Well, I was better at the coupon game today. The local Big Chain supermarket is having triple coupon week so I gathered up all the $0.50< coupons I have and went shopping after dropping Sr off at the airport. They actually had some bargains and I found a few "free" items. The cashier and the man behind me was impressed by my savings.
Here's the catch: Most of the coupons I find are for products I would never buy (and hardly pay full price for) and we really don't eat. How is that a savings?
I think my experimental phase is coming to an end in this game. I prefer to shop the Amish bulk store and grow my own (although the 10 organic yogurts I bought for less than 0.30/each was nice as I haven't had time to make my own in ages). I tend to stock up on sale products (ones we eat) anyway. And, another confession, I am way to disorganized for this game. I wasn't paying attention when my items were tallied and I didn't get an "in-store" sale price and paid 3 more for the product. I plan to go back tomorrow to have them fix it.
We ate leftovers tonight (pork roast, potatoes and carrots from last night). The Pantry will hardly be dented now that Sr is gone for the rest of the month. My kids eat like birds. I also have some smaller (homemade) prepared meals in the freezer that I will probably use.
The best part of this challenge has been the organization of my stockpile and the inventory. I have a good idea of what sort of commercial products I have on hand. I also know what is in the most handy storage areas (inside freezer and two kitchen pantry cabinets). I am still working on garage freezers and the home canned area of the basement. I have also enjoyed making menus or coming up with things to eat on the fly using my own storage.
I am going to update my inventory on the sidebar tonight after the kids are off to bed.
Another useful thing (I hope) I have gained from reading these new blogs is this link: Swagbucks. I already have several "bucks" and hope I can get enough to get an Amazon giftcard. If you like seeking information on the 'net, this may be useful to you too.
Showing posts with label coupons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coupons. Show all posts
Friday, January 15, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Eating from the Pantry-Week Two
I already lost track of where I left off. We are doing fairly well. I have been creating meals from the pantry and, other than the in-laws treating us to breakfast after church Sunday, everything we have had originated from the pantry shelves or freezers.
I also finished inventory on the one shelf in the basement. The reason this is taking me so long is one, I am extremely busy and two, I am cleaning and rearranging as I go. I now have a shelf designated for each type of commercial food product I bring into the stocks and separated the home canned things onto their own shelf. This is the older home canned stuff. I still need to inventory it. I do know what I have in commercial goods now and can use it up and replace (if we are planning to continue to use it), donate what we don't want, or use it up and never bring it in again. The weirdest part of finishing this portion of my inventory project is that I have a lot less than I thought (the shelves are really deep, but the products were stacked only 1-3 cans deep and scattered).
Here is a sampling of the meals I created based on pantry/freezer items:
Homemade pepperoni pizza (I had an Arrow Mill Gluten Free Crust Mix to use up) and two packages of pepperoni in the upstairs pantry. I also still have home canned pizza sauce from 2006!)
BBQ pork and corn chowder (pork was from pigs we raised in 2008 and the corn was neighbor's sweet corn that I froze this past summer. We should have used '08's corn, but Sr grabbed the '09 and I didn't feel like digging for the other.)
Applesauce (from farmer's market apples)with all meals and for snacks
Whole wheat penne (pantry-we are out of spaghetti and I refuse to buy any until we use up at least 4/8 boxes of penne I have stored away) with home canned sp sauce
Marble Brownies (another commercial mix I wanted to use up)
Chicken enchiladas (breasts from inside freezer, enchilada sauce-com, cheese)
Leftovers
I need to post some pictures, but I hung an old chalkboard I thrifted years ago (it has cartoon Wizard of Oz characters on it) and I have been writing not only menus on it, but also the family members' chores. I love it and cannot believe I let it sit in storage all these years!
I have found one bad side-effect from following other's partaking in this challenge. These women (and probably men) are "couponers" or professional frugal shoppers. I am not one of these. I grow a good portion of our food or buy it from area farmers and preserve it. I also shop the bulk and grocery liquidation type stores (that was how I ended up with the commercial shelf in the first place), but I do occasionally (and this past year was particularly bad and busy for me) shop at the big stores and I try to buy sell items, but I have been known to pay full price. So, reading all of these blogs about using coupons and store ads to save money (or gain stockpile items for cheap) has intrigued me a bit. See, most RL folks that know me, know I am a numbers geek. I love manipulating numbers and reading posts showing how someone was able to buy Bayer aspirin for free moved that geeky part of my brain. Of course, I have no reason for buying Bayer aspirin, but that did not matter. I needed a new project and this one jumped right out at me.
