Saturday, January 2, 2010

Saturday Savings - Testing the Organic Waters

Yesterday I dipped my toe in the Organic/All Natural waters at various grocery stores. I was pleased with the deals I found and am loving the challenge of making a price spreadsheet for Organic and All Natural stuff! Everything you see below (plus a 20oz bottle of Diet Coke because this no caffeine thing kills me some days) cost me about $79. Not too bad considering I bought some major paper products for the month and hadn't really shopped in almost 2 weeks.


I ran to lots of different stores, but they were relatively close together so it didn't bother me much. I also missed out on Aldi as they were closed for the holiday. That ate into my savings a bit, but I recovered nicely in some other areas.

Whole Foods:
Organic Whole Wheat Flour - 3.76 pounds
Organic Rolled Oats - 2.8 pounds

Hen House:
Organic Fuji Apples - 2.85 pounds
Bread
Dried Red Beans - 1 pound
Ketchup
Diet Coke - 20oz bottle
Skippy Peanut Butter
Keebler Wheatables crackers
All Bran Crackers
Shortening
Robert's Sour Cream
Butter

CVS:
Bumblebee Tuna - 6 cans

Price Chopper:
Cheerios - 18oz box
Kix - 18oz box
Kashi Go Lean Crunch Cereal
Nature's Path Organic Cereal
Cottonelle Ultra Toilet Paper - 12 pack
Eggs - 2 dozen
Baby Carrots - 2 bags @ 2 pounds each
Ground Chuck - 3.16 pounds

Target:
Clementines - 5 pound box
Skim Milk - half gallon
2% Milk - 2 gallons
Plastic Wrap
Paper Towels - 8 large rolls
Kleenex - 4

Organic/Natural Deals: Fuji Apples for $1.28 a pound seemed like a good deal (Hen House). I was amazed at how not-greasy the apples felt and how amazing they smelled. Imagine! They actually had a very appley scent! The rolled oats were on sale at Whole Foods for .99 a pound (down from $1.38 a pound). The Whole Wheat Flour was also .99 a pound (regular price). The Kashi Cereal and Nature's Path Cereal were both clearance bin finds at Price Chopper! Both boxes were marked down to $1.19 (the boxes were slightly damaged). The milk I bought is not organic, but it is hormone free which is the best I can do right now. I found that at Target for $3.29 a gallon. Any KC folks know where I could find it cheaper?

The Other Deals: I scored big time in the clearance section at Price Chopper. In addition to the cereals mentioned above, I also snagged the Cheerios and Kix in that section! Those big boxes were marked down to $2 and $1.85. To make the deal nicer I also used a $1 on two boxes coupon. I snagged about $18 worth of cereal (4 boxes) for only 5.23. Price Chopper also had nice deals on baby carrots (2 pound bags for $1.48 each) and ground beef ($1.58 a pound). Tuna is 2/$1 at CVS this week (today is the last day!). I grabbed 6 cans and I had $1 in ECB's, so I only paid $2 for 6 cans. Sweet!

At Hen House I managed to get both boxes of crackers for only .38 each thanks to some $1.50 off one box coupons I had printed online. Had I been able to use those coupons at Price Chopper (the PC's I've been to won't accept internet coupons worth more than $1) I could have gotten the boxes for free. At Target I picked up the box of Clementines (probably the boys' favorite fruit right now) for $3.99 after sale and coupon. The Kleenex were also a great deal there - .74 each, normally $2.99! All of their holiday tissue boxes are on clearance. If I hadn't overheard someone mention that at one of those price check things I never would have known as there was no sign indicating price.

Total Before Sales, Tax and Coupons: $129.87

Total After Sales and Coupons: $72.97 - 44% savings

5 comments:

Christina said...

I love reading your savings. I have no clue on how you do it, LOL. Congrats on all that organic shopping too. All I hear is its sooooo expensive. I might have to check in to it though...go organic on some stuff, but not all. We just got a Fresh Market, and the prices are crazy. Almost 6 bucks for milk? Yikes.

john cave osborne said...

very impressive. we're on the bumblebee tuna! i'm gonna show this post to my wife. we need all the tips we can get. great blog!

Emily said...

I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that Aldi milk is hormone free... I think they have a sign saying that posted on the glass fridge doors.
Those apples sound yummy!!

Jessica said...

I buy Heartland Creamery skim milk for $2.82 at Hy-Vee in Leawood. They are a local dairy (http://www.heartlandcreamery.com/) and it has no added hormones. I met some people from there at the Hen House Celebration and they were so nice and said to come out for a tour!

David said...

I know a way to save more on toilet paper than any coupon or special. This covers all the bases = saves you money, helps the environment, helps your health, makes you feel better, it's so easy to do and it costs less than $50.00; Save money and the Earth and be clean at the same time! Add Bathroom Bidet Sprayers to all your bathrooms. I think Dr. Oz on Oprah said it best: "if you had pee or poop on your hand, you wouldn't wipe it off with paper, would you? You'd wash it off” Available at www.bathroomsprayers.com with these you won't even need toilet paper any more, just a towel to dry off! Don’t worry, you can still leave some out for guests and can even make it the soft stuff without feeling guilty. It's cheap and can be installed without a plumber; and runs off the same water line to your toilet. You'll probably pay for it in a few months of toilet paper savings. As for water use a drought is always a concern and must be dealt with prudently but remember the water use of industrial users far exceeds the water use of household users and in the case of toilet paper manufacture it is huge. The pollution and significant power use from that manufacturing process also contributes to global warming so switching to a hand bidet sprayer and lowering your toilet paper use is very green in multiple ways.

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