How Do I Coupon ?Save Money While Buying Healthy for You, Your Family, and the Planet!

In case you haven’t noticed I have not written on this blog for awhile. It has been for a few reasons: I am burnt out couponing and I have felt a personal conflict with the posts I am doing. Let me explain. Clipping coupons and chasing deals is very rewarding and equally time consuming. Simply put, I needed a break! I also have been conflicted about what deals I have been posting. I LOVE getting great deals at the grocery stores and even getting products for FREE. I am also a strict vegetarian for ethical reasons. I do not believe that animals should be killed for food or clothing. I try, though not always perfectly, to not buy from companies who test on animals. I feel even more strongly about factory farming and the current practices of food production in the United States today. So, when I post deals I am often posting for products I would prefer not to buy because of the company’s unethical practices towards their workers, the animals, and the consumers. It is a genuine conflict and I can clearly see why I have lost gusto in writing about grocery deals and sales.

I have derailed on what I truly believe in the hopes of getting a popular blog up and running. A very good and wise friend said it simply, “Write about and show what you do to save money while keeping your beliefs and passions in the forefront.” So simple, eh? I know. Sometimes we need that push from someone other than ourselves to give us the reinforcement and encouragement to do what we know we should.

So, this is what I am going to do: This site will be how to save money using coupons while buying products from companies that are true to my beliefs. I think if everyone could make small changes in their shopping habits then maybe we can help change the food industry and help them be more accountable to us, our children, and the planet. I will do my best to explain my viewpoints so you can understand where I am coming from. You may agree or not but at least I am bringing these issues to the forefront that I feel are so vital to our future and our lives today. I do not want to come across as some crazy hippy or an idealist. I do not want to be a site to force feed anyone anything. I am an average mom in middle class America trying to provide the best food and products for my family. Period.

I want to show how I buy as much organic produce, eco-friendly products, and goods from sustainable companies while I stick to a meager budget. If I can do it, I know you can too!

So my goal for this month was to spend no more than $50 per week on all groceries for our household of three humans and three pets. This was to include everything for the household including pet supplies, cleaning supplies, and so on. I am very pleased to say that I succeeded! WOOHOO! My total OOP (out of pocket) was….$120.00!! If I count in gift cards I used then it would be an additional $75 making it for a total of $195.00.I am so very happy that I was able to do this for one month. We also ate out just once at Taco Bell (are we high rollers or what?!) this month. It has certainly not been easy but it was definitely doable. Using up what I have in my pantry and fridge and being creative was a huge part of making this work. I was also able to find cheaper pet supplies by shopping around. I honestly thought Walmart was my best bet but it turns out Family Dollar had cat litter that works just as well. It does not clump as well but does not track on the floor and does not make the litter box smell as much as the other WM brand did. Pros and cons to both but saving money helps push the FD one to win .

So my goal for February? Trying to switch back to organic milk and healthier beef for my family. I am a strict vegetarian and I do eat eggs. I only buy free range organic when I do and they are 3-4x the amount of regular priced eggs but I cannot budge on that for ethical reasons. However, I sacrificed buying regular milk and all white bread to save $$. I am trying to go back to purchasing healthier foods while saving money. I do not want to sacrifice my family’s health. I figure preventative health, by way of the types of food I purchase, will be cheaper in the long run. Organic milk and grass fed beef, for example, are pretty important given the junk (hormones, antibiotics) that is put into meat and dairy today. So that is my goal: buy healthier bread, organic milk, and natural meats while still staying under $50 a week. Wish me luck! I am gonna need it!

Every penny counts, right? I thought I would post a small list of easy ways you can save a little at the grocery store. A little bit here and there does add up to a lot!

 Just some quick tips and hints on how to save  some pennies at the grocery store:

BYOB -Bring your own bags. Most grocery stores offer .5  cents off per reusable bag you bring in. Don’t have any cloth bags? Bring in plastic ones, old purses, and diaper bags. I even use a gift bag that was given to my son for his birthday. It is made of some type of sturdy material and holds quite a bit!

Check the day old section.Normally the day old section is found near the dairy items in the store. Items can include bread, pies, cookies, and cakes. I have seen the area in Fry’s and Walmart and peruse the items often. I typically find at Walmart french bread or a baguette for .59 cents or less! Fry’s often has bakery goods discounted at 50% off. Also, at Fry’s they typically have a discounted refrigerated section with cookie dough, cheese, and yogurt. Combine the discounts with coupons and you can get a really great deal! Just be sure to use or freeze before the expiration date. I know Bashas’ does not offer discounted bakery items because they donate it to the local food bank. Love them!

Use your Grocery Card! This is by far the simplest way to save some $ at the grocery store. You can sign up online and register your card. You can load up e-coupons on the grocery store website along with Shortcuts and Cellfire. By signing up the stores use your shopping info to track trends and whatnot. Typically, you will get paper coupons in the mail as well along with special notices of sales, etc. Also, many grocery stores offer fuel discounts at their gas stations. I save .10 cents a gallon every time I fill up. That adds up for sure!

