Finally Shopping for May

I was avoiding the stores this month and we were quickly running out of food that was ready to eat.  Although there were lots of ingredients to make food with so I whipped up some rolls, seasoned saltine crackers, Nacho Cheese oyster crackers and some chocolate chip cookies.  It wasn't doing a great job of holding us over because when there is only one sweet or salty treat, it means that we are all eating it and it is gone quickly.

My husband picked up a few things after taking my son to the doctor but he missed the important instruction asking for him to text me so that I could tell him the rest of the things that we needed.  He grabbed the very few things on the list that I wrote down when cooking which was the shortening, oil and rice.  My son was home sick with strep throat so he got to pick his own ice cream.

Aldi $8.88

After only getting a few things at the store, I started making my list to make sure that I got the best deals going.  I went through my email and there was a coupon for a free Natures Promise (organic store brand) so I packed my cooler with ice packs and started my morning dropping off a check to pay for our pool membership and straight to Giant to get this deal.  There was another coupon for $2 off $5 of produce.  I was thinking about going through the section and seeing what deals I could get but I was getting a little at Aldi so I thought that it would be better if I saved it for another day.  The total came up to $0 and the person at the self check out couldn't figure out what I was saying so she made me take the suspended transaction to customer service to get my free yogurt.

Giant $0

Then, I went to Aldi to get some things including the deal on eggs ($0.69) and zucchini ($0.89).  I really needed lunch meat for next week and they were out!!!  I grabbed some more oyster crackers since my husband finished them this morning.  I also grabbed some bananas which my husband really wanted but sometimes they are too green for my tastes but these looked good.  There was finally Parmesan cheese so I grabbed that... was thinking about getting two but we really don't use it that much in the summer.  I put two more margarine and cheese in the cart because we were running low on both.  The bag of chips was a quick snack that is almost gone already.

Aldi $20.80

I ran next to Harris Teeter to get the Dixie Crystal Sugar that was on sale for $1.77 and I had a printed coupon to get them for $0.97 each.  I got the Hillshire Farm Chicken because they ended up being a money maker at shelf price $2.99 with $0.75 printable coupon that doubled and $2 meat coupon.  I bought four boxes of Cheez Its which my son and husband cheered about.  I printed the coupons from Kelloggs Family Rewards and they were on sale for buy one, get one free and I was very tempted to use a rain check to get them even cheaper but I wasn't sure if I had one that would work out better.

Harris Teeter $7.23

After all those trips, I came home and unpacked all the groceries and was going to pick up my son but he wasn't home anymore!  I decided that it was the best time to go through the coupon basket and get rid of all of the expired coupons.  I finished my whole basket and got everything fit back in way more neatly including cutting all coupons that weren't even sorted.  I also went through the pile of new newspapers and pulled the coupon inserts from them.

I had a $3 off $15 coupon and two $1 off other items at Wegman's that were expiring so I set that I had to make it to the store to get chicken which is on sale for $1.79 per pound.  We were also out of vitamins for my son and my husband so I grabbed the Wegman's brand for my son because they didn't have the kind that he liked and the Centrum with $4 coupon for my husband.  My son did a great job of helping and being patient so he got the bag of bulk candy in the back which took a long time to create his $0.26 bag of candy.

Wegman's $14.36

I was hoping to get a little more done in the day but it never works out that way.  I think that I did pretty well with what I got and I look forward to getting a lot more deals this month.  Here is hoping that I get to do more with my days off to cook up some other treats and try some new recipes so stretch the budget even farther.  Glad that I finally made it to the store but I might have gone a little crazy in the first week of the month.

Total OOP $51.27

How did you do so far this month??