ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

In an effort to reduce some expenses at our house, I decided to tackle the food bill. We have been eating out about 90% of the time the last few months as I just haven't been wanting to cook. That is very expensive and not very healthy so I'm working on doing better on that. I'm not a coupon cutter typically but learned about this site called TheGroceryGame.com. The concept is that you get a list of items that are on sale at your grocery store and items that are especially cheap are marked on the list as "stockpile now" which means you should buy in bulk while the price is low. This way, you are treating your pantry like a grocery store that has to be restocked but you are only restocking when the prices are very low. So far, this has been my experience.

Shopping trip at Kroger
Total bill: $132
Amount I spent: $76
Amount saved: $56

Shopping trip at Albertsons
Total bill: $63
Amount I spent: $27
Amount saved: $36

The website also has a message board that you can read for more stores that aren't necessarily part of the list. I got a tip from the board about current coupons at Target. I went last night and got 10 snack sized Oreos free and 10 of those individual sized cereals for free. Give it a try - it's pretty easy!