All You is having a grocery challenge contest and I decided to enter — what fun!! Each participant is judged on their ability to stay within budget ($25 per person), creativity and ingenuity, and healthy choices. Recently we started working to improve what we eat by eliminating hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup and increasing our vegetable and fruit intake. This grocery challenge seemed like a good way to help me stay motivated and get the support of many others who are striving to make changes in their family’s diet, too. So, I’ll be giving a weekly update about my shopping trips that will include how I’m doing with the budget portion of the challenge. On Monday’s, I will give an update on the other two aspects of the challenge when I do my menu plan posting.
Although I have five people living at home right now (myself, husband, two teenage sons, and my college-age daughter), my budget will be $75 dollars instead of the $125 that is allowed in the challenge. This has been my budget for awhile now and we really need to stick with that. One other thing — the $75 budget includes personal care items as well as food.
This week I shopped at Rainbow, Cub, Walmart, Walgreens, Aldi, CVS, and Sam’s Club and spent a total of $74.87 on $175.76 worth of groceries!! There were 3 great findings from my various trips that I want to highlight before going into the details:
- I found 3.3 pounds of bananas marked down to .25 at Aldi – not .25 a pound but .25 total!! Yes, the bananas were very ripe and full of brown spots. But, they were just the way we like them. I figured any that didn’t get eaten would make great banana bread. However, they were gone pretty quickly so no banana bread this week.
- Blade men’s shampoo was on clearance for $1.24 at CVS. I bought two and matched them with a $2/2 coupon from Reinventing Beauty magazine making them each .24
- I noticed a $2 OYNO at the bottom of my Cub receipt for answering a 3 question phone survey. I called the number provided, answered 3 questions and was given a validation code to write in the provided space. There’s a bar code on the receipt so I’m assuming that the cashier will scan that and I’ll get my $2 off. However, I’ll stop by customer service first just to verify how to use this.
Here are the stories:
On Monday, my first stop was Walmart where I spent $14.00 on $15.27 worth of groceries. Here what I bought:
Whole wheat pita bread, $1.50
4 pk White Cloud toilet paper, $2.00, used $1.00/1 from All You magazine
Sabra Hummus, $2.98
Shredded cheese, $1.69
Turmeric, $2.94
Coriander, $3.74
Next was a quick stop into Sam’s Club to buy 3 gallons of milk for $5.64.
After that, I made a rare trip to Walgreens where I spent $1.29 for $11.78 of groceries.
2 Gillette body wash, $8.98, used B1G1 free
2 2-liter bottles of pop, $2.00
I also used a $6 Register Reward from a previous shopping trip and received a $4.50 Register Reward for the Gillette body wash.
That completed my Monday shopping. These three stores are literally across the street from each other and less than a mile from where I live, so I didn’t feel like I was doing too much running around.
Wednesday is Double Daze at Rainbow and that is typically when I do the bulk of my grocery shopping.
I took two trips through the checkout and spent $28.15 on $67.53 worth of groceries. Here’s what’s on the table:
1 lb dry black beans $2.09, sale price$1.20
2 Vanity Fair napkins, $4.74, sale price $4.00, doubled 2 $1 coupons making these free
4 2 liter Diet Coke, $1.79, doubled 4 $1 coupon making them free
1 Gortons Fish Fillet, $5.99, doubled .60 mfg coupon and used $2.01/1 store coupon
2 Oscar Mayer lunch meats, $7.18, sale price $5.00, doubled $1/2 coupon
1 pineapple, $3.99, used $2.01 store coupon
1 cottage cheese, $2.49, sale price $1.39
1 64oz orange juice, $1.89, sale price $1.69, used .71 store coupon
1 Breyers Ice Cream, $5.99, sale price $3.00, used .72 store coupon
1 Johnsonville Summer Sausage, $5.11, sale price $4.35, doubled .55 coupon
2.2 lbs grapes, $6.61, sale price $2.19
1 broccoli, $1.99
4 tomatoes, $1.20
1 Romaine lettuce, $1.69
1 Iceberg lettuce, .68
2 Kemp’s milk, $7.58, sale price $5.00, doubled $1/2 coupon
1 dozen eggs, $1.39, sale price .99 (these aren’t in the picture because I ran in to pick them up on Thursday)
Next stop — Aldi where I spent $15.49. Here’s what’s on the table:
3.3 lbs bananas, .25!!!!!!
4 lbs strawberries, $3.96
16 oz shredded cheddar cheese, $2.99
4 2 liters pop, $2.56
4 bags chips, $4.56
2 loaves bread, .98 (these were on clearance)
Saturday brought a trip to Cub followed by CVS.
At Cub I spent $8.05 on $23.97 and bought the following:
3 3 liter pop, $2.34
brown sugar, $1.49
2 packs pork chops, $14.92, used 2 $1/1 mfg coupons, B1G1 from circular, and a $2 off pork purchase that was emailed to me from Cub for a total of $3.50 for 3.75 lbs of pork chops!!
1 quart heavy whipping cream, $3.99
1 dozen eggs, $1.05
I also used the $4.50 Register Reward I received earlier in the week from Walgreens
My last trip of the week was to CVS where I spent $2.01 on $35.44 worth of groceries. Here’s the breakdown:
2 Pantene, $9.98, sale price $6.97, used 2 $2 coupons
1 Fruitopia shampoo, $2.59, used $2 coupon
2 Blade shampoo, $9.98, on clearance for $2.48, used $2/2 coupon
1 Schick Hydro razor, $9.99, sale price with raincheck $8.97, used $5 coupon
newspaper, .75 (this doesn’t fall into my grocery budget so I did subtract it out of my weekly total)
I also used $8 Extra Bucks that I received at my last shopping trip. I received $4 Extra bucks for the razor and $2 for the Pantene
