Time to Save

The funny thing about savings is that we are always so excited when we save a lot of money on clothes, electronics, shoes, and cars and we'll go tell all of our friends about how much we saved. Ironically, though, many of us think it's too much trouble to cut coupons for groceries. For some reason, clipping coupons got the stigma of not being very cool. I'm here to tell you that coupons are the BOMB! If you saw a dollar in the middle of your newspaper would you take it out? Um, yeah, it'd be pretty stupid not to right? Heck, some of us will even drive out of our way to save a nickel on a gallon of gas. On a full fill-up you've probably only saved about 75 cents. I look in the paper and see money. Yes, I'm a weirdo. But once you start seeing how much money you can save you'll be amazed that you didn't do it sooner.

Today was a shopping day, so I'm going to tell you about some savings. I use "The Grocery Game" (TGG) (link on the right) and save a ton doing it. The premise behind TGG is changing how you shop. You start shopping for what is on sale instead of what you need. Over time, you build up a large enough storage that you always have what you need and only "need" to buy perishables like fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, some breads, etc. You get the best deals when there is a sale plus a coupon. I go to the grocery store once a week and to Sam's club about once a month.

I've saved the receipts from the last 3 trips to show you what our savings are like. As you can see from the receipts, some weeks are better than others. I saved 41% up to 74% off of normal retail prices. Usually I'll spend anywhere from $30 to $70 a week at the local supermarket depending on how good the list is that week. We will also spend about $100 a month at Sam's where we get laundry detergent, paper towels, dog food, and some bulk frozen items. So in total, our monthly grocery bill is about $225-$300. Keep in mind that this is for a family of 5. Yeah, the kids are small and don't eat a lot, but they do, however, manage to waste a fair amount. A nice thing about this type of shopping is how much food we have to spare. Our freezer in the garage is packed to the gills and the food storage closet in the basement is practically full. We get all of our toothpaste and deodorant for free. We're going to donate about half of the supply this month in a local food drive. In order to do this, it does take a bit of work. Depending on the size of the list, it'll take anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes to get all of the coupons organized and ready to go so I don't spend more than an hour at the store. There is a $10 a month membership fee for the site but it pays for itself very easily. If you're interested in trying it, you get your first month free. I have a pretty good system down on how to do it so if you have any questions I'd be happy to tell you. And use me as a referral if you don't mind... aschmidt89@hotmail.com. If you'd rather not pay the membership fee there is another website that offers the same kind of program for free. It's called http://www.couponmom.com/. I don't use that one simply because I'm used to TGG's format...I've been doing it for over two years now.

Another savings spot that I was just recently turned on to is the Orowheat Bread Outlet. We went there today and bought a ridiculous amount of bread. I thought I'd get the bread shopping out of the way for the next two months. We just freeze it and pull out the next loaf when one is gone. I bought this entire mountain of bread for $12.74, which includes tax.

Food prices are only going to get worse as the price of gas and oil go higher. And don't get me started on the ethanol issue. Do you know how scientists can take tissue samples from cavemen and tell us what the staples in their diets were? I don't either, but they can. Anyway, if scientists took tissue samples of the average American, they'd show that corn is the main staple of our diet. I don't know about you but I rarely eat corn by itself. It's in nearly everything we eat though. Ok, I'm getting off track. I'll save my corn rambling for another day. We're getting squeezed pretty good right now. So, take advantage of the free money the manufacturers are giving you and give your wallet a break. Happy shopping!