Food City

I just wanted to make a quick blog post about Food City, which has bought out Bi-Lo in our area and is currently in the process of switching over this month. Sale ads come out on Wednesday, and Bi-Lo has stopped putting out ads, so I went online and checked out the Food Lion sale ad in Harrison, Tennessee, which is between here and Chattanooga.  

This week they are having a sale on certain items where if you buy 10 they will take $5.00 off your grocery bill. By using this promotion I was able to buy pinto beans for 69¢ a pound, cream cheese for 99¢, butter for $2.49, and canned vegetables for 39¢. In all I spent $54.34 and had $20.00 taken off my order for this promotion. 

They also had the 48 ounce bottles of vegetable oil for $1.99. 

Here is my order on the conveyor belt... 

I bought four pounds of butter...

2 bottles of vegetable oil...

14 blocks of cream cheese since it has been a long time since we found it for 99¢... 

10 pounds of Pinto Beans for $6.90, which is a great price!  

And I bought some Honeycrisp Apples for $1.69 a pound, a good price for HoneyCrisp.  :)

I also bought 12 cans of vegetables, which you can see on the conveyor belt, but I had not brought them in the house yet. 

The sale ad says their prices will be lower than Bi-Lo prices, but they do not offer double coupons, which Bi-Lo had always done. So time will tell as to whether or not we save money there, but I am pleased with today's purchases and will definitely be checking their sale ad each week. 

Belinda
Live simply by not spending money you don't have.
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 - 2015.

Early in the Week

I can't remember if I mentioned the fact that we have Monday & Tuesday off this week. My daughter and I have been doing laundry and cleaning all weekend, so we could enjoy our two days off this week. We finally got all the chairs and brooms from the drying racks put back where they go, which made the house look better almost instantly. And we are finally caught up on the laundry. Yay! :)

I've been working in the kitchen, cleaning and putting things away. I boiled two dozen eggs today for egg salad and lunches for this week. I am so tired of sandwiches in my lunch, so boiled eggs will be better. I'll add some cheese too. 

Dinner today is Pedernales Potatoes, Carrots, Green Beans with Onions, and Sweet Iced Tea. 

On Tuesday we ran some errands. One place we stopped was Bi-Lo because I had some coupons I wanted to use with their three day sale. 

My favorite coupon site nowadays is Couponaholic. 

Couponaholic

I don't even use the Sunday coupons anymore. I let my daughter deal with them because she enjoys it so much. I look at Couponaholic every now and then to see if there are any good deals. The 55¢ off coupon for Skippy peanut butter was a good deal.  I printed two coupons off my computer and my daughter printed four coupons and she also had an additional six $1.00 off coupons from the Sunday paper for one jar of Skippy. 

The peanut butter was on "sale" at Bi-Lo for $3.12, but it was buy one get one free, which made each jar $1.56. The 55¢ coupons doubled and so our total coupons took off $12.60, which made each jar only 51¢.   This was a really good deal. 

The also had Pillsbury cake mixes on sale for buy one get one free. We had 35¢ off coupons that doubled, so each box end up costing 44¢ each, which was another good deal. 

We did buy a few other things like margarine, crackers, preserves, and olives. 

We also got hair cuts today. I saved a receipt from Walmart for $9.99 haircuts and used them at Great Clips today. Haircuts for both of us came to $19.98 plus tip, which saved us $6.00 off the Great Clips price. 

I also filled up the car today using my Bi-Lo bonuscard fuel perks and paid $2.44 per gallon. It only cost me $21 to fill up today. I should be dancing in the street at the savings. LOL :)

Back to work and school tomorrow. I hope you all have a great week!

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
Professor Penny Pincher 
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 and beyond.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"

The Wait is Over...

We have a new dryer!

We tried to buy the dryer I mentioned from Home Depot, but they wouldn't deliver, so we ended up buying a dryer from Lowe's yesterday for $299 and they delivered it this morning. It is a little bit bigger than our other dryer was and it looks great. We are just thrilled to be back in business with the laundry and have plans to get caught up on it this weekend. 

