The last time I discussed saving money with discount stores I informed everyone that I saved a little over $21 that week by buying some of our usual grocery items at our local dollar store. This week my savings were huge compared to that. Because of Hubby's new pay schedule I'm only grocery shopping once every 2 weeks for most items. I'll buy the stuff we need weekly, but a bulk of our grocery purchases are made every 2 weeks after payday. This week when I sat down to make my grocery list I made two lists. I took my past receipts from the grocery store and made a list of the items I buy every time I shop. Then I made another list of the items I was needing that were not included on that list.
First I made a trip to our local dollar store with both lists in hand. I found I was able to get just about everything on my list there. The only things I did not purchase were a jar of mayo (because the store doesn't carry our brand of choice), our meats, and baby food. The total purchase came to $37.92. When I returned home I made a new grocery list of the items I had not purchased and would need to pick up at the grocery store. I sat down with the sales paper and decided to wait until the next day to hit up the grocery store as a lot of the meats we buy were going on sale that day.
When it came time for my trip to the grocery store I grabbed all the items on my list. Then I took some extra time to do some research. I pulled out my receipt from the dollar store, and I went down the isles writing down the grocery store price of each item I had purchased. I also wrote down the regular price of each sale item I was purchasing, so I could come up with a total savings amount for the week. I spent a total of $28.59 at the grocery store on my meat, baby food, and our mayo. I saved $14 and some change on items that were on sale with my store rewards card, mostly meats that were on sale for $1.98/lb.
Let me also inform you that I did not use a single coupon purchase on this week's groceries. My total grocery cost was $66.51. When I added up the grocery store cost (using the weekly price, so if an item was on sale I used that price) of everything I purchased at the dollar store and the purchases I did make at the grocery store at their sale prices the total came up to $111.92 after tax. When I added up my total savings I realized between shopping at the dollar store and waiting an extra day for the sale prices on the meat I saved a total of 59.89 on my groceries this week!
If I had used coupons I probably could have saved a lot more, but honestly I've never really been a big fan of using coupons on groceries. I'll use one if I am already planning to purchase the item, but most of the time most grocery coupons I come across are for items that I either wouldn't normally buy or are for a brand I wouldn't normally buy. If the cost of the name brand is less than the store brand (or current brand) I normally buy I'll take advantage of that coupon, but in most cases this doesn't happen.
I do want to experiment a little with coupons at the dollar store because, yes, they do accept coupons, and I do find myself buying name brand items there that are cheaper than the store brands at the grocery store. Also, most dollar stores will allow you to use two coupons on a single item if one coupon is from the manufacturer and the other is from the store. Yep, I will definitely have to experiment with this because I'm interested in just how many coupons I might actually use at the dollar store for even bigger savings!
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