Grocery Store Challenge Jan 8-14

[HeatherFeather]

Sorry this got posted a day late

My grocery store challenge this week is to get my coupons back under control. I have been letting the clipping/sorting slide. Yesterday I really felt the sting of disorganization when I could only hand over 1 measly little coupon at the register. I didn't go over budget, but since I have been doing the challenges, it was the first time in ages that I spent my full grocery budget. I had been really getting used to that $25-40 extra left over that I was saving from coupons.

Over the holidays, I didn't have time to sort & clip, and then was away, so I got out of the habit and now I have a stack of several weeks worth of coupons untouched that I have to go through. I also have my binder stocked full of coupons I need to toss - so many expired at the end of 2011.

What are your challenges this week?

[Laury]

I think that I need to start finding coupons for things that we use. Since I don't go grocery shopping and Tom refused to use coupons, I didn't even look for them. Tom has finally asked me to start giving him coupons. He just didn't want to ask the neighbors for their newspapers when they are finished.

[HeatherFeather]

I think that I need to start finding coupons for things that we use. Since I don't go grocery shopping and Tom refused to use coupons, I didn't even look for them. Tom has finally asked me to start giving him coupons. He just didn't want to ask the neighbors for their newspapers when they are finished.

I avoided coupons for a while because I wasn't finding a lot of them for the types of foods I eat. Then I realized I was missing out on the savings for a ton of non food items. Now I make a point to have the Sunday paper delivered and I buy All 4 You magazine every month (it is really cheap and is full of coupons - Walmart seems to be the only place that sells it). I save a lot of money on all of my cleaning products, bathroom & cosmetic items, medicines etc. Some of those coupons are $4 off! (especially on medicines). That really adds up!

I do save on some food items - pasta, yogurt, milk, eggs, cheese, and cereal are the main things I find coupons for that I will actually use in my home.

[Roxanne]

Hey gals, well here we don't have the coupon thing so I usually look for sales. My challenge this week is again the same as before, just making use of things I already have in stock and buying only the necessities.

That said I think I already blew part of that cause I went out today and saw quite a few items on sales and couldn't resist buying a chunk of asiago cheese (1/2 price) and it is a cheese I have on my to-try list so that's why I bought it and I bought this pasta and sauce thing in a box, never had it before and couldn't resist trying it also at 1/2 price . The cheese buy really isn't a big deal but I should have controlled my impulse to buy the pasta one since I am sorta over run with different types of pasta (alone, no sauce mixes with them but still ) so yeah...not helping myself!

I am also resisting the urge to make ice cream.I always make homemade ice cream, better quality and cheaper for the quality too cause I get 36% cream at an awesome (regular) price and got half&half on BOGO. So I stocked up on 1/2&1/2 specifically for ice cream. Now the reason why I am resisting the urge to make ice cream. In the month long challenge I have a vanilla ice cream in the freezer which can't seem to get moving cause I tried to use a drink mix in the base to hide the flavour (I didn't like the taste of it) and thought hey, it'd be masked. Yeah, not so much - lesson learned though! So having no other ice creams available will probably force me to dig into that one.

[HeatherFeather]

I think something like a peanut butter milkshake using the ice cream (or any stronger flavored item - malt would be nice too) would help use it up and mask the flavor.

I got my coupons cleared out and organized, although tomorrow I will have to clip the next batch as they come in the paper tomorrow. I threw out tons of expired coupons, clipped all of the ones I had lying around from the last month, and then added all but one small pile into my binder. I saved $30 at the grocery today, so my effort was worth it.

[Roxanne]

Hey Heather, I did exactly that with the ice cream. Added in peanut butter and cadbury cocoa powder and it masked the flavour beautifully.

I am glad you got your coupon clipping done and $30 is a lot! Congrats!