Today is my daughter's day to volunteer at the library, so we left the house early, took the garbage with us and dropped it off along the way and I made stops at Bi-Lo, Publix, Dollar Tree, and United Grocery Outlet. 

At Bi-Lo, they had Stayfree pads on sale, priced at 2 for $6.00, a real bargain since I normally pay $4.97 for them at Walmart.  Lucky me, I also had three $1.00 off coupons, so I paid $2.00 each for them. What a bargain! I now have 10 of these in my stash, which is about a ten month supply for me. 

We picked up seven bottles of Pom juice for free at Bi-Lo too. They had them on sale priced at $1.00 each and we had seven 50¢ off coupons, which doubled, so all of these were free.  

I also picked up this 12 pack of Fanta strawberry drinks for free using the coupon above I received for free from My Coke Rewards. 

At Publix, they had Mueller's pasta on sale for buy one get one free, which was not a good deal without coupons, but I had two 75¢ off coupons, so I picked up two packages of spaghetti for 25¢ each! Another good bargain today.  

I also stopped in at the Dollar Tree to buy a loaf of Nature's Own bread and a loaf of Wonder bread and since I had a 55¢ off coupon for both, these were only 45¢ each.

At United Grocery Outlet, they had a Saturday only special. Green Beans for 39¢ a can and Mandarin Oranges for 40¢ a can. I picked up 20 cans of Green Beans and 20 cans of Mandarin Oranges, all for $15.80 plus tax. Forty cans of food for $15.80 was a great bargain and is a good example of how the Pantry Principle works. :)

Free this Week 

Three samples of Juicy Fruit.

A very nice five pack sample of Nestle Quick. 

I certainly didn't spend a lot today, unless you count the dryer, but I came home with a lot of food for the money I spent. $17.19 for 20 cans of mandarin oranges, 20 cans of green beans, 2 loaves of bread, 7 bottles of Pom juice, one 12 pack of pop, and 2 boxes of spaghetti. The best part is we had fun in the process. 

How was your Saturday?

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
Professor Penny Pincher
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011 and beyond.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"

Frugal Saturday

The weather here in Tennessee yesterday was wonderful. It was a cool fall day and perfect for yard sales. 

Here are a few things we picked up:

One pair of skinny jeans for $5, one pair of capris for $5, three pairs of shorts for $3 each, three shirts for $2 each, one pair of like new OPI sandals $1, and one American Eagle jacket for $4. The pants and shorts are all name brand. 

All of these are for my daughter. She was thrilled with all of it, but especially the American Eagle jacket. And the flowery shirt in the front will be perfect for a dressy event she has coming up at school. 

A brand new, still with stickers, double wall cup with lid and straw. We like these cups because they have the lid and they keep drinks colder for long periods of time. These cups retail for $5 and up at most retailers, but we bought this cup for 25¢. We still can't believe the person sold it for that amount. 

Other things we bought, but are not pictured are two boxes of thank you notes for 25¢ each, and a thermal blanket for $3, which was needed for the living room as the blanket I used in there has been permanently borrowed by my daughter. lol

Since I was in town, I decided to stop at Bi-Lo and Cooke's to check out their crash and burn items. I couldn't find any at Bi-Lo, but I was glad I stopped in anyway. Looked what I scored:

These are 30 count bags of tortillas for $1.19, but see the coupon attached? I carefully read it to see if it would double, since Bi-Lo doubles coupons up to 60¢, and I figured it would, so I tried it and it worked. That coupon doubled and gave me 70¢ off each bag, so 49¢ a bag...what a deal. I'm so glad I stopped in there today. Always be on the look out for peelies to see if you can score a good deal on an item.  

