what's cooking?

I'm sure I've written about my skills as a food shopper before-even that Steve and I were able to tell the extreme couponers in a class some tips they had no ideas about using.

This week Steve and I were so very proud of ourselves. 

It started with the weekly issue of the newspaper that carries the food ads.  We had to pare down our paper delivery when we moved out here to Arizona-couldn't afford the 7-day cost of the only major newspaper in the state.

In Orange County, California there were 2:  The Register and the Times.  Here there's only the Republic.  There are two weekly ones that put in stories for some of the communities, but they're free on every stand in the markets and restaurants.

I'm digressing-back to our shopping skills.

Steve and I are VERY big produce consumers.  Sprout's is our favorite place to go, but the closest one is 22 miles away-so we only go there when we are also going to buy pet food at the PetSmart about 3 miles from that market.

One of our local markets had blueberries and vine ripened tomatoes at quite the price and since we had time to kill while waiting for Aidan to get out of tutoring after school, we took Dylan to the market to make the pick up of the two items (we had enough greens, squash, etc for the time being). 

What we love about this market is that besides the weekly specials and the points for gas discounts is that they have a section of "weekly specials". We got a blender for $6, Israeli couscous for 75% off and lots of other goodies.

This week though-we hit the jackpot of discounts!!!  Yes-the clearance section had at least 3 dozen boxes of green mountain coffee holiday flavored k-cups on the shelves!!!  $1.99 for a box of 12!

Can I hear a woot, woot????

We took 22 (no sense being selfish and having people stare).  Toasted Marshmallow Mocha, Wicked Winter, Cinnamon Sugar cookie and a couple of other flavors!  All were normally $6.99!  We were saving $5 a box!!!

But wait, there's more!  I backed up to see the tip-top shelf and saw both Charmin and Northern toilet paper sitting up there!  Yes!  Steve went to the TP aisle and took a look at the regular price-$18.99 for the Charmin.  They had it discounted to $7.49.  We took both.  And the Northern triple roll package was marked down from $15 to $4.99.

We also go through a lot of mustard around here and there was some that was good until May, 2018 so we got those for 50 cents instead of $2.49.

So we are now set-berries for breakfast, tomatoes to go on our salads for dinner and coffee to have for breakfast and lots of TP for, well, you know.

Our total savings on this hall was well over $125.  Plus, since Steve has a thing for storing water we are more than sure we can make the coffee.

Please don't ask what our storage/guest room looks like, let's just say we're prepared as well as any survivalist.  Steve also wiped out the clearance aisle a couple of months ago of the special Italian premium pastas for 50 cents each after Italian month was over.  About 6 months ago, after Spanish foods month we secured the clearance aisle of 8 bottles of Extra Virgin 1st Press Olive Oil.  Okay, we shared with the kids.

As you can see we are experts on the use and art of the grocery market deals.  We also use an abundance of coupons on just about everything.  Last year (I track all of our savings) we saved nearly six thousand dollars on our non-perishables!  Including haircuts and entertainment.

Have a question on how to make your dollars stretch like Mike TV in Willie Wonka?  I'm all for sharing how we make ends meet in the tastiest of ways.