Someone Bring Me Some Bell-Bottoms!

Oh dear ... I may be morphing into some kind of hippie. Miss green-jeans.

Bring on the multi-grain, flax encrusted, organic ingredients, all natural groceries.

I don't buy into the whole 'save the earth 'cuz there's just not enough for everyone' thing. I'm not about 'save the earth', but I am about being real. So, not wanting to ingest (or feed my family) chemicals and fabricated engineered things that salespeople tell me is 'food', eating and shopping habits are changing around here.

I guess it's been building.

My dairy farming friend told me that cheese isn't even made from milk, but 'modified milk products'. What? She's right.

Then there's the whole 'margarine is made from plastic' thing. I don't entirely buy that, but we're on butter anyway. Cream, salt. That's the ingredient list. Okay. I know what those are.

Then my nieces and nephew came over. Those healthy-eating young'ens inspired me to make a bunch of changes:

• We're off white bread. - Just Whole Wheat and Light Rye now. 
• We have veggies at most meals. (I routinely forget vegetables are a food group, so that's a biggie) 
• I offer healthier snack options - sometimes no snack. We've been a dough eating family. Cinnamon buns, cookies, cakes ... mmm! Snacks these days are  more fruits, veggies, crackers and cheese, or yogurt. ... or granola bars, but I'm the only one who eats those. 

And while shopping tonight, I was reading labels, trying to avoid glucose-fructose, mechanically separated meats or ingredients I don't recognize. I must have looked like a first-time shopper. ... I guess I kind of was!

I came home with a few new items - Organic salsa, Stoned Wheat Thins, whole grain Tortilla chips, tangerines and other fruits, veggies, Organic 'shreddies', frozen blueberries and brown bread. (... should I be barefoot, prancing in a field of flowers?)

These healthy items are more expensive than their processed NoName counterparts, but I was pleasantly surprised that my grocery bill was lower than I expected. 

My favorite part is that my family is eating it! This may actually work! 

Now all I need is to paint some groovy flowers on my car - and someone bring me some bell-bottoms!

Saturday Night Baked Goods

Baking is a great thing, but sometimes I don't make the time and end up in the grocery aisles over-paying for pre-fab muffins.

BUT

If I'm going to buy muffins, cupcakes and pies, the time to do it is Saturday night. (in my town anyway..) Here, the stores close on Sunday, so they offload their baked goods on Saturday night.

Behold! The beautiful pink 50% off stickers I treasure so!

Ain't that pretty?

I love discount. Yes I do.

Check Out These Canadian Sales - Shopping Hits

Made our biweekly run this morning...

As I trimmed our grocery list ... and added, and trimmed, I couldn't seem to get it down to the budget of $150. It was at $175 and then I found deals - some in the flyer, some not.

These were the 'deal' items:

Here they are:

Teddy's Choice Step-Ups (like Pullups) $8.24!!! ($9.24 plus a $1.00 off coupon, right on the shelf) - no limits!! (This is $12 on a good day, $14-$16 normally. I grabbed 5 packs - a dose of humble pie for the ages of my children, but that's a whole other story!)
NN Strawberry Jam $3.00 (usually $4.50 - $5.18) I grabbed 3 of those. - again, no limits! If I had the budget, I would buy 20 of these. It's that good a deal. Hmm... maybe I should anyway ...)
Neilson Butter 2.97
NN Pudding Packs $1.00 ea.
NN Weiners. (okay, they're chicken weiners ... but the kids don't know that)
Wildberry Juice $0.98 - usually $1.47
NN Mac+ Cheese - $0.50 each - grabbed 4
50% off buns - found 2 in the bakery discount bin
Old Mill Bread - 4/$5 - These have been as high as $1.97 in recent months. I like the decrease in price lately.
TC Wipes - 3packs were on sale for 3.64! Normally these are $5.99. I bought the big box though (not pictured) for $9.99 - still a deal. Usually $13.99
NN Kleenex $0.68 each
NN Bacon ~ $9.98 for a 3 pack. (usually 2.78/pk, but now individual packs were over $3, so the bulk pack was cheaper ..)
Neilson Yogurt - $1.79 - usually $2.18 - $2.50


... you can see how my bill climbed quite high all of the sudden. The upside though, is that jam and diapers will not be on my list for a month or more .. :) Hopefully that means I can keep my grocery bill under budget for the next couple of months, but that remains to be seen ...

Happy Shopping!

My Hits and Misses in the Grocery Aisles

Desperately clinging to my new budget has been exciting and rewarding – it’s a weekly (sometimes daily) challenge to meet it and when I do, the rewards are CASH. To date my ‘new budget’ rewards include a new computer, new printer, and being able to afford an unexpected deductible payment. *Phewf!* (Wipes nervous sweat from brow)

This week the sales began where my budget ends… or so it seemed.

