Wednesday: Grocery Store Sale Ads

Today is Wednesday, the day our local grocery stores put out their sale ads. I check the ads online, so I don't have to spend $1.00 on the local newspaper as they do not send them to us through the mail here. 
I've noticed since the pandemic started that the sale ads are shorter than they used to be. The reason, I suspect, is that people are not going shopping as often as they normally did. 
Since the pandemic started, we have not physically shopped in any store, so I'm only including the stores where I would pick up items through their curbside pickup. 
If you're more interested in what grocery stores we are able to shop at here, please refer to this grocery stores located in SE Tennessee blog post. 
The stores also have many more items on sale and if you're interested in looking at the ads, simply click on the title of the store and it will take you straight to the weekly ad.

So, items I would pick up this week come from Food City.  

Food City Red Seedless Grapes 99¢ pound Food Club 18 count eggs 2/$3.00 5 pounds Idaho Potatoes 5/$10.00 ($2.00 each) 5 pounds Mini Peppers 5/$10.00 ($2.00 each) Split Chicken Breast 99¢ pound

That is a great price for chicken, considering how much ground beef costs right now. I will definitely be picking up some of that this week. 

Any good deals in your area this week?
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~ My Linktree

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Frugal Friday ~ April 26, 2019

This week I was able to work four days and got to stay home on Wednesday, so I decided to make our Easter dinner then. 
One thing that the water problem did was soak through some of my Dad's clothes that he left here when he moved five years ago. 
There is normally red clay mud at the bottom of our water tank/heater, so if it leaks red clay comes with it and his clothes soaked up a bunch of the water and mud and I didn't think the red clay would come out. 
I asked him if he wanted me to wash them or get rid of them and he told me to trash them. So there is a section of the downstairs that has been cleaned out as a result. It looks so much better than it did before.  
Some of the items we dried outside in the sunshine. I kept all of the towels and will use those for the cat beds. I'm not going to wash them in my washer with the red clay. 
Some things I did to save money this week include...
- Cut my own hair. My bangs were getting too long and annoying me, so I decided to trim them and decided to cut my hair in the process.
- Earned another $5 from Microsoft Rewards

- Perused the grocery store sale ads online. Here are some good deals I plan on picking up:

Kroger

Peanut Butter 99¢

Cheddar Cheese 99¢

Both of these involve digital coupons and you can purchase up to five, so we both picked these up on Thursday. 

I just opened the  last jar of peanut butter from Kroger's last sale, so the timing worked out well. 

We now have ten jars of peanut butter in our pantry and ten blocks of cheddar cheese (blocks as I prefer to shred my own cheese) in our refrigerator. 

Food City

Food Club Tomatoes 50¢ Friday Only

Luck's Beans 50¢ Friday Only

Smuckers Grape Jam 99¢ Friday Only

Kroger regularly sells canned tomatoes for 50¢ per can, so we picked up two cases (24 cans/$12.00) on Thursday. I was down to one can, so we definitely needed them. 

In my Frugal Kitchen this week I made another batch of granola bars. My daughter bought some Hershey chocolate chips last week when Kroger had them for $1.00 a bag, so I put 1/2 bag in this batch along with some coconut we had in the pantry. 

My recipe calls for 1 & 1/2 cups of peanut butter, but since I was on my last jar when I made them, I only used 1 cup and then used 1/2 cup of peanut butter powder, which helped me stretch my peanut butter and helped me use up the pb powder at least until I bought more on Thursday. 

I've been saving my peanut butter jars to reuse for other things. 

Hershey's Chocolate Chips 

$1.00 @ Kroger

The ham bone from our Easter dinner was put into the crockpot to make ham stock. I used some of the ham stock to moisten the cornbread dressing I made to go with the ham and it really added good flavor to the dressing. 

Beans I had in the fridge were put into individual containers and placed in the freezer as we were not eating them this week because I made a big ham in the middle of the week. 

One thing that I made this week and no one like was a package of cheese sauce. which I doctored with taco sauce. No one liked it though, so I need to decide what to do with it. 

Stir fry has been served in our home more often since I bought the Breville wok a few weeks ago. It's a good and healthy dinner, which is filled with vegetables and one that we all enjoy. 

This was a cabbage stir fry I made:

Rice in my Rice Cooker to go with the Stir Fry.

