“budget” learning curve |

it’s friday, which means time for an update on my budget & weekly goal. to be honest, i’m a tad over. well, i’ll just say it… i’m over more than a tad. i never have been the best budgetier (not a word, but i’m still using it) so i’m chalking these first few weeks up to the learning curve of it all. right? right! i mean it couldn’t a total and complete lack of self control when it comes to all things shopping? no? well, maybe!

i figure at least now i’m just over by fifty or so dollars and not three or four hundred. baby steps…baby steps. i have to admit my whole goal with this has been, i want to save money but i don’t want to sacrifice taste, brand, quality or preference so it’s taken some learning to figure out how to maintain the “same” standard of living but for 75% (or more!) less!

here are my most recent totals:

full price cost (what i would have paid just walking in and grabbing what i wanted like i did up until the past few months): $717.64

Hence it has been included as an cheap viagra in usa active component. Progesterone is also essential for maintaining the viagra cost twelve-week-old placenta during pregnancy. An additional issue is that the majority of men don’t get full erection in penis get cialis cheap due to various reasons is known as infertility. By performing cialis discount price this activity Zulvera gains more popularity in treating sexual problems.

total savings: $563.19

total oop: $154.45

savings percentage: 78.48%

um, over 78% savings! not too shabby! i’d prefer it to be up in the 80% range, but i’ll take 78% that’s for sure. hopefully by summer it’ll be where i want it! so now, how am i getting that kind of savings? well, here are a couple of my grocery runs from this week…

first up, king soopers. if you live in utah (which a lot of my readers do) think smith’s. they are both kroger stores. here is what i picked up at king soopers earlier this week:

(2) 2 liters of soda, (3) boxes of ritz, (6) boxes of hefty storage bags, (8) gatorade, (6) cans of pillsbury grands rolls, (5) bottles of bbq sauce (various flavors), (2) totino’s pizzas, (3) cans of chef boyardee pasta, (4) 5 packs of kraft macaroni & cheese (a favorite at our house!), (1) jar of ragu sauce & 2 lbs. of lean hamburger meat.

the total for all of the above items in the end was $38.79, but then i received $12.00 in cash catalina’s to use toward future purchases so it was like paying $26.79! full price cost (with a few of the items on sale even) would have been 84.73! that is a savings of almost $58.00 & i don’t know about you but i can definitely think of ways to put that $58 to good use in other area’s of our budget (like a trip this summer or our mini getaway to vail in may).

so here is how the deal worked at king soopers. the deal was buy 10 participating items and get $3.00 off your total automatically and then also receive a $3.00 cash catalina to use on your next purchase and this happened for every ten items you bought.

now me in the past would have walked past the gatorade sign and picked up two or three since they were “on sale” for .99 cents and not even paid attention to the promo. this time around though i bought the ten items (you could mix and match product to get up to your ten) and purchased the gatorade for .39 cents each!!! now i’m set on gatorade for a while (until the next good sale) and will hopefully never have to pay full price for gatorade again. same with all the other items in the picture. i’d much rather pay .39 cents for gatorade than a dollar. plus, shopping this way also allows me to build up our food storage at the same time. the great thing about all this is i am actually buying more than i would have previously of some products in an attempt to build our food storage, but i am spending so so much less!!!

i can’t tell you how nice it was a couple weeks ago when we were ALL down with the flu and i already had gatorade, sprite, applesauce & saltine’s somewhat stocked and on hand. there was no running to the store late at night or early in the morning and paying full price because we needed it right then! it felt good having it on hand and it felt good knowing we got the best price for it!

***update: i did also use coupons on my king sooper’s purchase. so those are factored into the price total as well, on top of the promo that was going on. i had coupons for the hefty bags, the macaroni and cheese, the grands, the pizzas, the chef boyardee & the ritz crackers.***

now for the second store, walgreen’s. this store run i was looking for two particular item, the febreeze luminary flamless starter kit and the airheads.

my total out of pocket for this purchase was: .72 cents!

total savings $28.16!

the febreeze luminary starter kit is normally close to $11.00 but it was on clearance for $4.19 and i had a $5.00 off coupon which meant that i made .80 cents purchasing that item. i actually had three coupons for this product so i purchased 2 others on another run. basically i made $2.40 by buying something i’ve wanted to try and stocking up on it. what could be better than making money buying something that you’ve wanted to try out anyway?

the 6 pack box of airheads were on sale for .69 cents and i had (6) .50 cent off coupons so each box of airheads was only .19 cents. that’s less than .04 cents an airhead. i bought these so i’d have them on hand for when the little man starts to get stir crazy at the store. i’d much rather pull a cheap treat out of my purse than grab one from the checkout stand and pay .50 cents to a dollar. (side note: of course my mom would say, “or you could just skip the treat all together” 🙂 which is true, but my grocery runs do take a little longer these days especially at check out and i’d so much rather be able to hand him a .04 cent treat and be able to think clearly and get my savings than have to leave or miss watching to see if my coupons are being scanned correctly because he’s tired and or cranky and done with the shopping excursion.)

next up the pringles, these weren’t the BEST deal but i’ve been craving them and it was a pretty good deal so i snagged them. they were on sale for 2/$3 and i had a $1 off the purchase of 2 coupon (expiring on monday) so each can was $1.

…and the gummi bears, well we are just simply addicted to them in my family and love them for movie nights so i grabbed them at 2/$2 and justified it since i’d be paying with register rewards, plus i needed a filler item in order to be able to use said register rewards. call this a frugal snack run if you will.

basically here is my purchase went down:

2 cans of pringles: $2.00
2 bags of gummi bears (or yogi bears as ti calls them): $2.00
6 boxes of of 6 ct. airheads: $1.14
febreeze: .80 cent money maker

total: $4.34

then i used (2) $2 register rewards i had from previous purchased which brought it down to: .34 cents
then add on tax and you are at .72 cents for the entire purchase! love it! of course most of it is “junk” food but i’m sure we all find ourselves buying these same types of things probably on a somewhat regular basis. even if it’s just for kid’s birthday parties/holidays/summer road trips/etc. why not only pay pennies for them???

“budget” learning curve

1 thought on ““budget” learning curve”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply