It Doesn't Seem Right

To be so attached to a grocery store just seems abnormal. But I LOVE the place. I mean, lots of stores have cheesy mottos, but at Publix, "shopping IS a pleasure."

Paul got a cookie, got to drive a cart. It went well. Now for my trophy. I wish I would have taken a picture, but well, it's a long story. Oh, you want to hear it? Well, this a blog, after all. What better place to share every detail of my life? Okay. It snowed today, and my husband got to go to work late since the bank didn't open until 11:00 on account of the icy roads. After playing in the snow with the kid, we had a late breakfast. But still I knew that was a long time ago, not getting a lunch break and all. So when I got home from Publix, it was like 4:55, and I knew I had to get started on the fried chicken right away since it would take like 45 minutes to cook. So, I turned on the grease, powdered up the chicken, and then put the groceries away. Meanwhile serving Paul a small snack since he hadn't had much since breakfast either. Can you imagine taking time right then to pose my groceries? Anyway, I'm no Keren. She's the queen, but here are the highlights:

Getting paid nine cents to buy tomatoes
70-cent bread
Two and a half pounds of bananas for $.67
The penny item was WELCH'S GRAPE JUICE! Not to totally rub it in to those of you who ended up with organic toilet paper, but this was the coolest penny item ever.

I got a rain check on the yogurt, so I'm looking forward to letting that purchase supplement another trip.

Check it out:
Actual retail price: $47.58
My cost: $13.81
My "savings": 71%

As always, thanks go out to Sarah at Fiddledeedee without whose help I never would have discovered how much a person can enjoy a grocery store.

Absolutely Never Again. Perhaps.

All the way through Bloom, I told Paul, "We're never doing this again." I admit, I may have said it partially for the benefit of some workers stocking shelves. But then I realized that I had a bad attitude, and it's not their fault really.

But duh. The second day of Triple Coupon Weekend after I had seen it promoted on like four blogs. What coupons do you think EVERYONE in the store had? What was I thinking dragging my poor little toddler out and expecting him to be good when I was having a hard time being good? No sour cream, no cottage cheese, no peanut butter, TWO Knorrs sides, ONLY turkey pot pie Campbells Chunky Fully Loaded, no Betty Crocker Supreme brownie mix. Okay. You see why I was chiding myself for driving all the way to Greer to triple my coupons. I felt like they had just announced a hurricane watch.

At the height of my resolve NEVER to enter another Bloom during Triple Coupon Weekend, I ring up a $16.46 purchase for $4.78.

Well. Maybe I'll try to go on Friday next time.

Monday

Hey guys, is it too late to hang a moose rack about Monday?

Okay. Well. I will anyway. I didn't even want to go. It was Presidents' Day. Jon was off all day. We sat at home and hung out. It was like 5:45, and I wasn't really in the mood to shop. But I had heard that the Publix penny item was carbonated, so I really wanted to spend ten dollars there. So, I loaded up the kid, left Jon to get some much-needed stuff done, and headed out to CVS and Publix.

I had to spend $7.99 in Extra Bucks at CVS since they had expired the day before. I asked her really nicely. So anyway, long story short, I pick up 2 Colgates for $2.99 each and 2 Neutragena bars that I heard here would be a good deal. I used two $1.50 Colgate coupons. My total ended up being: the $7.99 plus $1.21 on my CVS gift card I got for getting a new prescription filled there. So I get back: $5.98 for the toothpaste, $10 for the soap, and $10 for doing a survey for them online back in January. Not bad.

Publix, briefly. I got 2 gallons of milk, 2 coffee creamers, 2 boxes of Ritz crackers, 2 boxes of Lipton tea bags, and a Valley Fresh Steamer plus the Publix soda for $9.06. No, no. You don't understand. That's with the milk being $2.99 each and the crackers being $1.50 apiece. Those things add up to $8.98. Now you see what a deal this was. You can see more at Fiddledeedee. Thanks. It was a happy Presidents' Day.

Publix Strikes Again

I'd miss the place if I couldn't go one week. Let me tell you, I love surprises. Baked beans. I don't buy baked beans. I make baked beans. But hey. They'll go great with our pork roast this week. (I didn't get the pork roast at Publix; that's a semi-funny story.)

