Shopping Olympics have come and gone for the month of January

Well, It is done. My $250 is spent!! This included lunch at Sani Food deli for $6 (Congrats Ella she and her hubs are expecting after a few years trying) and JIB dinner for $6 also $15 for gas to get to and from Willows to Chico. It was my first experience truly using coupons. Found some great deals,(Yo-Plus yogurt 4 pack was $1.38 had $1 off so 38 cents) trying some new products (JIF crunchy - WinCo out of smooth - had $1 off and we need pb) total coupons saved $6. Well, I guess 6 is the number of the day hahaha

We learned that Grocery Outlet does not accept manufacturer coupons. that was disappointing.(I returned the items - lol) however, when we went to WinCo the items that I did not get at GO were even cheaper at WinCo so I actually saved even more money.

My tally breakdown for this week is:::::::::::::Drum roll please

Sani Food:::$27.60 all food - $21.33 MEAT,misc & 2-99 cent choc chips
Local Food for More but they can have good sales so I appreciate them, oh yeah and the staff is so friendly and the meat guy is cute and funny hahaha-tell em' Julie sent ya

Dollar Tree:::$16.41 - $11 food, $5.41 misc (cleaning items)

Grocery Outlet:::$36.98 - $22.39 food, $14.59 misc (cat food $10)

WinCo:::$132.61 - $127.37 food, $5.25 misc (detergent, incense, dog biscuits)

So I am trying to do this coupon thing, trying to plan better for my family, Focus Julie Focus!!!, all attention is on the prize, when low and behold here comes my boss doing her shopping. (She's so provisional, she brings her own bags, lol)

My Golden Ticket of coupons that I got last week was 75 cents off McCormicks spice, well, I got to use it on a big bottle of Real Vanilla extract - YIPPEE!! One of my frugal budget consessions has been to buy imitation extracts and off brand seasonings so this is such a fun luxery.

There are a few things that I would like from the store (Fresh milk and produce) but if I can't get there we'll be OK!! (Canned fruit and condensed to reconstitute)

Please go here to read and post about this weeks shopping experiences over at GCC.

Now to go complete my menus for the rest of the month and more.....

Todays grocery shopping and together time

OK so poor planning on a saturday but we did our rest of the month grocery shopping today however, I think we did rather well. It was our together time as we left the kids with older siblings for the afternoon.We spent about $215 on food and $250 total. In that was 2 adult sized fruit of the loom hoodies from Grocery Outlet for $5 a piece one for hubby and one for son who grows out of everything all the time. We spent $79.92 $58.56 being food at Grocery Outlet $28.99 at Dollar tree $16 being food. $57.19 at Wal-mart $54.48 being food. This visit was exciting because my WM is changing from a store to a center and they got most of their freezer stuff in.Then Winco~the worst of it~we spent over $100 so I made DH take stuff back it was embarrassing but it needed to be done (we don't need grapes at $2 a pound) - (or 4 cans of chili)our final total came to $84.44 all being food. All this covers dinners for family of 4, snacks for a family 4 breakfasts and lunches for mom and dad all week but weekends for kid through the end of October. Also, stocked up on sugar, some seasonings and spent $20 at butcher getting some pork chops, ribs, and hamburger. what I still need for the month is a head of cabbage, milk and maybe another box of cereal like rice crispies so now the hard part after putting it all away is menu planning we start back to school on Monday and hit it hard through November so I need to be on the top of my game plan for best success I should soon figure out how to post in on meal plan mondays!