Making Life a Little Less Expensive Every Week

Making Life a Little Less Expensive Every Week

Here in Orange County California we benefit from fierce competition in the grocery industry. Not only do they compete with each other (Albertsons, Ralphs, Stater Brothers, and Vons) they compete with various small market chains (Henry's, Sprouts, Trader Joe's, and a host of independent markets. In addition both Target and Walmart carry a limited, but well priced, selection of grocery staples. With so many choices it is easy to simply pick a store and hope you don't burn through your budget halfway through shopping. But, with a little effort and a little more driving, you can dramatically trim your grocery expenses. You can put the savings towards the ridiculous cost of housing.


Coupons

Making a Coupon Stockpile

The quickest source of coupons is the sunday paper. Each week there are anywhere from one to three coupon circulars (P&G Brandsaver, Red Plum, and Smart Source). The Sunday paper(Register or Times) costs $1.50.But they both also issue a weekend edition of their paper, which is remarkably similar, for 75 cents. I buy one of each (Register and Times) for a total cost of $1.50. This give two sets of coupons, which some weeks works out fantastically and some weeks not so good. But each paper has a diferent selection of ads (these vary from paper to paper and even from week to week).

Be sure to physically check the paper for coupon circulars since store-bought papers do not always get the same coupons as a home-delivered paper. The delivered paper may have three circulars this week but the one in the store could have one, two, three, or even zero coupons. So just be sure to check before you buy.

Alternately you can order subscriptions online. Though the Times wants $2.50 a week to deliver the Sunday paper. But a quick google search will often turn up deals or promo codes for a dollar a week. Recently in LA the Times was offering a year of Sundays for 19 cents a week.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Drug Stores Week 2

There were some ok deals this week. By and large I don’t think I did very well though. CVS’s shelves were bare so that limited the savings potential. For around $22 I got ten items which is around $2 each. That is not nearly so good as week 1. I didn’t have the coupons to really slash down on prices. But I got 11 ebs and 3 +up reward dollars. So if you adjust the price for this it was essentially $8.25. My original plan for CVS would have had numbers very similar to this but I’d end up with more things and more ebs.
Still it beats paying full price, or even sale price. Check out the individual stores pages for a detailed breakdown. I was going to have a picture but half the stuff has disappeared. The baby wandered off with the two flosses and two lipsticks and I now only have one of each.

The breakdown is as follows.
StoreCash OutlayReward $Retail Cost
CVS$13.81$11$26.96
Rite Aid$2.44$3$9.98
Walgreens$6.00$0$13.96
Total$22.25$14$50.90

So the two week tally is:
StoreCash OutlayReward $Retail Cost
CVS$22.78$15$35.92
Rite Aid$15.73$6$26.00
Walgreens$10.43$0$6.93
Total$48.95$21$119.75

Right now that puts the purchases at about 60% off of retail. Without tax it is closer to 65% off of retail. But with tax at 8.75% the numbers add up quick. Especially when they are taxing at the stores price on the item not. The tax total is $5.27
Posted by Lindley C Himes at 12:24 PM
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