Sweet Grocery Deals

Molly and I made a trip to Meijer yesterday to scoop up some deals.  Several months ago I started getting into "couponing" (what a funny name), which means that I try to match up coupons with sales to get sweet deals on groceries and other household items.  Thankfully, most of the hard work is done by other people who post the match-ups on their websites.  Right now my favorite sites for this are:

Money Saving Mom

Hip2Save

Macomb Money Savers

These people are masters at using coupons, getting freebies and other great deals, and sharing them with others.  I've saved so much money since starting to use coupons, and it fulfulls my urge to shop without spending a ton of money.

I know that a lot of coupons that come with the Sunday paper are for food items that are complete junk.  I try to avoid these and still find coupons for other items that either:
:: are good wholesome foods
:: are treats (especially if I can get them for free or close to free), or
:: are for other household items we need like toothpaste or cat food 
Why pay full price when you can stack a store coupon with a manufacturer coupon and a sale and save a bunch of money?

For the above items, I spent $22.74 out of pocket (I admit I did have $10.90 in bottle deposits from our second-time-in-5-years cash-in on the few soda cans we accumulate).  According to my receipt, I saved $37.62 from store promotions and coupons.  AND, best of all, because of the offers going on at Meijer yesterday, I got back $13 in catalinas (money toward your next purchase that the little machine spits out after your sale) because of what I bought!  Pretty cool.  Here's what I got:

1 3.5 lb bag Purina cat food
1 Danimals yogurt smoothies
3 Fast Shake pancake mixes
1 loaf Pepperidge Farm bread
1 bag King Arthur whole wheat flour
16 cans Campbell's cream of mushroom soup * keep reading for WHY!
3 cans Meijer unsalted carrots
2 quarts Swanson chicken broth
4 cans Swanson chicken broth
3 boxes Zip-lock snack bags
3 boxes Zip-lock evolve sandwich bags
5 Pillsbury Simply peanut butter cookie dough
1 box Townhouse Flips crackers
1 box Meijer Applause wheat crackers

So I can already hear the moans looking at that list of groceries... some of those items are not simple or wholesome!  Let me explain.  Some items, like the Danimals, crackers and canned carrots are for 14-month-old Molly.  This little nursling is not a fan of regular milk, loves canned carrots and can only eat so many slices of homemade bread for a snack.  The pancake mixes are for camping or weekends up north because you just add water to the bottle, shake and voila, pancake batter with very little clean-up.  The cookie dough (most of which will go straight into the freezer to be enjoyed slowly) is the new Simply kind with wholesome ingredients, and were practically free after the sale, coupons and catalina.  As for the chicken broth, I do a lot of from-scratch cooking, and while I do make stock from almost every bird that enters our house, sometimes you need some canned chicken broth. 

Lastly, the cream of mushroom soup.  No, this is not first on my list of foods to include in my diet, BUT please allow me me to explain.  Soon after I met my husband, he forgot how to cook.  I love to cook, so I pretty much took over in the kitchen right when I moved in.  However, one meal he will make in the wintertime is casseroles!  And they all start with some kind of meat, vegetables, cream of whatever soup and are topped with tater tots.  I was skeptical at first, but they grew on me and most importantly... when he makes casseroles I DON'T HAVE TO COOK DINNER!  So why spend $1.59 on a can of soup when you have a casserole craving when you can buy 16 cans for $3.90 (yep, under $0.25 per can) on sale with coupons?  We know we're going to eat it once in awhile, like it or not.

So in all of this money-saving excitement, I did fail to pick up milk, which we are almost out of.  Duh.  Oh well, I'm still new at this couponing stuff...