How I Saved 42% On My Groceries

This week when I received my grocery store flyers it was tough to decide whether to go to Kroger or Food Lion. Both stores had a lot to offer in terms of savings and we also like the fact that we can save 10 cents a gallon on gas for spending $100 a month.

Now that Kroger has changed their policy and also allows this same savings after you purchase 2 prescriptions, I tend to check out the other stores more carefully, in other words we have more incentives, which make shopping there less necessary:-)

I have revamped my coupon storage system. I now have my coupons in a 3-ring binder with clear plastic sleeves that can be purchased at an office supply store. In each sleeve I inserted a piece of paper (giving me "2 sleeves" for each plastic sleeve. I then decided how I would divide up my coupons and made reused some old dividers I had.

Now all my coupons are visible when I'm making my shopping list and in the store, when I see a sale or discontinued item not listed in the paper I know right away if I have coupons to save me even more money.

My trip to Food Lion today included $10.05 in clipped coupons (some of these were used on discontinued/reduced items and added value to some of the store's Buy One Get One Free values. I had $49.69 in MVP savings (store card savings) for a total savings of $59.74! My final bill was $142.57. This included chicken, salmon, ground turkey and deli ham, dog food and beer, but no paper products, toiletries, cosmetics or other personal hygiene items. All the meat I bought, except for the ground turkey was either buy one, get one, or purchased with a coupon.

I'm pretty pleased as this is the first "big" trip I've made for a while. Our son has been away at school, so we haven't shopped much or very often. I was also attempting to go through some of our inventory.

Anyway, my total savings was 42% which is my personal best so I'm pretty pleased.