One day for lunch we had a marked down pizza we picked up at Kroger for $2.99. We also picked up some marked down chicken and ground beef. 

On Tuesday evening I made cornbread in order to make cornbread dressing on Wednesday for our Easter dinner. 

Here it is broken up as I was trying to get it cooled off before I crumbled it. 

Freebies this week included multiple free magazines such as Newsweek, Southern Living, Better Homes & Gardens, etc. A free Nibbler (chicken sandwich) postcard from Zaxby's for my birthday next month. 

Yesterday I felt like Sluggy when I found a quarter in the girl's bathroom at school. :)

Another free juice from one of the students at school. I'm so glad they've started asking me rather than throwing these away. This one was a combination of citrus juices and not just orange juice. 

That's all the news from here this week. How was your week? I'd love to hear about it in the comment section. 

Stay frugal my friends. :)

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Medium Grocery Haul - GDA Peanut Butter

Today we went grocery shopping at Walmart and Cookes. I had sticker shock walking through Walmart, so we didn't buy as much as we normally would at this time of the month. 

Here is what we picked up at Walmart:
Orange Juice 2.38 Parmesan Cheese 5.78 Cheddar Cheese $4.22 100 Corn Tortillas 3.38 Lettuce 1.28 Tomatoes $1.98 Green Grapes $4.87 Tetley Tea $1.68 Bigelow Orange Tea $2.48 Mashed Potatoes 78¢ Squeeze Ginger $3.44 Sprite $5.78 Sugar $4.97 Log Cabin $5.64 English Muffins $1.18 Whole What Bread $1.48 Italian Bread 50¢ Carrots $1.54 Potatoes 3.17

The other place we shopped was Cooke's, and we went there because they had a great sale on peanut butter. The eighteen ounce jars were priced at $1.00 each, so I stocked up and bought ten jars. Here is what we bought there:
Peanut Butter $1.00 Jar Frozen Broccoli 10/$10 Pumpkin Tea bags 74¢

I have to say I was disappointed shopping in Walmart as I can see their prices are just slightly higher than other places we shop. Anywhere from 50¢ and up on several different items adds up and it's the reason I don't shop there exclusively. 
Anyway, I'll be checking the sale ads on Wednesday again and seeing what's on sale. I didn't want to pass up the peanut butter sale this week, which ends tomorrow. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

December 2018 Grocery Haul

Yesterday we went to several grocery stores for our monthly grocery haul. We still pick up items from time to time, but our biggest haul usually comes in the middle of the month. 
Aldi has really good prices on cream cheese & butter right now, so we stocked up on those items. We bought 12 pounds of the butter and have stored most of that in the freezer. 
Here is a breakdown of most of what we bought yesterday:
Aldi Crescent Rolls 89¢ each Cream Cheese 69¢ each Butter $1.99
Kroger 8 ounce blocks of cheddar 99¢ Gelatin 39¢ Saltine Crackers 89¢
We found several things on yellow markdown such as buttermilk for $1.09, eggnog for $1.89, and we also picked up two sour creams for $1.99 each. 

We picked up 3 pound bags on onion for $1.25 per bag. 

Bacon bits for BLT dip, Taco Bell sauce, Kroger brand Velveeta, corn & flour tortillas, popcorn, and two rice mixes to try. 

Very nice hamburger buns for 99¢.

Gelatin for 39¢ each, and pistachio pudding for 49¢, all store brands. 

Sandwich rounds for 79¢.

Two creamy chicken Ramen noodles for 25¢ each. These make good lunches in a pinch when combined with mixed vegetables. 

Picked up fresh brown sugar and powdered sugar for Christmas baking along with some chocolate chips for chocolate chip pie. 

We found three pork tenderloins for $2.99 each. These had originally been around $8.00.

Two pork chops for $1.93.

Shelf stable milk for $1.00 per carton. 

Italian Sausage and chicken breast all on markdown. 

Corn for 50¢ per can, beets for 69¢, and Club crackers for $1.50 per box.

Mandarin oranges for 89¢, peas and carrots for 59¢ and peanut butter for $1.50.

Milk on markdown for $1.19. 

Borden cheese for $1.00 each. It was on sale for $2.00 and we had $1.00 off coupons, so we stocked up on this great deal. 

This was the week for cheese deals. Ingle's had their 32 ounce bags for $4.98.

