Grocery Smarts class

Back by popular demand, I am hosting a Grocery Smarts class on Thursday, March 4th at 7 pm. It will be at my church in the West Jordan/Kearns area. (Right by the Utah Olympic Oval.) It's not a church activity, it hold more people than my living room does. :)

Grocery Smarts is a free website that matches weekly grocery store sales with coupons from newspapers, mail, & printable online coupons. I have saved tons of money using this system and it is easy and not terribly time-consuming. There is no obligation and nothing to buy unless you want to get a newspaper subscription for the coupons. Even that is not necessary to save big $!

All are welcome & feel free to bring a friend. We will also be having treats of you'd like to bring something to share- totally optional.

Let me know if you are interested & I will send you the details.

Grocery trip

I haven't done a major shopping trip since the whole bed rest episode in December. I had no appetite & no energy to push around a full cart. Luckily, our food storage was well-stocked from previous shopping trips & buying things at the best prices when they were on sale.

I have noticed some things were running low, so I got brave & planned a big shopping trip to Smith's since my reward certificate for $26 came yesterday & they are having some great sales right now.

I used grocerysmarts.com & clipped my coupons and headed out. I won't bore you with the details, but here are my totals. My original total was $208. After my freshvalues card, coupons, discounts, etc my total was $87.48, plus I earned a 15 cent fuel reward & 500 points toward my next reward certificate!

This was for 67 items, including two bottles of Tide, dishwasher detergent, Solo plastic cups & bowls, meat, produce, enough Goldfish crackers to get us to St. George and back, a birthday gift for a nephew, 3 tubes of Colgate & much more.
Added bonus: I was at Smith's Marketplace in West Jordan, so I got a free hour of child care for Aubrey & Lydia.

It took a little effort, but it was so worth it!

After all that, we went to Harmon's for PTA day. The girls played the games & got ice cream, popcorn, cotton candy, & stickers. I also bought some cereal out of obligation for the small donation that will go to the school. I'm not shopping again for a long time!

Shopping at Smith's

I know how you miss my shopping adventures, so I'll tell you about Smith's this morning. I didn't take a picture, so imagine it for yourself.

Here's what I got: 3 boxes Cinnamon Life Cereal, 1 box ice cream cones, 2 Betty Crocker Cookie mixes, 1 18 oz peanut butter, 1 Country Crock, 1 Pillsbury crescent rolls, 1 milk Chug, 3 2L Pepsi products, 2 2L Diet Coke, 1 Hair bow, 1 32 oz veggie tray, 1 head lettuce, 1 cantaloupe, 5 jumbo packs Huggies, 1 jumbo pack Pampers, 1 bag Fritos, 4 boxes Jolly Time popcorn, & 1 Push Pop for my little helper.

My total came to $120.xx, after my Fresh Values card, $5 off General Mills promo, $5 off coupon from Sunday's paper, $5 off from Happenings book, manufacturer/Smith' s coupons, & B1G1 Free popcorn, I paid $58.42 with tax!!! Remember- that includes 6 packs of diaper!!

I also got a $10 off next purchase from the Baby Club, and a 15 cent gas coupon. Woohoo!

e-mealz.com

I have been meaning to blog this for a long time, but I'm just now getting to it. I have started using this great website called e-mealz.com. You get a week's worth of recipes/dinner plans and a complete shopping list each week. It has made my life so much easier! They have a bunch of different plans to choose from and everything is very easy to make. I have skipped a few recipes that didn't appeal to me, but everything we've tried has been really good!


Go check it out! For example, I have chosen the "Wal-mart Points" plan, so every Friday I get a week's worth of meals- broken down into Weight Watcher's Points! One thing I love is that the meals are planned using what's on sale that week and the shopping list tells you exactly how much each item costs and what your total will be. I have been able to substitute staples from my food storage (beans, spaghetti sauce, etc) so it has been even cheaper. I also cross-reference the grocerysmarts.com alphabetical coupon listing for some of the larger items when I'm feeling ambitious.

It is $1.25/week and SO worth it to me! I used to panic about 4:30 in the afternoon wondering what we would have for dinner. Now, it have a nice list to choose from, knowing I have all the ingredients ahead of time. I'm sure Little Caesars misses me, but I'm not so sad!