I tried this shopping game this weekend at Walgreens and CVS and I was able to snag a couple of deals (I actually needed an OTC medicine I take and I had a coupon and it gave some of those register rewards. I hate to confess, but I have thrown those away because of not returning to the store before the date on them or not understanding what they were good for...um, cough, yes, like throwing money away. I see that now). I obtained conditioner for my hair which badly needs it (this is a topic for another post), coffee, toothpaste and toothbrushes, my medicine, dish washer detergent, and some clearance Christmas chocolates. All in all I spent about $35 out of pocket (oop) and this was partly because the medicine I needed is expensive. I received $14 in drugstore dollars to spend on another occasion. This means I "spent" $21 for all the items (my medicine was at least 19.00 of that exchange after the coupon). The part I cannot get my mind around is how gathering these "store dollars" in exchange for real money helps. Yes, I can spend $14 dollars at the store this week (and hopefully roll some of that into more virtual dollars), but I would have rather saved $14 on sale items in the long run (I noticed some of the items were priced the same without all the drugstore dollar stuff if I was willing to drive to the city). In other words, wouldn't it just be better to deduct $5 from the cost of the medicine then give me "store dollars"? It would be the same thing.
I will say it was a fun experiment and perhaps I just need to play it longer to understand the reasoning. I have enjoyed reading all the blogs that center around this type of shopping.
I also finished inventory on the one shelf in the basement. The reason this is taking me so long is one, I am extremely busy and two, I am cleaning and rearranging as I go. I now have a shelf designated for each type of commercial food product I bring into the stocks and separated the home canned things onto their own shelf. This is the older home canned stuff. I still need to inventory it. I do know what I have in commercial goods now and can use it up and replace (if we are planning to continue to use it), donate what we don't want, or use it up and never bring it in again. The weirdest part of finishing this portion of my inventory project is that I have a lot less than I thought (the shelves are really deep, but the products were stacked only 1-3 cans deep and scattered).
Here is a sampling of the meals I created based on pantry/freezer items:
Homemade pepperoni pizza (I had an Arrow Mill Gluten Free Crust Mix to use up) and two packages of pepperoni in the upstairs pantry. I also still have home canned pizza sauce from 2006!)
BBQ pork and corn chowder (pork was from pigs we raised in 2008 and the corn was neighbor's sweet corn that I froze this past summer. We should have used '08's corn, but Sr grabbed the '09 and I didn't feel like digging for the other.)
Applesauce (from farmer's market apples)with all meals and for snacks
Whole wheat penne (pantry-we are out of spaghetti and I refuse to buy any until we use up at least 4/8 boxes of penne I have stored away) with home canned sp sauce
Marble Brownies (another commercial mix I wanted to use up)
Chicken enchiladas (breasts from inside freezer, enchilada sauce-com, cheese)
Leftovers
I need to post some pictures, but I hung an old chalkboard I thrifted years ago (it has cartoon Wizard of Oz characters on it) and I have been writing not only menus on it, but also the family members' chores. I love it and cannot believe I let it sit in storage all these years!
I have found one bad side-effect from following other's partaking in this challenge. These women (and probably men) are "couponers" or professional frugal shoppers. I am not one of these. I grow a good portion of our food or buy it from area farmers and preserve it. I also shop the bulk and grocery liquidation type stores (that was how I ended up with the commercial shelf in the first place), but I do occasionally (and this past year was particularly bad and busy for me) shop at the big stores and I try to buy sell items, but I have been known to pay full price. So, reading all of these blogs about using coupons and store ads to save money (or gain stockpile items for cheap) has intrigued me a bit. See, most RL folks that know me, know I am a numbers geek. I love manipulating numbers and reading posts showing how someone was able to buy Bayer aspirin for free moved that geeky part of my brain. Of course, I have no reason for buying Bayer aspirin, but that did not matter. I needed a new project and this one jumped right out at me.
I tried this shopping game this weekend at Walgreens and CVS and I was able to snag a couple of deals (I actually needed an OTC medicine I take and I had a coupon and it gave some of those register rewards. I hate to confess, but I have thrown those away because of not returning to the store before the date on them or not understanding what they were good for...um, cough, yes, like throwing money away. I see that now). I obtained conditioner for my hair which badly needs it (this is a topic for another post), coffee, toothpaste and toothbrushes, my medicine, dish washer detergent, and some clearance Christmas chocolates. All in all I spent about $35 out of pocket (oop) and this was partly because the medicine I needed is expensive. I received $14 in drugstore dollars to spend on another occasion. This means I "spent" $21 for all the items (my medicine was at least 19.00 of that exchange after the coupon). The part I cannot get my mind around is how gathering these "store dollars" in exchange for real money helps. Yes, I can spend $14 dollars at the store this week (and hopefully roll some of that into more virtual dollars), but I would have rather saved $14 on sale items in the long run (I noticed some of the items were priced the same without all the drugstore dollar stuff if I was willing to drive to the city). In other words, wouldn't it just be better to deduct $5 from the cost of the medicine then give me "store dollars"? It would be the same thing.
I will say it was a fun experiment and perhaps I just need to play it longer to understand the reasoning. I have enjoyed reading all the blogs that center around this type of shopping.
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