This was another good deal. These cake mixes were marked down to 64¢ while the frosting was marked down to 74¢. We had 50¢ off coupons to match these marked down items.  We ended up paying a little more than $1.00 for all six of these items. 

It's nice to have the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry stocked back up for the month. We didn't find any crash and burn items in the canned food section this time as they were wiped out, but we did find some good deals. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~

Grocery Stores SE Tennessee

Have you ever thought about where you grocery shop? 
Do you consider how many miles away your favorite store is and if it's worth it to make the drive there for groceries? 
We live in a rural area so, I am used to driving long distances to get most anywhere. 
We are fortunate that we have over a dozen grocery stores to choose from. I've listed these in order from the closest store to my house to the store that is the farthest away. 
Shopping at the store closest to me will save me money on gas and wear and tear on my car. Saving money in as many areas as possible will get me and you the most mileage on our frugal journeys. 
While some of these grocery stores are farther away, if we are in that town, we usually always stop by to check out any good deals.  It's in our best interest to stop in and check out their deals. I do not shop at all these stores regularly. Some of them I shop regularly in and others less often. 
My grocery budget is $300 a month, which allows me to spend $10 a day on food. Planning our menus around what is one sale saves me money each month, so I make sure to peruse the grocery sale ads every week.
Having said that, here are the stores we are able to shop at...
Fresh & Low (5.8 miles away) This is the closest grocery store to my house and they have some very good deals such as 5 items from the produce section for $9.99. But, they do add 10% at the register, so that has to be factored into the prices. 
IGA (9.9 miles away) CLOSED This is the ONLY grocery store in the town where I work. As a result of that, prices are high and food quality can be low, especially on frozen vegetables. I practically refuse to buy them as I've had freezer burn from them before.  
Food City (15.1 miles away) We actually have two Food City locations in town and one just over the state line in Georgia. Food City has become my favorite grocery store. They have good sales and I can also get some of my prescriptions for $4.00 there. 
Save A Lot (15.4 miles away) Honestly, we have so many grocery stores to choose from that I rarely shop at Save A Lot. I'm sorry to say this, but this store is on hill and I've watched as more than one person has let their shopping cart go careening down the hill, once they are done unloading the groceries, and let it smash into another car. I don't want my car hit this way, so I steer clear. 
United Grocery Outlet (15.5 miles away) UGO has some of the best prices on canned goods, which I've blogged about before. Their prices have risen since the Great Recession, so they don't have as good of prices as they used to, but they can still be a good source of inexpensive groceries. 
Cooke's Hometown Grocer (16.7 miles away) I love Cooke's and they also own the local Fresh and Low grocery stores. They used to have the best crash and burn items, but lately the items have been overpriced, so it's been a while since I've bought any there. They carry some of my favorite dried beans, so I always look at those when I'm there.    Food Lion (16.7 miles away) There used to be two Food Lions in town, but they closed one of the stores. I used to shop there more often than I do now. The produce can be iffy, so I try to be careful. Lately they seem to be doing more of the "you can get this sale price, but only for 1 or 2 days" and I don't care for that. I like to combine errands to save money, so this type of sale does not always work for me. 
Aldi  (17.3 miles away) Aldi has some of the best prices on produce and non-sale frozen vegetables. 
Publix (18.2 miles away) Publix no longer had any competition once Bi-Lo left town, and it really showed. Their sales and coupons are not nearly as good as they once were and they even stopped doubling coupons.  As a result, I shop there less and less often than I once did. 
Piggly Wiggly (20.8 miles or away) I've noticed that Piggly Wiggly and Cooke's offer the same sale items each week, so I have to wonder if they are somehow related . I like Piggly Wiggly for their sale on Oscar Mayer hot dogs and bologna, which they have every three months. They also double coupons, a win-win in my book. 
Ingles Markets (23.3 miles) Located in Georgia. Honestly, their prices tend to be higher and they don't stock a lot of product, so I am not much of a fan of Ingles. They do honor double coupons, however. 
Kroger (28.7 miles away) Located in Georgia. This is the grocery store that is farthest away from me, but if I will be in that area I am sure to stop in as they have some of the best yellow sticker deals we can find. We live in a rural area so, I am used to driving long distances to get most anywhere. Kroger also offers double coupons. 
Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~