Saturday Savings

It was another great deal-finding weekend! This is two weeks in a row I've struggled to fit everything onto our dining room table. What a good problem to have! Everything over there to the right cost $66.86 and here's what it includes.

(For the sake of my local readers, I've decided to note what I bought where.)

Aldi:
Whole Milk - 2 gallons
Skim Milk - 1 gallon
Eggs - 2 dozen
Bread - 2 loaves
Tomatoes - 4
Flour tortillas
Bananas - 1.5 pounds
Cinnamon Graham Crackers

Hen House:
Dawn Dish Soap - 4 bottles
Quaker Mini Rice Cakes
Skippy Peanut Butter
Chex Mix
Nature Valley Granola Bars
Cascade Action Pacs

Hy-Vee:
Suave Shampoo/Conditioner - 3 bottles
Blue Bonnet spread - 2 boxes
Hunt's Ketchup
Tomato Sauce - 3 cans
Pretzels
Nabisco 100 Calorie bars - 1 box
Post Trail Mix Granola
80% Lean Ground Beef - 5 pounds
Head Iceberg Lettuce
Potatoes - 10 pounds
Jazz Apples - 2.5 pounds
Strawberries - 4 pounds
Chicken Legs - 20 pounds (yes, 20)

Price Chopper:
Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies
Kleenex - 3 boxes
Daisy Sour Cream
Colgate Toothpaste
Farmland Sausage Links - 2 boxes
Hormel Bacon

The Deals: Although I didn't snag as many freebies as last week, I did manage to snag a few! Dawn dish soap was on sale for .99 a bottle at Hen House. I had 4 coupons, 3 of which were for .50 off which meant when they doubled the Dawn was free! I paid only. 49 for the 4 bottles of Dawn. The other freebie was my bag of mini rice cakes - those were on sale for .99 and I had a $1 off coupon. Sweet! Other notables include Colgate Toothpaste for .25 (89% off!), 10 pounds of potatoes for $1.88 (62% off!), Skippy Peanut Butter for only .48 (80% off!) and Suave Shampoo and Conditioners for only .42 a bottle (74% off!).

This week also turned out to be a fantastic week to stock up on some meats. The 5 pound roll of ground beef was a decent price at $7.95. The truly great deal though was the chicken legs. Hy-Vee had the 10 pound bags (not frozen!) on sale for $3.90 a bag - that works out to just .39 a pound! I stocked up and bought two bags. These chicken legs are great in the crock pot and then used in casseroles and enchiladas.

One of the keys to really sticking to a low monthly budget is stocking up when the price is great. If you only buy what you need for the next week or two than you're bound to need to buy something for full price in the future. Sales run in shifts, so we probably won't see this chicken on sale like this for several more weeks at least.

Total before tax, sales and coupons: $126.90
Total after sales and coupons: $61.37

For those that are new to Three Times the Giggles, Saturday Savings is my weekly post chronicling my savvy shopping. Our family grocery budget (all food, paper products, toiletries and cleaning supplies - diapers are separate) is $310 a month. I utilize The Grocery Game and love sites like MoneySavingMom.com and FrugalFreebiesandDeals.com