Here are links to stores that have grocery cards:

Safeway.com

Frys.com

Bashas’.com

Happy Shopping!

I

Well, this week has been interesting budget-wise. Earlier this week the coffee decanter decided to break. So that took an immediate $16+ out of my $50 budget for the week. Because I would be a raging B without my morning coffee. Seriously, take away my coffee and see how pissy I get! I was able to use a gift card for Walmart to pay for some of my groceries.  If I do not factor the $13.03 spent on the gift card, I would be .17 cents under budget. If I do factor  the gift card money spent, I went $12.86 OVER. Wahhh Wahhh Wahhh. I am disappointed but will try to do better next week and make up for the difference.::sigh:: I am glad and grateful I had the gift card to depend on but I am bummed that I still could not make it under the $50 goal. I will set my budget for next week at $37.14. Wish me luck!

I am still doing a menu plan for lunches and dinners. I loathe making them. I am not sure why it stresses me out so much but I do know after the initial effort it makes my week miles easier when I just have to look at the menu to see what to make. I was watching a report on the news where a woman creates a menu plan for every day of the week for lunches and dinner FOR THE WHOLE YEAR! I think I am in awe and I think she may be a little wonky- just sayin’. Here is to next week being UNDER BUDGET

So I still am keeping within my $50 budget for weekly groceries. I spent $48.61. It has been interesting to say the least juggling and deciding what takes priority. I had to buy postage stamps this week and that hurts when a book of them takes up over 15% of my weekly budget! I did find out, however, that buying the stamps at the grocery store is .74 cents cheaper than through the ATM. Who knew?! I just assumed prices of stamps were the same no matter where you buy them. Now it gets me to wonder if I buy them through the local post office would it be cheaper? It certainly pays to shop around. I bought my groceries this week from Family Dollar (pet supplies), .99 Store (produce) Walmart, Safeway, and Fry’s. I can see how not having a stockpile of necessities would make living off of $50 a week for a family of 3 with 3 pets very very difficult. I had to stand in the grocery aisle today and debate what was more important (cream cheese vs. snack pudding for my son. The pudding won fyi).  I did take advantage of the sales at Fry’s this week and was able to get 3 deodorant for free and frozen veggies for .18 cents a pack. So yay for that! I did not get to buy as many fresh fruits and veggies as I wanted to this week but it all seemed to work out in the end anyways. We have not spent any money eating out yet this month. Thanks to my awesome MIL we are going out for lunch Saturday and I am sooo looking forward to that. Next week will be interesting as I see my stock of cat food and other necessities dwindle quickly. All in all a good week!

Well it looks like for the first week of our new grocery budget our total is: $47.00! $3.00 under budget! I was able to stick to our meal plan and also able to get a few extras including pizza, dip, and chips. I ended up going to 5 stores total and the time spent was under 3 hours. Not too bad. I am hopeful next week will be just as good. I will make another menu (which I loathe) and look to see what can be used up around here to create healthy meals. I hope we do not get too bored with the meals but it will be worth it when we can throw the extra at our debt.

I have been doing a lot of organizing with coupons and our food storage. We completely reorganized the garage and it looks great. It is easier to see what we have in stock. I purchased some shelving from Lowe’s and my food storage is much more functional than before.I plan on adding bins and labels later but that will have to wait until we have some extra cash.

The biggest reorganization I have done is my coupons. If you use coupons you know what a pain in the a$$ they can be! I have vacillated between using a big filing system and only taking out coupons I need to clipping every single coupon and putting them in a small coupon holder. In all honesty, neither system seems to work very well! I am either at the store seeing an item on sale super cheap and not having the right coupon with me because it is stuck in my filing cab at home or I have so many in such a small space that I miss one or get so frustrated I say F it!!

So, I decided to use a coupon binder system instead. I will put together a tutorial of sorts so I can show how I organize my coupons, ad inserts, etc. I really like this system! I hope it helps with grocery shopping in the sense I will have all of my coupons with me and available should I see a great deal. I will post that soon!

Overall for this week I am optimistic with our new budget plan and organization!

I will post weekly deals this Wednesday when new ads come out since there does not seem to be a whole lot going on right now. I thought I would post more about our grocery budget. We have $200 a month for all groceries and household goods. that breaks down to $50/week. In order to achieve this goal here is what I have done so far to help myself out:

1. Grocery Inventory List. I made my own grocery inventory list a few days ago using a simple spreadsheet in Excel. I made columns for Item, Quantity, Expiration, and Category. I went through the refrigerator, freezer, cupboards, food storage in the garage, and our bathroom cabinets. I wrote down every item we have and use along with the quantity. Now it is much easier to see what we have in stock and what we need from the store. It is rudimentary but it is very insightful. Talk about saving head space! I can bring up the list now and see what I am okay on and what we need to buy. I plan on updating my list once a week to keep it updated. I would love to post what it looks like but my laptop has just been upgraded to Win 7 (yay!) and I am waiting for my new Office software to come. Once Office is up and running I will post my example.