My other bargain of the day came from Cooke's. Their crash and burn cart was filled with one pound bags of black eyed peas for 50¢. If you look closely you can see the 50¢ on the package. This was such a great deal that I bought ten bags. I love finding great deals like this so I can feed my family inexpensively.  

These two items were the only food items I bought on Saturday. 

Once we got home I got busy cleaning, hanging our laundry up to dry, and doing some things in the kitchen.  

I made sure to put the onions I bought this week into pantyhose and hung them in the pantry. I mentioned in a blog post a while ago that I would let you know how my experiment turned out. 

Storing the onions in panty hose, where the air is able to circulate around them definitely helps to keep them longer. The ones I bought and kept in the original mesh bag sprouted after one month, but the ones I stored in panty hose lasted four months. As a result, I will be storing them this way in the future.  

If you don't have any panty hose, Walmart sells knee highs for 30¢, which is what I used in this photo, so one of these would only cost you 15¢. Not a bad price to help keep your onions longer. 

I do have one frugal fail to mention today, if you are interested. I scored this 42 ounce canister of oatmeal at a yard sale today for 50¢. I was  actually kicking myself because if I had gotten there sooner, I could have gotten all three that he had for sale. 

When I got it home I looked at it closely and it expired in 2009. I should have looked at it closer when I was buying it. Now I will have to Google non food ways to use up oatmeal. lol

We are on Fall Break this week from school/work, so I am looking forward to getting a lot of things done. 

How was your Saturday? Did you find any good bargains?

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”
"Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle ~ It will help you save money"

Third Frugal Week of February

Monday and Tuesday were Winter Break from school, so we had those days free this week. I was able to work Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, so I am grateful for that.

Sunday afternoon I had a radiator hose in my car to start leaking on me. My Dad fixed it for me, but said I needed to get a new hose to replace the worn out one. I was able to get that fixed on Tuesday as well as have the oil changed in my car. $171 plus change for the car repair. 

On Saturday I went shopping to pick up a few deals.

First stop was Publix where the Keebler Club crackers were on sale for buy one get one free. This was a great time to cash in some of my Kellogg's Family Rewards points. I was able to use my points to print off four coupons for $1.50 off one box. I ended up paying 40¢ for each box. It really pays to enter these codes into the website for money saving coupons. 

Next, I combined a manufacturer coupon with a Publix store coupon and scored two loaves of bread for 50¢ each. 

Next, I was able to get 4 containers of Tropicana Orange Juice for free. It was a buy one get one free sale and I had two coupons for buy one get one free, which I printed online. 

My daughter did a deal on Sundown vitamins and ended up earning money that went towards our other purchases. 

Other items at Publix included 4 boxes of Krave cereal for $1.00 each and 2 boxes of the new Mueller's Hidden Veggie spaghetti for 24¢ each after a buy one get one free sale and a manufacture coupon, 6 cans of Progresso soup for 25¢ after sale and coupon, one free Snickers candy bar with a free coupon won on Facebook, and free alcohol, baby cereal (donating to a friend), cocoa butter, and hand sanitizer.

The Iams canned cat food you see in the photo came from Target. There are $2.00 off 3 cans coupons online and I printed two of them. The cat food was 57¢, so the overage went towards my other purchases. 

I went to Target to pick up a deal on Grands biscuits. They were on sale for $1.25 each, and there were manufacturers coupons for $1.00 off a purchase of three. Target also has a coupon online for $2.00 off three, so I combined those and paid 25¢ each for 6 cans. 

My daughter went to the Dollar Tree with makeup coupons. She came out with these two items and only had to pay 10¢ each for the sales tax. 

I went to Food Lion because they have the 4 roll packages of Angel Soft and I had a buy one 12 pack, get a free 4 pack coupon. The 12 pack was $5.99 and I had a $2.00 off coupon for that, which they let us combine. (We asked beforehand). So, I paid $3.99 plus tax for 16 rolls, which is 25¢ a roll. These were for double rolls too. 

