supermarket showdown

I wouldn't consider my self much of a braggart. I usually keep my small victories to myself. But this one... This one I had to share. Not because it's overly interesting to read about (in fact, unless you find yourself in a place of shear boredom, you may want to move along) but more just so that I can realize the true gravity of what I accomplished. Putting things in writing tends to do that well for me. So, here I go.

As I discussed in this post, I use a strategy called "ad matching" when I go grocery shopping. I scour the weekly grocery ads, circle the good deals on things I already need for the week and then pack my ads with me to my local grocer. My grocer will give me the lowest advertised price, so long as I can prove it. After looking at this weeks ads, I knew this would be a GREAT trip.

I'm short on interesting things to do - can you tell?

Anyway.

Here, in no particular order, are the best deals I found this week, which brought my grocery total to $71.12 (I left out the not-so-interesting, but if you're honestly the type that wants to know that I spent $1.36 on a 6-pack of raisin boxes, I can give you more detail)

• 4 boxes of store brand cereal, $1.00 each
• 8 cans generic pasta sauce, $0.48 each (which I will later spice up, but this is cheaper than raw ingredients people!)
• 5 pounds of grapes, $0.99 per pound
• 16 yogurts (6oz cups), $0.25 each
• 2 24-oz Cottage cheese containers, $1.68 (should have bought more, may go back)
• 2 dozen eggs, $0.48 each
• 2lbs colby jack block cheese, $2.99 per pound
• 2.5lbs shredded cheese (including parmesan!) $0.99/8-oz bag

I'll spare you the rest, but suffice it to say we're good on a number of staples for a while. Reminds me of the time (not even 4 months ago) I bought 25 lbs of ground turkey in one-pound rolls for $1 per pound. I wondered if it was a mistake. It most certainly was not. We've gone through half of it already in everything from burgers to casaroles, lasagna to meatballs, and more.

There were a handful of ad-matches I had planned to use but didn't in the end. Hy-vee, for example, advertised skippy peanut butter for $1.00 per 16oz jar, but none of their PB is all natural (read: no sugar) so I passed it up. I think there were a couple more, but it's somewhat of a blur at this point.

Hope your weekly trip is as successful as mine was - I'm darn proud.

Now, the real challenge: Not going to the store again until next Thursday.

I'm stocked.

Bring it.