2. Menu Plan. A menu plan is a great way to save money. You can plan your meals according to what you have on hand and what you would need to buy from the store. The Grocery Inventory List is essential to helping me plan my weekly menu. I am a newb at menu planning so for now I am doing weekly but hope to someday achieve super star status and have a monthly plan. Yeah, I know I am a nerd. Anyways, I was able to look at what I have in stock here at the house, create a menu for lunches and dinners, and create my grocery list for the week as well. I can see right away that using what I have here at the house and buying a few items at the grocery store I should be able to keep within $50 for this week.

3. Use what you have. This budget and meals are up to me. Same as you. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Just figure out what you have that you can use and build from there. I can see we, thankfully, have a lot in surplus to use and will not have to spend as much at the grocery store. Yay!

We have plenty of protein and boxed sides here at the house to make up the bulk of this week’s meals:

Monday: Chicken in the crock pot, fresh broccoli, veggie burger, potato side dish, and biscuits.

Tuesday: Fish and veggies, rice, vegan chicken strips and edamame.

Wednesday: Breakfast for Dinner. (One of my favorites and super cheap, too!). Breakfast burritos: Eggs, Cheese, Sausauge or bacon, veggie sausage, hash browns, and tortillas. **I need to buy eggs.**

Thursday: Noodles with protein and veggies.

Friday: Mashed potato, cheese, and corn casserole; protein and veggies, biscuits.

Saturday: Pizza with salad. **Need to buy pizza and salad. ** This meal will be inexpensive if I buy it before Wednesday at Fry’s. Freschetta Pizza $3.99. Use Freschetta Brick Oven Multi or Single Serve, Naturally Rising, PizzAmore Fire Baked, Original Crust or Flatbread Pizza, any $1/1 DND (2-7-10) SS-11/15. Final Price: $2.99. Bag of Dole Salad: $1.00.

Sunday: Leftovers.

Lunches for the week will be cheese crisps and sandwiches. Not eating gourmet here at all but it will do.

Here is what I have purchased today for this week’s groceries:

Half & Half: $1.64

Trash Bags – 58 count- $5.00

Frozen Chicken Nuggets (after coupon) : $1.80

Scoopable Cat Litter: $2.25

Total (incl. tax): $11.13 Left over for the week: $38.87.

I only had one coupon today but the items I needed were essential. So, I looked at the local ads and went to two different stores to find what I needed at the lowest price. I also brought my own grocery bag to use so I can get a .05 cent discount. Every penny counts! I found out today that Family Dollar has less expensive cat litter than Walmart. I am going to try it out and see if it is decent. I swear we spend so much on pet supplies! I have some essentials to buy for the household including more (::sigh::) pet supplies, etc. If we have enough left over in the budget then I will get the items for pizza night.

Happy New Year!

I don’t know about you but I am so glad 2009 is done!

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions? I like to call them goals so I don’t overwhelm myself or set myself up for failure . I do have some including the usual like exercising more and eating healthier. The biggest goal I have for 2010, however, is to get our personal debt under control. I figure there is no better place to keep track, post, and update this monstrous goal than here!

We have an insane amount of credit card debt and a small student loan to pay off on top of a mortgage and car loans. Yikes! Just writing that all out is humbling and stressful! But, we do want to get on top of it and reduce our debt significantly this year.

So, how to do this? Well we need to reduce the amount of money spent so we can throw the extra at our credit cards. I am so sick of paying interest to these companies who frankly do not give a crap about us. It seems every month we are getting a notice that our credit card interest is going up and our limit is being reduced. Nevermind that we have not once been late in payments in 9+ years and we have always paid off our debt.

The first way I can think of doing this ties into this website: reducing our monthly grocery bill by at least 50%. Typically, for our family of three including two cats and a hamster we spend $400- $500 a month on groceries. This includes all food items and non-food items such as toiletries , pet supplies, etc. So, I want to reduce out grocery bill to no more than $200 a month….Can I do it?

I think I can. I know I can. The concern is can we do it while still maintaining a healthy diet with fresh whole food? I am sure we could live off of Raamen and potato chips but I do not want to feel like sh!t. Eating that kind of food all of the time will ensure that. YUCK.

So, I am going to start posting my plan for sticking to $50 a week for 3 people and 3 pets while eating healthy foods. It seems like a huge goal but the mountain of debt we have is a great motivator! I want to be out of debt more than I want to spend more money on groceries, eating out, etc. I plan to document all of this here while also continuing to post Deals of the Week, coupons, freebies, etc. Wish us luck!