I wanted to take a moment to update everyone with what's going on in my life. My husband was gone for 3 weeks with the army (they sent him to Germany, I was so jealous), and while he was gone, I decided to go to Chicago for a little vacation. I didn't want me and Cole to stay home alone the whole time. So while we were in Chicago visiting my family, I saw a post on craigslist for a house that sounded exactly like we've been looking for. I called right away, and lady luck must have been on my side because we were chosen to rent it! We had been looking for a house to rent closer to where my husband works for forever. The house is 10 minutes from where my husband works, which means he can come home for lunch everyday, as well as add 3 hours back to his day, which he had been spending driving for the past few years. Another added benefit for me, is that it is also only 10 minutes from all of my couponing stores! I no longer have to plan an exhausting day to drive up and hit all of the stores in one day. Although I haven't been able to take advantage of the luxury of living in civilization quite yet. Moving is such a pain! We spent the first weekend my husband got back packing up and driving 2 trucks and a flatbed trailer of stuff up. It didn't even make a dent in amount of stuff in our house. So we bit the bullet and last weekend we were going to rent a 6x12 uhaul trailer, expecting to have to make 2 or more trips with it. Well, we should have seen the chaos coming. My husband and I are always getting in these kinds of situations where everything goes way different than expected. The trailer lights weren't working, so the uhaul worker had to replace the wiring in our truck. Since we were patient and didn't have a problem with his helping another customer first, he was going to give us the labor and part for free. Then once he had it installed, it still wasn't working. So he replaced a part on the uhaul. Nope, still wasn't working. So then we were at a draw. We couldn't rent it because of the lights being dangerous on the road. So he gave us a deal of the century! He rented us a truck which was 2x bigger than the trailer and didn't charge us for the insurance or the two days we kept it. We were only charged for the miles we drove it, and even then, he only charged us half the price! I have never had such a pleasurable experience with a company. I am going to call uhaul and tell them how amazing this manager is. Of course I won't tell them the deals he gave us, because knowing my luck it would get him in trouble and that's the opposite of what I want! But, anyways, we got our whole house packed up. We ran out of time though and were not able to get everything out of our storage trailer, our broke down car and our dog pen. That will sadly be this weekend. I am really not looking forward to moving our broke down car, since I don't know how we're going to move it. So, that's my life right now. Living out of boxes in a house wayyy bigger than where we were. I love this house. I can't say how happy I am being in a bigger house. There is no word for it. The only thing remotely close is that this move has been life changing. I see my family being much happier in this house.
So the real point of this post is to tell you about my shopping trip today. With the chaos of moving and not knowing where anything is, I do not have the time or energy for clipping coupons. I am very far behind on my coupon organization, and it will take me a while to get caught back up. My plan is that Wednesday I will start couponing again like I did before the vacation and the move. But, for the person who either has no coupons or no time, I want to tell you that you still CAN save a substantial amount by just shopping smart. Shop the sales! Most sales in grocery stores discount products nearly by half. If you walk into a store and only buy sale items, you are already saving 50%! Of course if you had coupons on top of that, you will save quite a bit more. But 50% savings is amazing on it own! It is easy to save, you just have to have your eyes open. I went to Kroger today because I needed bananas, baby yogurt, bread and milk. I decided to pick up a few other things for dinners for the week. I was amazed at the sales! At Kroger, when they have perishables that are coming up to their sell by date, they will mark them 50% off. I found bananas for $0.39 lb. I found organic baby yogurt for $1.89, which is cheaper than the $2.69 I was planning on paying. My favorite thing of all, organic brown eggs for $2.19 a dozen! We usually get our eggs from my father in law, but his chickens have not been laying well lately. So we are back to having to buy our eggs. My rule is that we try to feed Cole organics if at all possible. Financially speaking, we usually cannot afford to feed organics to the whole family, so Cole is of course my preference to get the good stuff. But organic eggs for $2.19, I bought 5 dozen!
$79.06 ($82.93 with tax)
Tax: $3.87
Spent: $46.88
Saved: $36.05
That's a savings of
43.5% after tax! Pretty good for heading in with no coupons.
By buying food that is on sale that week, you can vary your meals every week. Just by looking at this, and adding it with my current stockpile, I can make salad for a couple meals, squash and zucchini fettuccine alfredo, eggplant parmesan, quiche, etc. That's a lot of meals out of some cheap produce. I am really excited to see what Cole thinks of the tofu! And with all those carrots, I may have to make some carrot cake just as soon as I find my pans!
As a last note, I did buy 4 1/2 lbs of bananas. At $0.39 lb, I couldn't resist. I'm going to leave a few out to eat, peel the rest, dip them in melted chocolate, and freeze them. It will be a healthy (well, as healthy as fruit with chocolate can be) and cheap snack! Take advantage of the sale items you find. If there is a price that you love for a food your family eats, buy as much as you can! Most foods freeze well, and you will have fresh food at any given moment. It's a great feeling to open up the freezer and see everything you love and know that you paid a fraction of the cost for it.
