Savings Success

So I hit up Publix yesterday afternoon for what became my biggest couponing shopping trip to date.  I don't usually get nervous at the check out but for some reason I was really anxious today.  I think it was because I had a card FULL of groceries (normally I have a few items--certainly no where near a full cart). When the clerk finished ringing up everything my total was nearly $85--side note: at Publix the store deals are automatically applied to items when they are scanned so the $85 was WITH store sales applied already--like I said I was a tad panicked.    When it was all said and done with my total was $49.50 with a total savings of 63%!  I was pretty stoked, considering that $49.50 included $10 for steaks and $6.73 was sales tax.

The proof!

As I said, this trip included $10 in steaks, 4 Healthy Choice frozen lunches, several frozen steamer bag veggies all for $ .50- $ .80 each, I Can't Believe it's Not Butter Spray for less than $ .75, Kraft Mayo for $1.75, Newman's Own Salsa (one of our new favorites) for $1, a Voila! Frozen Dinner for 2 for $1.50, YoPlait Frozen Smoothie Mix for $ .60, 3 Crystal Light mix Canisters for $2, Ghirardelli Brownie mixes BOGO, Knorr pasta sides for $.50 each, and 2 bags of Pretzel Chips for $1.25 each, and some Propel Zero Fitness Water 2 for $1!  I also had a couple of coupons for FREE items: a Stouffer's Soup and Sandwich Meal, and an Uncle Ben's Ready Rice pouch, plus a $5 off a $30 purchase. All in all a great trip, and a great way to start out my May savings!

I don't think I mentioned it but in the month of April I saved and average of 55% on all of my grocery purchases.  My goal is to up that to 60% for the month of May.  I have improved by nearly 10% every month since I started keeping up with this in January and I don't want to let up now!  Since the beginning of the year I have saved over $775 on groceries, more than half of that total was from April and (the very beginning of) May alone. I am starting to amass a small stock pile of items I know we will use, especially for cookouts this summer.  I am trying to talk Eric into putting in some shelving units in our laundry room so I can expand it--not to the extent of those Extreme Couponing people because frankly I do not have the time or energy to track down all of those coupons--I just want to be able to de-clutter my cabinets.