Grocery shopping -- my not-too-organized-trip

So on Saturday I headed to Safeway to do some shopping.  I meant to get organized before I left, but, well... that doesn't happen very often.

So I sat with the ad, in a parking lot, and made a list.  My point in posting here is to say that even if you aren't a coupon queen, and even if you don't do a lot of pre-planning, you still can save some money on groceries.  Just take a few minutes to think about it before you start buying.

The ad had a number of offers to spend a certain amount of money and get money back on your next purchase.  Spend $15 on select dairy products, get $5 back.  Spend $30 on Rancher's Reserve meats, get $5 back.  Spend $75 in a single transaction, get $10 back.  I determined I'd do all three.

So I picked up roughly 13 pounds of meat in the markdown section -- I got three roasts, and two packages of round steak.  It was a LOT of meat.  (The 4-lb roast isn't in the photo.)

I grabbed two big CoffeeMate Creamers, which had an online coupon (I can do online coupons through the Just 4 U program from the parking lot, no printing necessary).  I also got two 4-packs of YoCrunch Yogurt (another J4U coupon), a 4-pack of Dannon Yogurt (another J4U coupon), a free Muller Corner Yogurt (J4U coupon item), Silk PureAlmond Milk half gallon (J4U coupon and a blinkie coupon), and 2 packages of Kraft singles.  That actually came to a few cents over $16.  (None of the yogurt is pictured, and only one package of cheese singles is there.)

Other things I grabbed?  Two boxes of Reeses Cereal (on sale for $1.66, plus I had two coupons that doubled to $1 each... the only coupons I prepared ahead of time, so $.66 per box).  I got 4 cans of tuna, 2 jars of Pace Picante sauce, 4 big cans of refried beans, 2 packages of tortillas, and a 2 liter bottle of grape soda.  And Skippy Peanut Butter 40 oz packages were on sale for $5, so I got two of those. (2 cans of refried beans are gone, and the kids drank the soda on the way home.)

My total for these 31 items after all the e-coupons, coupons, sales prices, markdowns, etc. was $79.67.  And yes, I did get $20 in printout coupons to use towards my next order.

This was a strange shopping trip. I don't buy that much meat as a general rule!  There is a LOT of protein in this trip, actually.  Nor do I usually pick up soda, or 4-packs of yogurt.  Reeses Cereal is totally not something I'd usually buy, but at $.66 per box, I consider it a fun treat.

I was fortunate in this trip.  I usually don't see all that much in the markdown meat, so being able to net $30 there was phenomenal. 

But really -- 20 minutes of thinking things over in the parking lot, and I came home with a lot of bags of groceries, for a net of roughly $60... and I earned 172 gas rewards points (100 points = $.10 per gallon gas discount... so almost 20 cents discount!)

Next time I need to get a photo... right away...