I went to Bi-Lo to pick up English muffins. They were on sale buy one get one free and I had 55¢ coupons that doubled, so I paid 98¢ each for 4 packs of English muffins. While I was there I stumbled across a display for Scotch brand scissors. They were $1.69 and there were $1.00 off coupons located beside them, so I picked up a pair for 69¢ plus tax. 

All breakfasts, lunches, and dinners came from home this week as usual. 

Our Dinners this week were: 

Monday: Baked Potatoes, Steamed Broccoli
Tuesday: Baked Spaghetti, Broccoli
Wednesday:Salisbury Steak, Pan Fried Baked Potatoes, Peas & Carrots
Thursday: Fish, Oven Fried Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts
Friday: Meatballs & Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli 
Saturday: Grilled Chicken Salads
Sunday: Baked Chicken, Broccoli, Teriyaki Rice, Cole Slaw

We rented Bad Grandpa from Redbox using a free rental code. There were a couple of funny parts, but I would not recommend the movie to anyone. How can they take such a cute idea and make it dirty? Just like the movie Step Brothers. They had a good idea, but they have to make it dirty, which just ruins the film for me and my family felt the same way. 

How has your week been? Frugal or not, we would love to read about it in the comment section. :)

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

Second Frugal Week of February

What a week we had here! School was called off for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday due to the winter mix of weather here. We were/are on Winter Break Friday, Monday and Tuesday, so no school here for over a week. I missed out on several days of working as a result. 

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were no spending any money days.

Thursday was bill paying day and all bills were paid online to save on postage. 

Friday was spent in town doing our big monthly stock up at the grocery stores. I spent a total of $202.77, used 82 coupons, which saved me $116.40 and does not even include the $50.00 savings at Food Lion for the sale on Powerades.  

Here is a breakdown of items we bought:

Family Dollar

Suave Shampoo - Same deal as last week. I had a $1.00 of coupon, so I only had to pay the 10¢ sales tax. 

Cooke's

Cheese, frozen dinners, cat treats, and 40 pounds of potatoes ($7.98 or 20¢ a pound). I found 14 bags of cat treats in the Crash & Burn cart for 90¢ each, and I had coupons for them, so I paid 40¢ each for them. 

Save a Lot

Eggs are/were on sale this week for 99¢ a dozen, so we stocked up and bought 8 cartons. We also used a $1.00 off coupon to score a free bag of salad. 

Aldi

5 bags of onions

Food Lion

I went on Friday to score the deal on Powerades. And then on Saturday I found some coupons to use, so after my daughter's volunteer hours were done, we went back to get more. In the end I bought 75 Powerades for my pantry for 20¢ each. This definitely beats her wanting to stop at the gas station on the way to school in the morning for a drink for $1.89. There are only 68 school days left this year, so she is all set. 

I also scored 16 FREE cans of Campbell's chicken noodle soup. As I mentioned in this post the kiosk was printing out coupons for $1.00 off 2 Campbell's soup and they had them on sale for 50¢ each. Customers are only allowed to print one coupon sheet per day, but people tend to abandon these coupon sheets in their cart, so we picked up several that way. We also bought cereal, soup, diced tomatoes, and honey mustard here. 

Bi-Lo

Bi-Lo had their awesome cereal deal again this week. You buy 6 boxes of cereal and get a free gallon of orange juice. We had numerous coupons for the cereal and at least one of them was buy one get one free. We bought two of these deals and combined with the cereal deal at Food Lion, we ended up with 22 boxes of cereal. My family has gone through a lot of cereal this winter for some reason, so I was very glad to be able to purchase all of these.  

I also bought sugar, bagels, shampoo, and yogurt here. 

Publix

Some of my greatest deals came from Publix on this shopping trip. I used to shop at Walmart so much, but in the last two years I've realized that I can find better prices at the grocery stores and when I combine them with sales and the double coupons that Publix offers, I buy very little from Walmart now. 

