Stocking Up & A Week's Worth Of Groceries

 We're getting ready to do a no spend challenge coming up starting in March. When I say no spend, I mean that we will eat what we have stocked up in our freezers, in our refrigerators and what we have stored up as far as canned and dry goods. The only things we will buy will be milk products, and those will be limited to milk, half & half and heavy cream. I will not be buying yogurt because I'll simply make my own. We won't be buying cheese because I can make yogurt cheese and farmers cheese from milk. We will be able to buy produce, as well. Some produce I can grow in my Aerogarden or I can start it out in one of my raised beds, like lettuce, chard, peas and spinach.

Anyhow, I've allotted us a $400 grocery budget to get by for February and I'll also use that to stock up stuff that we use regularly, like coffee, flour, etc.
I'm challenging myself to see exactly how far we can go, spending as little as possible. I know we can do this.

Now, onto my grocery haul this morning. I shopped at our local Safeway. I saved 64% off of my total. By carefully planning my trip and allowing for a few impulse purchases, I was able to save $20 off of my total. I will use that $20 at another store to stock up on some other items that are way cheaper there than at Safeway. Whenever I shop, I have 4 tabs open on my laptop. I have Amazon, Safeway, Fred Meyer and Walmart pulled up. I go between those 4 stores. I find that Walmart and Amazon usually have about the prices on many things. Fred Meyer is a bit more than Walmart and Safeway usually has the highest prices of all unless you shop the sales, like I do.

My total, before discounts and coupons, was around $140. Safeway has a deal this week, if you buy 3 or more pounds of 93% lean ground beef, it costs $2.97 per pound. I decided to completely top off our chest freezer with ground beef and I bought 12 pounds. If it wasn't on sale and, if I didn't have a Safeway Just For U account, it would have cost me $101.88. I paid $36.64 for 12 pounds.
In the produce depart, they had fresh sage, in a clamshell, for $1. We decided to roast a chicken this coming week. The juicing carrots are Bob's big expense that he feeds to our wild rabbit population. The deer eat them, too. By feeding them in areas away from the garden, they stay out of it because they know they will get a carrot if they do.

I added coupons on Just For U for $10 off $50, $20 off $100, $5 off $5 or more produce and 10% off the entire purchase if it was over $50. Just with those 4 coupons, I saved over $40. I also got a free yogurt, 50-cents off of Yoplait yogurts, which were on sale for 24-cents each, limit of 12. The Noosa yogurts were $1.49 each, which is a fantastic price. These are delicious and they are usually quite expensive. I bought 8 of those at that price.

Here are my total savings. Saving 64% is nothing to sneeze about. 24 meals of ground beef for just over $36 is a phenomenal price. I also got quadruple the reward points (for gas discounts) for buying over $20 worth of produce.

How I Buy Ribeyes For The Summer For Under $100

 Memorial Day is just a few days away. I wasn't sure what I wanted to make this year, but I knew that two of our local supermarkets were having hellacious Memorial Day sales according to their fliers.

At Safeway, value packs of bone-in rib steaks were on sale, via digital deal, for $4.97 per pound, with a limit of 1. Whole racks of pork ribs were on sale, via digital deal, for 97 cents per pound, limit of 1 and Signature Select ice cream was 17 cents per half-gallon, again, with a limit of 1.

I jumped onto Safeway and created Bob a profile with his phone number. There was no way that we weren't going to double up on these sales.

I also saw that corn on the cob was 3 for $1, with a limit of 6. I decided that we would only get 6 ears of corn. We can only eat just so much corn and 3 meals worth for $2 is not a bad price, in my opinion.

Then, I looked at Fred Meyer. Safeway (we have 3 Safeway locations in the twin cities area that I live in) has a location just across the street from Fred Meyer, so we decided we would go to that location.

Fred Meyer had their bone-in rib steaks on sale for $5.97 per pound, with a limit of 2, with an online coupon that I added. We opted to not double up on things at Fred Meyer. FM, weekly, has this deal that if you buy five things from their list of certain items, you get a $1 off of each one. Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce was included in that. We stocked up and bought 5 to get the deal. We also had a $13 credit on our Fred Meyer account because they screwed up on our previous pickup order. So, we only got 1 of the Fred Meyer deals, but we did limit out. We can only eat just so much steak and bone-in rib steaks are our favorite cut off the cow.

