Groceries

I've always rather enjoyed grocery shopping. But I don't enjoy getting to the checkout counter and trying to keep my eyes in my head when the cashier gives me the total.

So I now use http://www.thegrocerygame.com/. I read about it in a recent issue of Woman's Day magazine and decided to check it out. I hope you'll go and explore the website, too, because everybody can greatly benefit from using it. I won't go into the details, but basically you wanna first make sure that you get your local Sunday paper so that you have access to all those weekly coupons. I subscribed to the Chicago Trib Sunday-only delivery. It's $1.25/week. That's five bucks a month and is sooooooo worth it. And it's wonderful having that paper at the end of the driveway every Sunday morning!

The creator of The Grocery Game has a database that tells you exactly what items in YOUR specific grocery store are on sale each week, and then corresponds those in-store sales to coupons. So you're getting 50-80% off a lot of items! I'm so serious - it is amazing how this works. Between last Monday's shopping trip and today's shopping trip, I saved $102.25. That's TWO shopping trips. And that, my friends, is going to add up!

Here's proof of last Monday's savings at Jewel, where I almost always shop:

I have allotted a couple of my laundry room shelves for "overflow items" that I stocked up on because I got them at rock bottom prices. Right now on that shelf I have cereal, pancake mix, syrup, slivered almonds, peanut butter, soup, pasta and several boxes of Ziploc bags. Things that don't go bad very quickly - or don't go bad at all. And I now plan meals (dinners, mostly) based on what's on sale and what I have coupons for instead of just blindly planning meals and paying full price for the ingredients I need.

This is SO awesome! Please check out the website. You can easily save your family a lot of money. And it's FUN, too!

And now, without further ado - here is a cute picture I took today of my girl sitting in her Bumbo chair watching Melmo. Doesn't she look comfy?

And here's what she looks like when Daddy shares his chocolate ice cream:

I hope you're having a good week and staying warm. TTFN! :)