Items here included cream cheese, oranges, fish, tea bags, Knorr rice packages, Kotex, Stayfree, ham, olives, beans, sour cream, salt, rice, butter, yogurt, tartar sauce, Alleve, peas and carrots, and chocolate milk (had coupons!).

I bought 18 bags of the Knorr rice for 14¢ each after sale and coupons.

Four boxes of Lipton tea bags were $1.12 each after sale and coupons. 

Four boxes of 40 count Alleve were 49¢ each after sale and coupons. 

Walmart sells my brand of Stayfree for $4.97, which I buy regularly. Publix sells the same package for $4.09, but with coupons I was able to get two bags for $4.09, which blows Walmart's price out of the water! 

It was a terrific shopping day and these are the things we got that were completely free: 

In the end I bought $369.17 worth of groceries for $202.77 and now the bulk of my grocery shopping is done for the month. All I will need to buy is milk and bread and some fresh produce. 

Other things we did this week to save money include:

Tuesday I entered My Coke Rewards points into my computer. A chore I dislike a great deal, but I do it for the free diet coke 12 packs for my Mother who is on a limited budget.

On Saturday we both had our hair cut and used a coupon for that as well. 

We rented a movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, with a free rental code from Redbox. CouponDad.net regularly has free rental codes on his blog. 

Breakfasts this week consisted of oatmeal, leftovers, scrambled eggs and toast, toast with butter and jelly, cream cheese with bagels, and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.

Dinners were:

Monday: Baked Potatoes stuffed with Vegetable Chili
Tuesday: Hot Dogs & Tator Tots
Wednesday: Salisbury Steak, Beefy Mushroom Barley, Corn
Thursday: Macaroni & Cheese, Broccoli
Friday: Homemade Pizza
Saturday: Grilled Chicken, Mexican Rice, Steamed Carrots
Sunday: Pinto Beans, Collard Greens, Cornbread

That's our our week went, how was your week?

How did you save money in your home this week?

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”

My Best Coupon Deals this Week

Today I bought two Jack's pizzas from Walgreen's. There is a $1.00 off coupon online that I printed and they were on sale priced at 2 for $5.00. 

When we bought them, the register printed out a coupon for $1.00 off anything at Walgreen's as a thank you for buying the Jack's pizza, so in the end I paid $1.50 per pizza.

Our local Publix has a coupon right now for $3.00 off the purchase of two Skintimate products. The coupon booklet can be found in the front of the store. There are actually two coupon booklets at the front of the store, one for food and one for the pharmacy. This one is located in the booklet for the pharmacy. I regularly purchase this for my daughter at Walmart for $2.64, while at Publix, they are $2.99 each.  With the coupon each one was $1.50, so a savings of $2.28 for something she uses regularly. 

My family eats Club Crackers like they are going out of style and I normally pay $2.50 per box for these, although the Great Value knockoff brand at Walmart for $1.78 tastes exactly like these. 

Anyway, they are on sale this week at Walgreen's priced at 2 for $4.00 and we had two $1.00 off coupons. I purchased these four boxes and ended up paying $1.50 per box. 

My fourth good deal was Hormel Chili from Bi-Lo, where it was on sale for buy one get one free. The chili rang up for $15.92 and then $8.00 was taken off immediately for using my Bi-Lo bonus card. I also had four coupons, (two manufacturers, one Target and one Publix) all for 55¢ off each, which Bi-Lo accepted and doubled. So, in the end I paid $3.52 for 8 cans of chili, which worked out to 44¢ per can. 

My last good deal of the week also comes from Bi-Lo. They have Angel Soft tissues for $1.59 per box and I had six coupons for 50¢ off, which were doubled. So, I ended up paying 59¢ for each box of tissues. 

What good deals have you run across using coupons this week?

Belinda
CFO ~ Chief Frugal Officer
© Belinda & Frugal Workshop, 2011-2014.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without”