I have never really set a grocery budget during this time of eating from the pantry and freezer as I was still looking for some key stock up items such as the ones I mentioned above. My grocery weekly budget was about $40 for the last two weeks as I was stocking up on annual sales items such as flour, canned soups and broth, along with buying produce, eggs and milk. Yes, I was still giving myself a generous amount so I could still take advantage of those once a year stock up items. I've met my goal. My grocery budget now is $25.00 a week for produce, milk and eggs. I have set aside $15 in a jar to cover the cost of a Christmas ham.
But there is something I must confess to you. It is very hard when you have been bargain shopping and in stock up mode for several weeks or months to refrain from buying good deals. I am sure some of you that have read my blog for awhile were thinking this. Hey, even I was thinking this. It is difficult to change from stocking up to using up, but follow on in reading this post and you will see what I have done to correct this. First --- another item I stocked up on this week.
Brown sugar was on sale recently but I didn't buy any as I have a lot of brown sugar. It was weird walking past that display as I knew it was a good sale, but I have a big supply at home and didn't need it. But then it happened..... On my way to pick up some eggs, I passed by the meat counter at our local Hy-Vee and I noticed a sign. "80% lean ground beef $1.19 a lb. - while supplies last." This was an unadvertised special. Yes, if you look back at my post for contents of my freezer, you will see that I have a lot of ground beef in our freezer. I couldn't resist this sale. That price is the price I paid for 80% lean ground beef about 4 years ago. I bought 20 lbs. I didn't break my weekly grocery budget doing this and I knew if I repackaged the beef into 1 lb. packages and pressed them flat, they would fit in my freezer. I went on my Facebook page to report what I had found and received comments from friends that were heading out to pick up a good deal on meat.
Incidentally, if I would have bought that "great" deal a couple of weeks ago on pop, ham and turkey, I wouldn't have had the money to buy this great deal on ground beef. I'm so glad I recognized that I should save my money for another day.
What did I learn? I learned two things. I learned that I have to change my thought process about good deals. I am in very good shape with what I now have on hand and I have met all of my stock up goal items, except for the Christmas ham. I can sit back and relax.
Second, I learned it is a lot of fun to go on my Facebook page from my mobile phone and post any great deals I find so that others can take advantage of those deals. I am going from stocking up to using up to finding those great deals and posting them on my Facebook page to help friends. I have a great deal of knowledge about our local food prices so why not use that knowledge to help others? When I come across a great deal, especially an unadvertised special, I pull out my mobile phone and make a quick entry on my Facebook page and let my friends know.
I realize that this isn't something new for a lot of bloggers, but in my community of about 10,000 I am not aware of one person that does this service. So I will continue to watch for great deals and post them on my Facebook page so that others can take advantage of them.
3 comments:
Although I always thought myself to be a "frugal shopper", recently I've been trying to cut my grocery bill in half via coupons, meal planning and stocking up on loss leaders. I did manage last wk to spend $86 and save $87, so I'm making progress! I'm curious how many hours a week you spend on all this, and do you do a menu plan?
First time on your blog, but I'll be back. I think we have a lot in common! :)
Joan:
I spend about 45 minutes on Sunday afternoons to clip the coupons from the Sunday paper. I usually get two Sunday papers - one is free with a gasoline fill up. I also go through any online coupons that I may want and print and clip them at the same time. Then I put them in my coupon binder.
On Tuesdays the grocery ads come out in the newspaper. I pull the two grocery ads and sit down at my dining room table with my laptop. As I go through the ads I circle anything interesting and type it into a possible grocery list. I flip through my coupon notebook to look for any coupons. Any coupons I may use I put into a velcro envelope in the insert in the front of the coupon notebook. This takes about 20 minutes at the most, as I have come to know when a deal is a good deal.
The next day, I take my grocery list and look it over and start to delete things that I really don't need and then I print it off. Then I head to the grocery store whenever I feel like it.
As I type the list into the Word document, I make sure it is grouped according to where things are in a grocery store. Since both of our grocery stores ad match each other, I only need to go to one store to get the great deals.
I usually am not in a big rush when I do the actual shopping, which is my choice.
The key is to not let coupons pile up to the point that you have a lot to clip and sort. Then it becomes a big chore.
Joan:
I forgot to add that I don't sit down and do a big weekly menu plan. I usually plan about three dinner meals at a time. It is easier for me and it helps to make sure we use up the leftovers.
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