Ever since I had Sienna I have only been working part-time as a nurse. It's a perfect balance of staying home with her but still keeping my nursing license and having adult conversations once in a while. I feel like I'm not missing out on seeing her grow up and I can still work and contribute to our household. Now that I've been making less money, I've been trying to find ways to make up for that paycheck. I have been saving money like crazy this past year! AND it's all thanks to the website Grocerysmarts.com.
What this website does is it gives you every store's weekly ads and rates them on a scale of 3 to 5 stars. The stores range from every grocery store to even Target and Walgreens. It then gives you a place that you can add coupons to the sales of the week and save even more money. There are Internet coupons but I use most of mine from the Sunday newspapers. I get 2 Sunday newspapers and often get my mom's and mother in laws coupons as well. That means I have at least 4 coupons to use on top of the sales. It's a great way to stock up on items that go on sale. For instance this past week I got razors from Smith's for $0.88 each! No joke! 4 Schick disposable razors with the 3 blades. Our favorite! Another example is at Riteaid a few weeks ago they had Huggies Pure and Natural diapers on sale. I got 4 packs of diapers (for the baby boy to come) for $12. They are usually $10 a piece. I get a little jolt of energy every time I walk out of the store and I know I just a got a HUGE deal!!! I have received many looks of cashiers like"How did you just do that?" You would think they would get this all time with Utah momma's trying to save a buck or two.
I had a "coupon saving" class in February and learned a great way to save on groceries and other things. I also follow about 3 different blogs that give you crazy deals on food, toiletries, diapers, toys, movies, restaurants, etc.
Before I used this website I used to shop at Walmart and sometimes Albertson's (Wal-marts meat and produce sometimes isn't that great.) Now that Albertson's is gone and the new Fresh Market is not that impressive to me, I have found the best deals to be at Smith's. According to my most recent receipt I have saved $1,115.74 this year just shopping at Smith's. (This does not include coupons that I use on top of that savings.) Not too bad for 10 months of groceries.
This past week my grand total of groceries was $148.49. I then gave the cashier my Smith's Value card and coupons to go with my items and my new total was $63.65! That saved me 60% on my groceries! I've done better, but this week felt awesome to walk away with 53 items and only pay $63 bucks! I saved $61.26 from my fresh values card and $23.55 in coupons. Plus I earned reward points which turn into cash later and I get fuel rewards too. I never thought Smith's would be the store I love to shop at.
I know this is a horrible picture of groceries but as you can see it is not all junk food I am buying. A few of the items I got---
Bananas eggs 5 Kraft cream cheeses bread 2 pkg instant pudding
Bag of potatoes 2 bags choc. chips 4 coffee creamers brownies
grapes 3 Kraft bbq sauce 1 Starbucks coffee 2 L. Coke and Fanta
2 frozen California pizza's 4 instant mac and cheese 2 refrig. cookies flour
1 frozen Digorno pizza 2 lunch meat pkgs 5 vitamin waters Velveeta
If anyone wants to learn how to do this and is impressed at the savings let me know! I can give you the password of the free site and if interested have a coupon class too! You will be hooked like me, I promise!
