In keeping with my new Dave Ramsey approved spending style, I went to the grocery store armed with a thinly packed Envelope System. I had my debit card as well, but there's no money to spend in the bank account, so it's not like it would have done me any good anyway. My goal was to spend no more than $40 (because I was planning on just filling in the gaps from last week's groceries), but I had an extra unallocated $20 that I could tap into in case I went over. I also had on me a $20 that had already been assigned to a different envelope.
I feel like his week's trip was not as successful as last week's. Maybe it's because I wasn't sticking to buying only the items I had coupons for. First of all, I went over budget by $26.01 so I had to tap into both my unassigned $20 and the $20 that was intended for something else. Also, I feel like between the 2 weeks' totals, I'm not really that far off from what I was paying when I bought only store brands as opposed to coupons. But I'll have to go back and really examine our bank account to find out for sure. I know it's a bit less, but I also feel like I still have not purchased all of our usual "staples". Oh, and I broke my own rule by shopping at both Meijer and Kroger today (I had more coupons for Kroger with the plus card (which I'll comment on in a moment) and Meijer had better sales on some things. Since I wasn't getting a ton of stuff from either place, I figured it wouldn't be too bad).
I didn't photograph what I bought, and I did have to pay without coupons for several things like green pepper, cucumber, milk, apples, yogurt, chicken breast, and ground beef and soda. I did, however, choose things that were on sale or clearance. I got several containers of yogurt for only $0.08 a piece because they were nearing their sell-by date!
Here's the damage, broken down by store:
Kroger:
5 frozen pizzas, 3 frozen veg, 5 frozen dinners, 1 family size frozen dinner, 2 frozen waffles, 2 boxes meatless burgers, milk, cheese
Total Retail- $61.65
Paid- $35.40
Savings- $26.35 or 42%
Meijer:
Chicken breast, cottage cheese, shredded cheese, 2 rolls of sausage, 3lbs of ground beef, 1 container of lunchmeat, 2 fruit cups, 1 jar of fruit, 3 12-packs of soda, cucumber, green pepper, apples, 2 4-packs of yogurt, 4 individual cups of yogurt.
Total Retail- $59.12
Paid- $30.61
Savings- $28.51 almost 50%
Observations:
With regard to the Kroger Coupons loaded on to the Plus Card, I don't think they were discounted properly or at all. I'll have to double check. It's very difficult to keep track of what coupons you have when you can't look at them in your hand. I take notes, but I don't copy everything word for word. When you look at the percentage breakdown, I technically saved more this week than last week. but the 2 weeks combined total ($141.68) is still too high for my taste, especially when I think about the things I didn't buy (usually I get way more fresh produce, but using cash-only I got scared away by prices pretty easily)! Maybe having my kids with me this time distracted me too much and I ended up spending more than I otherwise would have (I really don't think so, but it's nice to have someone to blame other than myself)! Also, I feel I need to justify all the frozen dinners and pizzas I buy each week- Timm takes a frozen dinner to work every day for lunch and then makes a frozen pizza for dinner every night when he gets home (he gets home at 10pm- too late to have dinner with us, and he is 100% against eating leftovers of almost any variety)!
More research needs to be done on my part...
**EDIT**
Just went to Kroger's website to make sure my Plus Card coupons were redeemed. They weren't. And now, when you look at the details for the eCoupons, they specify that paper coupons and eCoupons couldn't be combined for a single item (which is what I had planned on doing- I had both). This must be brand new policy, because last week I was able to use both together! ARG! This sucks. I think I may be sticking to Meijer for more stuff, because I'm pretty sure they still take both.
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