Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Bargain Hunter Extraordinaire

I'm a bargain hunter, it's in my nature.  I LOVE finding a good deal.  It gives me joy to not pay full price for something.  When I heard about a coupon class being tought by a friend of a friend, I was in for sure.  It was an interesting class and the girls provided a lot of helpful resources for saving money on groceries.  They showed us receipts where they saved up to $100 on a grocery bill.  I've never seen anyone save that much on groceries before, and they gave us some good tips on how to save a lot of money.

The general tips were:
1. Clip Coupons
2. Shop at Kroger (because they double and triple coupons and have good sales)
3. Plan Ahead

I decided to put these basic recommendations into practice on today's shopping trip. 

I'm a planner, it's just who I am, so planning my shopping trips is nothing new.  I TRY to plan my meals as well but that usually falls off my to-do list fairly quickly.  But for this week, I planned my meals and made a list.

I used to shop at Kroger, but had switched to HEB because we had moved into a neighborhood with an HEB and I had never been able to shop there before.  I like HEB but I like Kroger as well, so off to Kroger I went.

The challenging part is clipping coupons.  I've tried that before and it's time consuming, plus I didn't have a good organization system.  The girls recommended this Martha Stewart coupon box, which I think is SO cute.  A few days ago I bought a Sunday paper and clipped my coupons.  I put them all in an envelope, which proved to be a little challenging while at the store.  A organized system would be much easier to use.

So, today I saved a total of $48 at Kroger.  It's no benjamin, but I think it's the most I've ever saved at the grocery store.  I think it was good practice, maybe next time I'll save a little more. 

They had a lot of ideas and tips on how to save the most on what you buy, but I wanted to start with the basics first.  We'll see how this goes in the future.

3 comments:

  1. Doesn't the hassle of clipping coupons and saving the $48 at Kroger only get you to the regular price of the same groceries at HEB? Then of course if you add the HEB meal deals it seems to me that they still have Kroger beat...no? I really haven't done the math and to be honest I've never shopped at Kroger, but I assume it's on par with Randal's who's prices are ridiculous, even with their coupons and sales they don't match HEB's regular prices. Am I way off base? Is it really cheaper than HEB w/ coupons...what are we talking...10%, 20%, more? Interested.

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  2. Yeah I thought about that. We asked during the class what the girl thought and she said that Kroger was cheaper after all the discounts. I think her goal was to get each item for as cheap as possible. My goal is to save a few dollars each time to help our budget. I may try the coupons at HEB and see how the prices match up.

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  3. And don't forget that Kroger doubles and triples coupons, while HEB doesn't. I got frozen veggies for $0.28 one time because a $0.50 doubled to $1.

    Good job, Stef! I'm still trying to make sense of all the couponing, but I'm coming along ;)

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