Freezer Meal Shopping

I love shopping! Really any kind of shopping is fun for me! I just don't like to try on clothes, so tend to go back to the store more often than I need to.


When I'm at the store, the first thing I hit is the clearance or discount racks. Know where your discount sections in your stores are, this will save you money!


I have scored on yogurt many times! Check the expiration, but most dairy products will be fine up to a week past the sell by date. Sometimes stores discount things just because they have too much and they can have sell by dates up to a month out, those are my favorite!


Be choosy with your meat. I like to shop the discount meat because it less expensive, but some are already turning funky colors and that is not when you want to buy them. Find meat that looks good and smells good. Even if the sell by date is that day, you can either take it home and cook it right away, or you can put it right in the freezer and save for another recipe you have in mind.


Just the other day, I happened to be at the store and looked on the discounts for bread. I was able to find two packages of whole grain hoagie rolls from the bakery on discount and I knew I needed them for the French dip we will do this week. I bought them both and brought them home, double bagged and put in the freezer and will pull them out the morning we do French dip.


I love when I can find what I need on discount!


Some people say that you should get your meat and frozen foods last. It is entirely up to you how you want to shop. I will usually get my fresh stuff first because it is right in the front of the store, and then hit the aisles for the canned and dried things and try to do dairy and meat and frozen last, but that's mostly how my stores are set up, so I just go with the flow.


If you have a budget you need to keep with, don't be afraid to put things back and tweak your meal plan for the week. Sometimes you don't know exactly what things cost until you get into the store. If you can plan your meals with a grocery ad, this will also save you money!


Most people don't like to shop multiple stores. I do, but I am also looking for the best price! I know that we have an Associated Foods store here that usually has their pork roasts on sale for .99-$1.25/lb, and chicken legs and thighs around .79/lb, so I will go there for my meat, but I also know that Smith's usually has meat and dairy and bread and other things on close out that I can get fairly cheap, so I will also go there if there is something on their sale I need, or if I want to check out their close out.


When you are done shopping, you are now ready to prep and cook the meals you have planned! Yay! The fun now begins!

Smith's deals

I'm sharing my shopping trip with you, you know how I like to shop and find killer deals! Smith's is our store that has the best deals. This week have one of their mega 10 sales: buy 10 and get $5 off.  Some of the items on this sale are some very good prices! I got 90 items, some of which weren't on the sale, and I spent about $74. I didn't take a picture to post sorry, I don't think about it until I have put everything away.

So here is a breakdown of what I purchased:
Goldfish crackers, Philadelphia cream cheese, tortillas, Wholly guacamoles, Wholly salsa, chili beans, canned tomatoes, Smart ones entrees, Greek yogurt, Carnation instant breakfst, eggbeaters egg whites, tissues, dishwasher soap, Activia yogurt, kettle chips, and Nabisco crackers.

That's averages less than $1 per item! Some of the things I bought, I got for free with coupons. Others I got for 49 cents or less. This is all things that we need and use all the time. Snacks for my kids and the kids I watch, as well as items for dinners for my family. I try to buy things that I know we will use and to help stock my food storage. We get coupons all the time for things that I wouldn't even use, so a lot of times I choose not use those coupons, even if it's on sale. My whole goal in what I purchase is to stock my food storage with items that will help feed my family. I do get a lot of fresh fruits and veggies to. This is very important to me, that's why I run my produce co op. I always have fresh produce in the fridge, I love it!

If you or someone you know wants to learn how to shop with coupons and to save hundreds of dollars each month, let me know and I can point you to the right person, they can also get you a great deal on the Sunday paper so you can have coupons coming to your house every week to help you do that!

Walmart shopping trip

It has been a while since I have really gotten some great deals with coupons or anything, so it's about time I got some good things. I have heard many times that there are people that don't go shopping unless they will be paid to shop. That is a little extreme to me and hard to believe that they will get everything  they need and be paid for it every time. I just try to do the best I can with what I have. Like this week, I really needed milk and cheese and I tried to print coupons for them, but my printer is out of ink, so it printed, but nothing appeared on the paper, so there goes a couple coupons I missed out on, oh well. But, we got some really great coupons this week in our 5 inserts we got! One of my favorite was $8/2 covergirl face products. This was a wonderful mney maker for me at Walmart. Here's what I got:

Might be kind of hard to see, but I got 16 cans GV tomato sauce (.25 each), 12 cans Spaghetti Os (.50 each price matched from Lee's caselot sale), 2 cans S & W chili beans (.69 each price match), 2 Tresemme mousse with bonus ($2.48), Aquafresh travel size (.97), 4 Oral B glide dental floss ($2.47), 8 Covergirl facial sponges ($2.94), and 1 bag cotton balls.