This week’s grocery budget of $150 soared to $250. The good news is that I stocked up on some good deals. Pink 25% - 50% OFF stickers littered the aisles today. It was great! (I could go back and stock up on more, but … eeek. I’m so over budget right now!)

HITS:

• Hubby’s deodorant - HALF PRICE! Happened upon a fluke discontinued-sale price of $1.14 each - I bought the last 2 on the shelf 
• Mac & Cheese -$0.47 each (reg $0.68) 
• Tomato Soup - $0.33 each  
• Broccoli -$1.00 / bunch 
• Kleenex -$0.68 each (reg $0.78) 
• Instant Noodles - Case of 24 for 5.68 (~ 0.23 each) 
• Oasis Zoo Juice - FREE (coupon) (reg $1.47) 
• Cauliflower - 50% OFF  
• Bag Organic Apples - 50% OFF 
• Tea Buns (1 dz) - 50% OFF 
• Kids Toothpaste - $0.98 – (reg price about $2 – $2.50) 
• Box Kleenex - FREE (checked my receipt, saw they over charged me, and got it free) 
• Weiners - $1.00/dz … I’m not usually a fan of NoName wieners, (okay, I'm usually grossed out by the idea of them.) but for that price I’ll try them again. (They were pretty good!)   
• $25 Gift Card FREE - Though way over budget, I did get a free $25 gift card. So … that makes me feel a bit better about it. 

MISSES   

• Missed out on $1.00 Secret deodorant  
•  Last day of the sale ... why I expected there would be any left, I don’t know. 
• Bulk Smarties – Overpriced much?! What would fit into 1-2 boxes of smarties costs $2.74! Yikes. I think I’ll look for 4 packs of smarties for $2.50 next time, and get double the smarties for that price…  

Anywho, that’s my grocery adventure this week. Guess that’ll pause my money saving plans for the next 2 weeks …

 .

Full Price Fumble

Today's grocery trip was a bit of a fumble. This ...

and this ...

...together cost me $52.19. Everything here was full bore retail except for the Energizer batteries which happened to be $3 per package. (no thanks to any planning on my part)

I'm surprised at how disappointed I am that I paid full price for everything. I hope that's a good sign!

Of course, my forgetfulness didn't help today... I forgot to bring my coupons (found them too late at the check out), and I forgot to check the mail for grocery flyers before we shopped.  I also forgot to bring my grocery money! I ended up using the bank card instead. (oops)

(also, after I organized my messy disgrace of a pantry, I discovered I did have potatoes in there afterall! Grr. )

BUT ... tomorrow I hope to stock up on some nice sale items that we'll eventually need. (and by eventually, I mean in a week or two - I'm just starting stocking up, after all!)

Superstore has these items on sale - tomorrow's the last day.

NN Tomato Soup - case of 12       $4.98 limit 1(reg. $7.88)
Ziggy's Ham  (luncheon meat)       $0.89/100g (reg. $0.99-1.20)
NN Facial Tissue                            $0.68 ea, limit 4 (reg $0.78)
NN Macaroni + Cheese                  $0.48 ea, no limit (reg $0.68)
NN Instant noodles (case of 24)    $5.48 ($0.23 per pkg) (reg $0.40ea)
Photo Prints 4x6s                           $0.10 ea, min order 100 prints (reg $0.29)
Naval Oranges                                 $2.48/bag

Sounds good to me! Much better ;) ... just hope I remember to bring the grocery money!

Grocery Day - Couponing In Canada?

The first grocery shopping day on our new budget was a success.

Last year's grocery budget = $250 biweekly
This year's new budget      = $150 biweekly

Just a note: our American friends seem to have a fantastic coupon system. I see the couponing pros frequently finding items for free, or for $0.09 with a coupon ... this kind of thing. I have found no such Canadian couponing. I think we have to do it differently here.

... and I found one way this week.

Extra Foods recently had their 'Dollar Days'.  (If you missed it, don't worry, they come around often.) Several great deals on things I'd planned to buy anyway-

Flaked Tuna   5/$4
Tampons        2/$7
Pork'n'Beans  5/$4
Tomato Soup 3/$1
Green Beans  5/$4
1L Apple Juice $0.80

They also happened to have their 10%, 12% or 15% off day on Mon and Tues.
Yes, please!

I moved my shopping day to Tuesday, bought the sale items AND the regular price items I planned to buy on Friday, and got 12% off of it all. Yay!

I got all this for $109, and have $41 left for milk, eggs, bread, etc.

I'm not only spending less on groceries, I've actually got $50 in the 'kitty' for ... well, whatever! I can take advantage of a grocery sale (like today), put it towards the sausage we buy from a local farmer ... apply it to the calf we hope to buy in spring ... whatever.

Granted, this is just the beginning. ...I'm going to miss sales, forget to budget certain items, toss aside diligence and buy chocolate that's not on the list. It's okay. BUT, I'm going to keep going until I get it. I'm serious about this, so I've got to get it :)

I'll keep you posted :)