I did get at Publix:
2 boxes of French toast sticks
2 gallons of milk
a box of cereal
a bag of potatoes
a box of cake mix
2 coffee creamers
2 Campbells Select Harvest soups
2 cans of ORGANIC tomato sauce (can you believe it?)
Parenthesis. My rule about organic is, "Get it if it's cheaper." Which means I never get anything "organic." However, if we're technical, it's basically all organic. Let's take my normal cheap tomato sauce. If "organic" means (and it does) [characteristic of, pertaining to, or derived from living organisms], then, if it grew, it's organic. Okay? Let's move on. End parenthesis.
and the baked beans.

This came to $20.75 before coupons.

After my $8.40 in coupons which were:
2 French toast stick coupons
1 Frosted Mini Wheat coupon
1 Pillsbury Reduced Sugar Cake mix coupon (RP 1/11)
1 Campbells Select Harvest coupon (SS 1/4)
2 Coffee Mate coupons
2 Muir Glen coupons

My total was $12.35.

Now, about the tomato sauces. They cost $.85. That's outrageous. It's like 30 cents at Aldi. But I needed tomato sauce. And I had these $1 coupons. I've never done this at a grocery store before (just drug stores), but I got them to pay me 30 cents to buy organic tomato sauce. This is so fun.

So, for the statisticians out there, here's what I "saved." If I had waltzed in there another week when this stuff wasn't on sale and bought it without coupons (which I never would have done, but go with me here), I would have spent $35.18. As it is I spent $12.35. That's a savings of . . . 65%. Wahoo!

Thanks, Sarah at Fiddledeedee, for all the Publix info!

Publix Keeps Me Coming Back for More. . . Cookies

Deborah suggested I join the Publix cookie club. Well, I'm not technically in the club, I guess. That would be Paul. Believe me, he's the one who eats the cookies. But having him in the club makes Publix a happier place for me. If your little Cookie Monster is not in the club, initiation is easy. Just pull a hungry little kid up (in a vroom-vroom cart if you can find one) to the bakery and ask for a cookie card. They'll dole out a cookie and punch the card. Once the card is all punched, you can enter it in a drawing for a big cookie. So your little one munches while you shop. Or at least until you get out of the produce section.

After we picked up our, that is his, cookie, we found the following groceries:
3 toaster strudels
1 Coffee Mate creamer
a pack of .59 a pound chicken legs
2 cans of Rotel tomatoes
2 boxes of Keebler cookies or "Teetees! Teetees!" (this is where the cookie club loot came in especially handy)
and the penny item was a big roll of paper towels

All for the low, low price of $7.89.
Which, they tell me, is a savings of $17.15. That would mean that I "saved" 69% by getting sale stuff and using coupons. And if I had to recommend one thing, I would say to get the tomatoes. They work great for taco soup, and you make money if you use the coupon from the Advantage flier in conjuction with the .30/1 manufacturer coupon from last week's (I think) insert.

That's my super savings. I've never been so attached to a grocery store. I love this place.

Oh. You want to know how to make taco soup? Okay, we'll see what we can do. Stay tuned.

My Morning Marathon

All right, so it wasn't really that long of a thing, but I did go to four stores in a row. Okay, fine. I just wanted all the words to start with "m." Once I had "My Morning" up there, it would have been disappointing to say something like, "My Morning of Shopping at Four Stores."

But, you'd like me to get on with it?

First we went to Walgreens. All we did there was buy a paper. Perhaps I'll tell you about the paper delivery woes later if I think it's interesting enough. I'd hate to bore you. Paul was fine. He didn't even need a cart.
$0.88

Next we went to Publix. That was also fun since they had a "vroom, vroom" cart available. Those deals are here, and Publix is cool.
$5.67

