Pasta, pasta everywhere . . .
Yesterday I took my clutch of coupons over to Safeway and did a big ol’ grocery shopping trip for the July Food Stamp Challenge. The Safeway near my house has been smashed to smithereens, and I’ve been shopping Fred Meyer and New Seasons as a result. However, I had a $10-off-$50 coupon, so to a slightly farther away Safeway did I go. I also brought my 15-year-old son, and gave him a lesson in how and why I shop the way I do. (He did actually seem interested.)
In all, I spent $48.57. Here’s what I bought:
- 3 boxes of cereal
- 1 jar of pickles*
- 2 boxes of Wheat Thins*
- 7 boxes of pasta*
- 1 bottle of horseradish sauce
- 2 containers of orange juice
- 2 pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream*
- 2 pounds of frozen shrimp*
- 2 packets of Crab*
- Bananas
- 2 limes
- 4 ears of corn
- 1 head of romaine lettuce
- 1 pound of carrots
- Cilantro
- 2 bags of pistachios*
- 1 bag of yogurt covered pretzels
- * = used a coupon
A number of the items I bought were simply because I was able to combine sale prices with double coupons, (the Wheat Thins were BOGO and I was able to double a $1 off coupon) which makes for an odd assortment of groceries.
Dinner tonight was a big pasta salad made with a little of this and a lot of that and was a hit with the over-30 crowd. I am feeling very positive about this challenge, unlike last year when I was pretty nervous that I would fall flat on my face in front of thousands of blog readers.
So far, so good.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
When you say the store will double the coupon, what does that mean?
The Safeways here in Oregon publish a week coupon that will double up to 4 coupons, up to 50¢ apiece. So it’s a free $2 per shopping trip.
Katy
I am curious about coupon doubling too. The Safeway in Washington never does the $10 off $50 either.
It’s a once-a-month coupon in The Oregonian newspaper.
Katy
How do you count the food you have in your pantry? One of the reasons I have such a low food bill is that I buy items when they are on sale only. I just stock my pantry. I have a pretty good amount of meat in the freezer and items in cabinets.
I do not have an actual pantry, only a regular cupboard. It’s full of spices and a few canned goods. I’m not a big stocker-upper.
Katy
Interesting how different people have different strategies. I don’t do coupons – not even sure they have them here in England. I’m a stocker-upper. Don’t worry about ‘falling on your face’ – we all do at some point! Just tell us what you would do different next time and it’ll have a happy ending…
I’m a stocker-upper too. Because of transportation issues, my shopping is limited to the one supermarket in our small town. Their prices are a bit higher than average, and they don’t have double coupon days. BOOHOO! Despite it all, I spend less than the $2o2 allotted for 2 people per month. If I were starting from scratch, it would be difficult to stay under the limit, but doable.