Money Saving Adventures

I’ve always been a bargin shopper. Generic brands, clearance racks, and deep discount stores have been my friend. I dabbled half heartedly in coupons and price matching before, but after watching the Extreme Couponing show a few times I decided I wanted to learn more. I signed up for the email newsletters from moneysavingmom.com and I’ve gotten my coupons organized in a big binder, just like the pros.

 Now I don’t spend crazy amounts of time on this like the 20-40 hours a week that some of the people on that show do… at most maybe 8 hours a week looking at ads, planning trips, clipping/printing coupons, and studying up on how to get better deals. I don’t spend any more time in the stores than I did before, maybe even less time since I usually have a very detailed list of what I’m there for now.

Now that I’ve been doing things “extreme” for about a week or so, I’m starting to find my groove. I get SEVERAL food store circulars in my Wednesday edition of the briefing (free mini paper from the dallas newspaper, which also has the coupon inserts on saturday and sometimes sunday) I get ads for Albertsons, Tom Thumb, Kroger, Sprouts, Aldi, Terry’s, and Fiesta. I get another one from Market Street, but it’s just 1 page and usually still high on the prices so I don’t really count that one. I used to just look at the first 4 because I knew I’d never make a special trip to go all the way out to Aldi and I’d feel a little out of place shopping in the hispanic stores. However, now that I’ve started paying attention, I’ve discovered those 3 have some of the best prices on things that Wal-mart will match! Wal-mart will match one store’s generic for theirs, and they will match produce prices, aside from the obvious same brand price matches.

Here’s a little example from my shopping trip today of what I would have paid/price matched/ad it was from:

Milk – 2.38/1.89/Aldi
Pringles – 2.58 ea/.99 ea/Albertsons
       (-$1/2 coupon = .49 ea)
Seedless Watermelon – 3.88/1.99/Sprouts
Red Leaf Lettuce – 1.78/.88/Sprouts
5lb Potatoes – 2.17/.88/Terry’s
Canned Veggies – .68 ea/ .33 ea/ Terry’s
Onions – 1.68 lb/ .33 lb/Terry’s
Red Grapes – 1.98 lb/ .99 lb/Albertson’s
B&J Drinks – 3.47/3.33/Fiesta
18-ct Eggs – 2.46/.99/Fiesta
1lb Block Cheddar – 4.38/3.99/Sprouts
Sliced Cheese – 3.38/2.50/Tom Thumb
Red Bell Pepper – 1.64/.49/Fiesta

TOTAL:  49.39/28.49 (saved 20.90 – 42.3%)

Moral of the story? Check ALL of your adds, make a well organized list, go to wal-mart during non-peak hours, keep the cart organized by sales ad while you shop (as much as your two and four year old will allow at least) and warn the cashier/apologize in advance for all the price matching you’re about to do. Don’t forget your coupons!

My next big task for this weekend is to try my hand at Freezer Cooking Day, where you make a bunch of meals at a time so you can freeze them and cut down on time in the kitchen for the rest of the month. We’ll see how that goes, but I plan to put away a lot of breakfast burritos, quiche, casseroles, and some baked potatoes. Fingers crossed!

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Tags: coupons, price matching, wal-mart