See that sneak peek of my new kitchen?
You should be able to click to enlarge the picture, sorry you can't see everything very well.

Oh how I have missed Kroger! Everything pictured below was just under $71! I accomplished this Wednesday night in 2 transactions, about an hour in the store and tons of coupons (the coupons were from multiple sources: some from the paper, some were internet printables, a few were pre-loaded to my Kroger card, some were sent to me from Kroger in the mail, there was a $15 Butterball Turkey coupon I got from being one of the 1st 100 people to leave a comment on a Better Homes and Gardens post and the Always Infiniti coupon came inside a sample I signed up for, whew).

I don't show pictures like these to brag, but rather to inspire you to see how far your money can go! There is quite a bit of processed food in the picture, but let me assure you that this is not the only thing we will be eating this week. I try to make a pretty healthy and varied menu plan for every week.

We try to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, and high quality dairy. We do not buy all organic, but we do not buy any genetically modified food. I make most of our meals from scratch, and use mostly whole wheat flour, substitute applesauce for oil, etc.

Also, while I do not like to buy bottled water, we do not have another source of clean water (I don't trust tap water for drinking). We are saving up for a Berkey Light water filter system. Though it is expensive up front, over the long run it will pay for itself many times over. Until then, we will continue to buy bottled water.

One last thing, our weekly grocery budget is not normally this high, but we just moved and needed quite a bit of stuff, and the nearest Kroger is pretty far from here, so hopefully I can get by without going to the store next week (there are closer stores, but they are considerably more expensive).

Here's what I bought:
1 case of bottled water
4 boxes of Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta
4 bags of Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Pasta
3 white onions
1 bag of apples
2 small cans of Grand's Biscuits
2 small cans of Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls
2 small cans of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
2 rolls of Pillsbury refrigerated cookie dough
2 packages of Pillsbury Simply Cookies
13 bags of Kroger brand veggies
1 32 load bottle of All Free and Clear
2 bags of chips
1 Betty Crocker Icing
2 packages of lunch meat
2 packages of Sargento Cheese
1 bag of shredded cheese
2 packages of Pilgrims Pride chicken
1 bottle honey
1 pouch of Bumble Bee tuna
2 packages of Hormel pepperoni
2 boxes of Cinnabon bars
2 pouches of Betty Crocker Potatoes
1 box of Always Infiniti
2 5lb bags of Unbleached flour
2 Dole Juice
1 bag of Nestle Morsels
2 boxes of Velveeta shells and cheese
1 Miracle whip
2 Carnation Evaporated milk
4 Campbells Tomato soup
4 Campbells Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 10 lb Butterball Fresh Turkey
1 pouch of Betty Crocker Cookie mix
1 jar of salsa
2 pineapples
1 4pk of cottonelle toilet paper

Total before coupons was $144.xx
Total Saved $73
Total OOP $71!!!

How did you do this week on groceries? Let me know in the comments below!

Check out what everyone else purchased over at MoneySavingMom.

Today I started getting everything together to go to the grocery store (menu plans, coupons, looking for last minute deals) and after I was done I really had no idea how I was going to pull off getting everything we needed for $10.

I headed off to Target and stocked up on quite a few loss leaders, headed to the back of the store to get the Kashi waffles and stopped in one of the freezer isles to get my coupons in order... I almost walked off when I faintly heard a lady behind me trying to get my attention. I walked back a little closer and she repeated herself saying that if I took a survey I would receive a $10 gift card! I quickly agreed and answered what seemed to be a ton of questions about the frozen veggies in my cart, and headed to the checkout - after coupons and the gift card, I paid $1.83!

Next I went to Kroger to pick up some milk, oj, banannas, cheese, potatoes and Velveeta shells and cheese. I went over the budget by $.90, but I received a $1 off your next order coupon for buying the Velveeta. Overall this was a really good shopping trip, and next week I hope to have a better plan!



Last Saturday I didn't get around to posting (actually I didn't get around to posting anything this past week) what I bought, but it was pretty boring - we didn't need much...

How did all of you do this week at the stores?

This week we spent $9.76 on everything in the picture above (from Target and Kroger) - meaning that we came in under budget for the first week of the Eating From the Pantry challenge!

I know the whole point of this eating from the pantry challenge is to try to reduce the amount of food storage we have, I couldn't pass up the deals at Target this week... those waffles were only $.24 after coupons (which I am happy to pay that for wholesome healthy waffles that I didn't have to make :) - quick foods like waffles also come in handy when it comes time to move -- just heat and eat)

Between 2 transactions at Kroger all this stuff was only $22. Earlier in the day I had to go to Wal-Mart for work and picked up 2 cartons of strawberries for $1.97.


Total spending for yesterday was just under $24!

We are also going to start an Eating From the Pantry Challenge (like the one Money Saving Mom had awhile back) and hope to stick to it for about 6 - 8 weeks! That might sound really long, but we will be moving at the end of September (we are buying our first house!!!) and need to work through the stockpile I have going on. My love is completely up for this challenge and is very excited to be able to save quite a bit of extra money, especially since there are usually extra costs that come up with buying a house and moving.

During normal weeks, I allot $40 to the grocery budget. But during the challenge there will be a $10 per week allowance to buy milk, produce, a few random ingredients or to pick up the extrordinary sale items that I can fit into the budget.

If we can manage to stick to this challenge for all 8 weeks - we will have saved an extra $240!!

The next post will have the pictures of my pantry, fridge/freezer and deep freezer just so you can get an idea of what I am working with...

Yesterday I went to Kroger to pick up some of this week's groceries. We were out of a lot of things since I put off going to the grocery store last week, to use up some of our stockpile.

Although I didn't do as good as usual with the deals, I didn't do too bad. See, I haven't bought the Sunday paper in about 2 months now. Every Saturday I look to see what coupons are in the paper, and if I don't see enough good coupons for things I actually need and use, I don't buy the paper. Sure I could always use most of the coupons at CVS or Walgreens, but I find that I already have too many bottles of dish soap and air fresheners, and most of the stores don't have everything in stock either. This is what I was able to get with the coupons I had (from internet printables, to mailers from Kroger, the All You magazine and some I already had from the paper that had not expired yet).

Total before coupons: $53.32
Total Savings: $34.93

Total OOP: $18.39