First Trip to the Grocery Store to start the Month off Right!!

I was trying to go to the store at the end of the month even though I was crazy over budget but I didn't get time.  I finally made it on Tuesday but had to take a sick kid with me so it took a little pre-planning.  Sadly, my coupons were a mess.  I worked on Monday to go through all my coupons and pull the expired coupons and all those that were expiring on the last day of the month.  Then, I still have 7-8 inserts to cut and put in my coupon basket. I didn't get two of them cut but I had to make it out of the because it was already noon.  My husband was also sick and ate all the soup on the house so I needed to get noodles and drop them off to him at work as well as make it home to meet up with a friend at 1:30.

I made it to Harris Teeter with very little organization and only a list in my head.  Not the best thing to do with a sick kid in the heavy kid cart.  I almost took out three people in the produce section just trying to drive to the free cookie station.  They only have the low sugar option but my son doesn't care as long as there is a cookie to be eaten.  We were then off to shopping and here is what I got:

I got the Coke deal which was buy 2 and get three free and the cases were $6.99 each.  I thought that I had coupons but I must have used them or hidden them because I couldn't find them anywhere so they were $2.80 per case.  My husband is in the middle of big Coke addiction so I grabbed him three so that I would hope to get through a lot of the month and added two diet for me.

Some stuff was purchased just with sale price to get great deals including the corn tortillas $0.99, String cheese $1.83, and Cheddar Cheese sticks $1.84, Jif Peanut Butter $1.47, Ramen Noodle 6 pack $1.17, and lettuce $0.99. I got two jars of Pringles at regular price but used a coupon to get them for $0.94 each.

There were some things that I got on sale and with coupon to add up my savings.  I got a roll of Bounty towels for $1.50, Puffs tissues for $1.17, Blue Bunny ice cream $2.39 and Lunchmeat $1.24  The best deal that I got was three bags of Perdue pre-cooked chicken which were on sale for $3.50 and they had $2.00 meat coupon on them and I had a $0.75 coupon off each bag that doubled so they were all free.  SCORE!!!

I used some rain checks to get some deals.  I did find my $1/2 coupons for any Quaker items so I used the rain check to get buy one, get one free Quaker Oatmeal (limit 4).  I grabbed my son's favorite Dinosaur oatmeal (in case you haven't had it, there are little eggs that hatch into dinosaurs so that the kids dig to get all of the dinos) so they ended up being $1.20 per box.  I also used the rain check to get some Domino's sugar to get them for $1.99 each and used my coupons to get $.75/2 so they ended up being $1.24 each and I got to stock the new kitchen on much needed and used items.

I put in the lettuce rebate in for $0.25 so I will get that huge rebate back soon.  Overall, I thought it was a success even though they were out of a few things.  I grabbed some rain checks and forget to get one that I needed because I didn't write them down as I was going because I had my little man and the huge kids shopping cart which is hard to fit anything into!!  One trip down for the month and many more to come.

Total Retail $123.61

Total Savings $82.35

Total OOP $41.26