Before coupons my total was $52.67, after coupons I only paid $9.46!! That's around a 90% savings, not bad at all!! I love when I save so much money like that!

Here's the skinny and where to find these great coupons:

Oral B complete satin floss - SS 9/11, $2/1 = .47 each
Covergirl any face product - P&G 10/2, $8/2 = $2.12 overage for every two
Campbell's Spaghetti Os - DishSS 9/11, .40/2 = .30 each
S & W beans - RP 9/11, .50/2 = .44 each
Aquafresh toothpaste $1/1 = .03 overage
Tresemme styling product - RP 10/2, BOGO = $2.48 for both (I told the cashier the wrong price on these, they should be $3.33, I will go back and make it right, just know when you go, they are $3.33!)

That's the skinny! There is also a coupon for Scrubbing Bubbles one step toilet bowl cleaner kit - Dish SS 9/11, $4/1, these are $3.97 at Walmart which makes them FREE, but they were all out when I went, so I will kep checking back. Hope you have as much fun shopping and saving money as I do, it helps my family so much!

If you want to learn about saving money with coupons, please let me know and I can teach your friends and family how to save lots of money! It's not hard and doesn't take much time the Grocery Smarts way!

I am very excited for this week! I am going to be leaving town this week all by myself, well, me and Addie! I am going to be flying to Virginia to visit Mike's brother and his family. It will be a lot of fun! I am nervous to fly by myself, or rather with a one year old, but it will be ok. So in the meantime I am finishing up some shopping, since it will be a couple weeks before I make it out to shop again. I went to Smith's this morning to pick up some things that they didn't have Friday and was able to get a few things, but they have been out of Reach toothbrushes and that is something that I was really needing to buy. But I bought 10 boxes of pasta and a crest kids toothpaste and they paid me 18 cents after my coupons, love it!

My Rite Aid shopping was a lot of fun today too. They have Buy One Get One Free sales all over the store this week, plus some other great shopping deals! I only paid about $6 for everything pictured! I did have $12 in +UP rewards from last week that helped to pay for this so the $6 was what I paid after all coupons and +UP rewards. This is the bonus to buying things there!

Rite Aid shopping trip: 2 pkgs. napkins, 2 boxes Kleenex, 2 Viactiv, 2 Got2B stylers, 3 Similac ready formula, 5 Tylenol precise heat patches, 24 chocolate bars, 4 Starburst and 2 packs of gum!

Sometimes Smith's has some really awesome deals!! They are running a March mega 10 event. All Ronzoni pasta are on sale and I saved my coupons from the paper about a month ago, so I got 1 box oyster crackers (for Addie), 2 boxes Annie's organic mac & cheese, 3 boxes Rice a Roni, 1 box Pasta Roni, 8 jars Classico pasta sauce, 16 boxes Ronzoni Smart taste pasta, 10 boxes Ronzoni Garden Delight pasta, 20 boxes Ronzoni Healthy Harvest pasta, 2 pkgs. Kraft shredded cheese, 2 Sunny D's. So my total out of pocket cost was $9.65! But I bought 4 boxes of pasta more than I should have, I didn't have coupons for those, so I will take back 4 and get back just over $4, so in the end it will be about $5! This will feed my family for months to come! Does this not inspire you to use couons more? Let me know what kind of success you had at Smith's this week. I love their mega 10 events, I always save so much! Happy Shopping!

Mystery Package

I ordered something fun about a month ago. At gravyardmall.com you can order all sorts of things for pretty cheap. Every once in a while they have mystery boxes of stuff that you can order. I ordered a kitchen gagdet mystery box. I was kind of disappointed, since some of them weren't what I would consider "gagdets". The things I received are a small metal trash can, silicone round baking pan, silicone 6 cup muffin pan, silicone oven mitt, wooden spoon set, 4 wooden placemats, pizza cutter, set of 4 glasses (one was broke when I opened it) and the one I am excited for: ceramic fondue pot. Kind of fun, not too bad for the price I paid.

I will also post my awesome shopping trips, maybe this will get you excited to want to shop with coupons. It's a lot of fun and I enjoy it. So today I went to two different Rite Aid's to get all this stuff, but it was worth it. I paid out of pocket $23.42 and got back $25.00 in +up rewards (to learn more about +up rewards go to riteaid.com).

I have about $7 in +ups from a trip last week, but I had some good coupons. I bought 8 boxes Special K, 4 Tylenol Pricise patches, 2 bottles Clorox2, 20 Hormel Compleats, 4 bags pistashios, 2 Kraft marshmallows. I mainly paid tax on the majority of these, but definitely stuff we will use. If I would have done things a little differently when checking out I probably would have paid a lot less, but I do have $25 to spend on my next trip to get more things free.