Then we hit Aldi. All these places are like 3 feet from each other, by the way. (Okay. I hope you noticed the exaggeration. But they are really close together and close to my house. I could actually walk to all of them, but the frozen stuff would melt on the way home.) Aldi was still Aldi. Same guy who reminds me of this guy I know from California rang me up. He's my favorite cashier, I think, because, like James in California, he really knows his stuff. He exudes confidence in his realm--which in his case is groceries, inventory, and cash registers. Someone asks him a "backroom" question every single time I see him there, and he fires off the answer the way my mother-in-law would rattle off the Tarheels' starting line-up. Unlike James, he probably doesn't make like half a million dollars a year. I guess that's the difference in being an expert in groceries versus computer programming. But I really like the guy. I'd pick his line even if it's got the most people. At Aldi, it really doesn't matter how long the line is. By the time you get your stuff on the conveyor belt, you're racing to shove your cart next to the card keypad so the ringer-upper might be talked into putting the groceries in your cart instead of the one in front of you so you don't have to transfer your toddler in order to haul stuff to your car. But I digress. By the way, the other ringer-uppers are very nice too. I wouldn't want to give the wrong impression. I just feel like I know "James." But I still digress.
$18.55

Bi-Lo was the last stop. They advertised ground beef for $1.99 a pound. We haven't had ground beef in the house for weeks because I was waiting for a sale, so I decided I really owed it to my husband to make spaghetti this week. "I'll get one pound." I told myself. "I'm sure it will go on a better sale later." But after seeing that Publix and Aldi were both a whole dollar more, I started to look forward to getting "just one pound." Well, duh. They don't sell one pound of meat for $1.99. The one-pounds were $2.49. You had to get like five-ish all packaged together to get the $1.99 price. But I was well under what I was planning to spend for the week, and ground beef was all I had come to Bi-Lo for, so I got it. And boy was I glad. Paul had been good in all the stores, and when we checked out at this last one, the Bi-Lo lady gave him four stickers and a balloon. I was ever-so-grateful. Paul loves stickers and balloons.
Bi-Lo: $8.97
Paul's refusal to let go of the balloon string in the van: Priceless.

Grocery Total for the (hopefully) week (that is to say, not counting the newspaper, which was on the gift card anyway): $33.19

I'm nowhere near Keren's mad skills, but I'll content myself with the knowledge that I did not forget the coffee filters at Aldi.

Publix has outdone itself.

So we all know I like Publix. I go on Mondays because I like surprises. I get it from my mom. So, I waited for Monday to get my Barber Foods chicken, 2 boxes of Special K, and 2 Pepperidge Farm Texas Toasts.

Now, to be fair, I never would have paid regular price for any of that. I would have probably suppressed a chuckle if I saw someone actually plunk down five bucks for one of those boxes of TWO tiny stuffed chicken breasts. But they are really good, and for $1.50, I'll spring. So, when I say I saved whatever, I didn't really. Okay? Let's just be honest. Take the cereal, for example. I didn't save $2.99. I would eat Cream of Wheat every day before I'd pay four bucks for a box of cereal. I saved like 89 cents. If Special K hadn't been a dollar a box at Publix, I would have gotten Happy Harvest or Special Sunshine or whatever Aldi calls their cereal. But savings are much higher if you take the receipt's word for it, so I'll tell you what it said.

Reguar Price for my stuff: $27.29
My Price for my stuff: $5.67
Savings! 79%

But when I say they outdid themselves, I mean this. I ask the clerk, "Do you have the penny item here, or should I go to customer service?" She's got it there. What does she grab? A box a hot chocolate packs. I think, "Oh cool. This is way better than Saltines. . ." But I don't get to finish my thought before she grabs another box of hot chocolate packs. Let me get this straight. I just lowered my bill by $6 in manufacturer coupons, and you are selling me hot chocolate for half a cent a box? You are so nice! Like I said, I love surprises. The penny deal will keep me coming.

That's my Publix super savings.

A Bandit

My mom has an expression to describe my experience Tuesday. Ever heard it said that someone "made out like a bandit"? While, in this day of politically correct hypersensitivity, I should probably shrink from using such a phrase in print lest I either a) offend someone who has a bandit in his/her immediate circle of relations, b) can trace her/his lineage back far enough to conger up a bandit of a most notorious kind, c) would him/her-self shrink from using the term "bandit" in a derogatory manner lest we influence school children to discriminate against bandits in their future hiring practices, I use it out of the strong persuasion that it is the only phrase that does justice to the accomplishments of two days ago.

Now that I have offended the sensibilities of both bandits' rights activists and run-on sentence-eschewing English teachers alike, allow me to explain to the rest of my audience the conquests I was so happy to make.