There was a total of 10 bone-in rib steaks. Between the 10 steaks, we got 15.49 pounds. Stay tuned to the end of the post as to what our total was on just the steaks and what the total amount was that we spent today stocking up for this summer.

I found that the Fred Meyer steaks were better trimmed than the Safeway ones were.

The Fred Meyer packs had 2 steaks in them. The Safeway ones had 3.

I picked up the burger to make into Salisbury steaks tonight for dinner.

We picked out the 2 largest racks of ribs that Safeway had. I think I'll put one in the crock pot for Memorial Day, but I'm not writing it in stone.

Here are our receipts.

The total amount we spent on bone-in rib steaks today was $80.84. We got 10 steaks total and they were a combined weight of 15.49 pounds. Keep in mind that Bob and I split a steak. We cannot eat that much meat. These steaks make 2-3 meals for us as I make fried rice the leftover meat and soup with the leftover bones. Beef and barley soup using those grilled bones is amazing.
We got 2 half-gallons of ice cream and paid 17 cents each for them.
We got 2 racks of pork ribs that weigh over 12 pounds total for a grand total of $12.23.
I got 6 ears of corn for $2.
I also bought just under a pound of asparagus for $1.70.
5 bottles of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce were $4.95.
And then we got a few items not on sale but needed for the house like half and half.


Our grocery grand total, from both stores, all 3 transactions, was $101.29.

We are set for grilling season! Bring on summer!

**I am not compensated by any of these companies or products listed.

Stocking Up On A Year's Worth Of Laundry Detergent

 I do not like going into stores. They are crowded. People don't respect personal space. I just have no love lost if I don't go into a grocery store again.

I do, however, like to stock up on items so that we are not constantly running to the store. I stock up on a lot of food items, but I don't stockpile them, if that makes sense.

I will mini-stockpile non-perishables that we use. I just did a toothpaste stock up today. I have enough Crest toothpaste to last me for a couple of years and I paid 87 cents per tube. Prices are going up. Costs are going through the roof. When I find a good deal, I take advantage of it. I bought 5 pounds of a butter at $2.47 per pound. I haven't seen a better deal than that for quite some time.

I am getting off track here, though.

I'm getting my washer and dryer hooked up and I wanted to make sure I was stocked up on laundry detergent.

I jumped onto Amazon to see what I could find. I ran into what I thought was a decent deal on Ecos laundry detergent. I could buy 2 100-ounce bottles for $19.47, if I wanted to do a subscribe and save. I always opt in to subscribe and save because it's a way to save some money on my Amazon order. I am also member of Prime. It's worth the money, for us, because we watch videos, I utilize Kindle Unlimited and we take advantage of free shipping.

I looked on Walmart's website and they just didn't have any decent deals worth mentioning, which is surprising because that is where I tend to find overall lower prices on cleaning supplies.

I jumped onto Fred Meyer's (Kroger) website and I found 75-ounce bottles of Purex Free & Clear laundry detergent, regularly $5.19, on sale for $4.99. There was also a coupon.

Here's what I viewed on Amazon. 200 loads of Ecos laundry detergent for $19.47, if I do subscribe and save. I don't look at the cost per ounce when I do these deals. It doesn't pertain to anything. I'm just trying to get the most bang for my buck. The less money that I have to pay out to a retailer, the happier I am about things.

Here's what I viewed on Fred Meyer's website. $4.99 for 57 loads. I was thinking at this time that I would be able to get a few more loads for a $20 bill if I bought these.

I looked at the coupon that was an option to use on the Fred Meyer Purex detergent. It states that I get $2.50 off of $4.99 (sale price), which brings each bottle of this particular size of detergent down to $2.49. Better still, I was able to use this coupon up to 5 times in a single transaction.

Some quick calculation and I placed my order for pickup this afternoon. I held my breath that they had them in stock.

So, I multiplied 57 x 5. That equals 285 loads. 5 bottles of this, using a $2.50 coupon on each one, is a total of $12.45. This versus 200 loads for $19,47. As far as I'm concerned, they are comparable detergents. I've never used Ecos brand, but I've definitely used Purex.

So, we got home a little while ago with my 5 75-ounce bottles of Purex laundry detergent that will definitely last me a year or more.
I'm good to do and we'll have clean clothes and I won't need to run to the store for laundry detergent unless I find another deal like this.


***I am not compensated by any of the companies or products mentioned above.