freezer meals might actually last through near the end of January.

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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways?
If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link
below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you
personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order
to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in
their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content
other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to
make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your
link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.

{ 2 comments }

So I didn't get out early yesterday morning to hit the Black Friday shopping frenzy. But I did go out in the afternoon for the Double Dollar Coupon Event at our local grocery store. And as I suspected, the store was pretty empty and the shelves were full!

Here's what I came home with:

Before coupons and sales, my total was about $150. After coupons? I paid $47.36 plus I got $2 in catalinas back!

I was especially excited to get over 10 pounds of really beautiful-looking apples for less than $7 total! And I also was able to snag free toilet paper after coupons–something I've not been able to do in quite some time!

I'll be using some of this stuff for next week's Freezer Cooking Day. Some of it is for re-stocking our household supplies closet, and some of it, I'll be giving away or freezing to use for Christmas gifts and get-togethers.

I also purchased about 25 pounds of sweet potatoes this week because they were on sale for $0.25 per pound at Walmart. I spent an afternoon peeling and boiling and mashing these for Sweet Potato Casserole for our Thanksgiving gatherings and froze the rest to use as a side dish with dinners over the next few weeks.

I'll be posting my Freezer Cooking Day plan and next week's menu on Monday. Stay tuned for that!

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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways?
If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link
below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you
personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order
to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in
their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content
other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to
make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your
link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.

{ 7 comments }

This week I made a quick trip to the health food store and to Dillon’s and purchased the above-pictured items, many of which were mark-downs.

After coupons, we spent $34.97 for everything shown and we’re well-stocked up on frozen veggies for a few weeks!

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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways?
If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link
below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you
personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order
to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in
their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content
other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to
make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your
link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.

{ 11 comments }

Have you noticed a dearth of substantive posts here this week? I sure have especially since I had a long list of posts planned to write–like our menu for this week, the next installment in the Becoming A Work-At-Home Mom series, some giveaways, and our financial update.

I got my wisdom teeth pulled on Wednesday morning and while it wasn't at all as bad as I was expecting the whole ordeal to be, I underestimated the fact that pain would take away my brain power. I don't know about you, but I can't write anything worth reading when I'm brain-dead.

The good news is that I'm feeling much better today and hoping in a few more days I'll be back to normal (and maybe able to eat something besides soft foods again!) so I'll do my best to get things caught back up-to-speed here next week as I know some of you are getting a wee bit antsy for me to get on with the promised posts. Thanks for your patience!

I did all my grocery shopping on Tuesday and here's what we bought:

Above is shown our $20 combined Target and Aldi trip. Read more details along with price break-downs and coupon links here.

And above is our Dillon's (Kroger) trip. I mostly just wanted to do a Mega Event transaction but I also found a few markdowns and used one of my $1.50/2 lbs. of cheese coupons to buy cheese. All totaled, we spent $12.61 at Dillons for the above groceries.

I'm kind of embarrassed to post these pictures as most everything is from a box this week and that's not typical for us. However, I promise we didn't subsist on baby wipes and marshmallows this week!

Since I was down and out half of this week, my family lived on dinners from the freezer and food already in our pantry and cupboards–which is the beauty of buying ahead and buying in bulk.

And me? Well, I mostly have been living on juice, mashed potatoes, yogurt, and cottage cheese–not the most balanced diet ever, but you gotta do what you gotta do when you have oral surgery. It's only been a few days but I am so very ready to eat real food again!

Next week, I hope to be back to a more balanced diet and menu-planning again!

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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways?
If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link
below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you
personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order
to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in
their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content
other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to
make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your
link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.

{ 32 comments }

I went to Aldi and to the health food store this week. Plus, I got some farm-fresh eggs from my family.

Here's what I bought:

I got three bags of organic apples at the health food store for $0.99 each! (One bag isn't pictured because I shared it with my sister.) And the bags of tangerines were on sale at Aldi for $0.99 each, too! Looks like we'll be making some yummy fresh juice over the next few weeks.

All totaled, we've spent $25 from our $160 monthly grocery budget so far this month–and our freezer is full of meals! It's looking like we're definitely going to be able to stay plenty under-budget this month and have lots of wiggle room for some more bulk purchases.

Stay tuned for next week's menu on Monday.

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Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways?
If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link
below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you
personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order
to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in
their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content
other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to
make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your
link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.

{ 13 comments }