cherry picking in the cereal aisle

I never thought grocery shopping would become the highlight of my week.  Any outing that takes me out ofthe house and off campus is a treat nowadays but grocery shopping has become near and dear to my heart.

Most times I take the baby boy and he rides along in his little car seat atop the cart.  I spend as much time trying to keep him entertained as I do searching the shelves for the best deal. He usually ends up fussing and letting the entire store know of his unhappiness.

However there are those marvelous times when larry will stay home with the baby and I can shop ALONE.  I get my list all ready, coupons sorted, canvas bags folded neatly and head out.  I might even stop by starbucks on the way and make the shopping trip a real event.

I don’t mind shopping, nor do I cringe at the register because of a wonderful website I found about a year and a half ago.  I was watching food network and one of the shows did a sopt on a lady who had started coupon shopping and was saving hundreds of dollars on her grocery bill.  She turned her coupon shopping into a businees showing others how to save and now has a multi-million dollar company called the Grocery Game.

The basic premise is using the regular coupons from your Sunday paper on the items when they are marked dow and at thier cheapest.  You buy items at rock bottom prices, stock up on them and before you know it, your pantry is bursting and your wallet is too!

I pay for this service- about $1.25 per week for a list that is specific to my papers’ coupons and my grocery store.  I also purchase two newspapers.  This is a $5.00 weekly investment that saves me on average about $30-$40 per week.  There are sites where you can try and do this yourself without paying for a list, and some people even spend time combing the sales adds and matching their coupons to the sales on their own.  I would rather pay the small fee and have someone else do that work for me. I spend a little, they earn a little and I save a lot.

Here is an example:  today I bought rice- brown rice- boil in bag.  It was on sale for $1.89 and I had a buy one get one free coupon.  I bought two and got two free, making each box about $.95.  Do I need all that rice this week?  No, but I bought it and store it in my pantry. It doesn’t expire anytime soon and for the next few months, I will always have rice and won’t have to go out and buy it at full price.

I do the same thing with meats, some produce (freezer!), pasta, baking items, cereal, snacks, health and beauty items- really everything but bread and milk.

I have a stockpile built up so most weeks I do what is called cherry picking- only buying the few items we need (bread and milk) and the rest of my weekly budget is spent stocking up on the very best deals.  My gorcery bill is usually less than $50 per week for a family of three. These are just a couple of my shevles. the baskets are full of deodorant, tooth paste, tooth brushes, medicines and other H&B items.

So when I get the treat of shopping alone, I stroll down the aisle with my decaf in hand relishing the great deals and knowing tha I am able to care for my family and strtch our hard earned dollars as far as they will go.

Some misconceptions about this:

- You will have to spend a ton of time clipping and sorting coupons. NOPE- I just save and file the whole insert by date and clip the coupons that are on the list that week (they are listed by insert and date).  It takes about 5 minutes a week.

-It will take longer at the register and people behind me will get mad- first of all- who cares what the people behind you think? Secondly- it really only takes about a minute for the checker to scan the coupons. and most days the person behind me is amazed.  I have definitely heard someone say to the checker “did she just save $40 dollars???!” 

PS-If you decide to visit the www.thegrocerygame.com and sign up for the trial be sure to put in my e-mail as your referral christycecile@msn.com