Week of March 23 - March 29th

For right now, I've given myself a grocery budget of $100 a week. That's including toiletries, paper products, cleaning supplies, etc. Hopefully I can eventually lower that.

I had fun today. See previous post about Basha's. All three of the OYNSO coupons printed, and I was pretty psyched about it.

Trip #1 Basha's:
3 Frosted Flakes
2 Froot Loops
2 Frosted Mini Wheats
2 cartons eggs (free with the cereal)
3 Betty Crocker Cookie Mix ($1.67 each, .67 each after coupons)
4 Pop Secret Popcorn ($1.67 each, $1.17 each after coupons)
6 Michelina's Authenticos ($1.00 each, minus a $1/5 coupon)
I also had a $5 off when you spend $25 or more coupon.

Total OOP was $27.19 with tax. I saved $39.49 and got $3, $5, and $10 in OYNSO coupons.

Basha's #2:
I decided to grab another 6 Michelina's. This time my $1/5 coupon was for the Lean Gourmet. They have pizza rolls! My kids have already eaten 4 boxes of them, I think.

Anyway, used my $1/5 coupon, paid with a $5 OYNSO coupon.

Total OOP was $0.02, saved $13.72, and got another $5 OYNSO.

I didn't have two cents, thank goodness my friend Jen did. She wanted to try this too, and I had fun showing her the deals I was getting. I think she made out pretty good for her first time, with about 6 boxes of cereal, 2 dozen free eggs, and 12 Michelina's. Plus $8 worth of OYNSO coupons. Woohoo!

Fry's:
Ok, something happened at Fry's that kind of put a damper on my money-saving fun. In their ad, they had buy four 12-packs of Coke, get the 5th one free. Plus, with the Coke you got $5 off a Cook's spiral ham, which was already on sale for $1.27 a lb. So with my groceries, I got 5 12-packs of Coke, and waited while the butcher brought me out a nice 7 lb spiral ham, since they didn't have any out front. Well, when I got to the checkout, I found out that the 5 for $12 was only good through Easter, including the $5 off the ham. Poo. So, I put back one of the Cokes, and just got the 4. I almost put the ham back too, but it was a $23 ham, and I paid $10.12 for it. Still a good deal, but not the fantastic deal I was expecting by paying $5.12 for it! I looked at the ad, and sure enough in tiny print next to the $5 off the ham, it said "good thru 3/23." Oh well, live and learn.

Total at Fry's was $66.63, saved $50.85, for a 43% savings.

Basha's #3:
2 Hormel Black Label Bacon, on sale 2$5, used two 50 cent coupons doubled - $3.00
6 Michelina's - $6.00
1 package Food Club toilet paper, 6 double rolls, $3.69.

Total was $12.69+tax. I paid with the $10 and $3 OYNSO coupons.

Total OOP was $0.08, saved $29.22, and got another $5 OYNSO.

Total spent today was $93.94, and I saved $132.71. That's 70% savings! Yeah, I totally messed up on that percentage. It's actually 58%.

I still have $10 worth of OYNSO coupons for Basha's. I see more Michelina's in my future tomorrow! Maybe some more TP too, and some apples.