Rite Aid: Tons of free stuff is available for the taking at Rite Aid. They even had a shelf devoted to free merchandise right in the front of the store. Please see this post at Money Saving Mom to see if there is anything that strikes your fancy. I picked up:
ChapStick (for which I happen to receive a free after mail-in-rebate form in my last edition of the Sunday paper, 10/12/08)
SoftLips lip balm (I love this stuff)
Comtrex cold medicine
Sucrets throat lozenges

I paid $12.68, and they'll add $11.96 to my monthly check. (Then, of course, there's the $1.99 rebate to wait for as well. Even with the postage stamp, there's a slight return on investment in addition to the products.)

CVS: 3 coupons and some ECB deals landed me:
CoverGirl foundation, which I didn't need, but it made possible the free. . .
CoverGirl powder, which I did need
Colgate toothpaste, because, believe it or not, our surplus is almost depleted.
for a grand total of $6.99 in ECBs and $.47 in actual money with $5 in ECBs generated. I calculate the cost of the products at $2.46. I really did need the powder.

Publix: I saved the best for last. I got three things.
2 bags of New England coffee
1 box containing 2 Barber Foods chicken cordon bleus (is that how you make that dish plural?)
All the above items were by-one-get-one-free. I used 2 $1.50/1 coupons for the coffee and a $1/1 for the chicken. Now, I never would have bought any of that stuff without coupons and sales, though I might have wished to. Still it's fun to detail the "savings" since I have this blog as an outlet for that, so here they are:
Regular price would have been $16.57
I paid $3.79.
Is that a 77% "savings"? I think I calculated that correctly. I think I left math teachers out of those whose sence of propriety I injured. Can one of you help me out if I erred?

My All-Time Favorite Thing about Publix

Again, I really like Publix. I went there last night, and I bought (according to the regular prices of things) $31.98 worth of groceries for $10.96. That's a savings of 65.73% for those of you who are interested. My coupons alone amounted to $6.35. It was fun.

But my all-time favorite feature of Publix is one we took advantage of just last week, actually. Free prescriptions. My baby had an ear infection and was prescribed amoxicillin. Daddy just went in to the Publix pharmacy and walked out with the medicine and a little measuring dropper thing, and the receipt read a big fat $0.00. It's a blessing, really.

I just talked with a friend of mine who shops at Publix and everything, but she didn't know about the program. It would have saved them some recently too. So I thought I'd pass the news along to the rest of the Publix Super Savers. The details are here.

Publix

I really like Publix. They are super close to where I live, and they are such a pleasant place to shop. Believe me, I love the prices at Aldi, but Publix makes one remember the days when (as a child a good many years ago) I would see cashiers pull your groceries out of the cart for you and another person would put the groceries in the bags for you and would walk you to your car and put them in the trunk for you. I could actually take or leave the bagger dude coming to the car with me, and I do put my own groceries on the conveyor belt, but there is a bagger dude at any rate, and if I've got more than one bag, he will offer to take them to the car for me.

So, I've enjoyed Fiddledeedee and the Publix Super Savers series (say that five times). I was really happy with my last trip to Publix for a number of reasons:

1. The race-car cart. Okay. This had its drawbacks to be sure, but I really wish I had a picture. My 13-month-old rode in the cart with a steering wheel for the first time in his life, and he is hooked. Let's just be honest, the cart is the size of a small continent, but come on. Would you trade hearing your little guy make motor noises as you maneuver through the aisles for a smaller turning radius?
2. The Advantage Buys. Factoring in coupons, I got some good deals (which I'll detail in coming paragraphs).
3. They doubled one of my coupons.
4. The bananas were the same price as Walmart's.

I failed to take a picture, but for
3 packs of buns,
2 18-count Chinet crystal tumblers,
1 200-count Dixie napkins,
a head of Romaine,
a loaf of bread,
2.93 pounds of bananas,
Hershey's caramel topping (for the bananas . . . and ice cream of course),
Kraft Singles Select cheese, and
2 pounds of carrots
my total came to $20.27.
After
2 $1/1 Chinet coupons,
1 Singles Select coupon, and
1 Dixie coupon (which was doubled; still don't know why),
my final total was $16.72. Not too shabby.
Coupon savings: $3.55
Advantage Buy savings: $2.86
Total savings (not to insult you, but they add it up for you on the receipt): $6.41