One of the biggest issues with the grocery bill is meat. The price of beef lately has been quite high and is suppose to get even higher in then next few months. Some of the ways I cut the price is to look for any newly discounted meat. That may seem gross or "risky" but make sure you check out the date and also the way the meat looks. The meats pictured above are a full day before their "use or freeze by" dates. This is totally in the safe zone because you can take them right home and portion them out with some plastic wrap and throw them in the freezer. Which I promptly did today!! The other thing you want to be sure of when buying discounted meat or any meat for that matter is the meat's color. Your beef should be a good reddish color and you pork should be a nice pink. If they look grey or partly grey just in the package its a NO GO. Now sometimes when you buy ground beef the center is a different color than the outside and that is totally normal and can just be due to packaging. That even happens with fresh packaged meat. So with those things in mind you will be able to pick a good meat at a good price.
If you do not find a meat that is of good quality on discount or sale than you can try two other things. Martin's has been rolling out some great register coupons for $3/$10 Meat purchase and they have "chili meat" On sale for $3.99/lb. this week. I don't know about you but I don't Mind buying ground beef that is xtra ground to use for chili or anything else when I can get it for that price : )
Also Save A Lot is a great alternative when the previous options are not available. I can usually find a great deal on any sort of meat type including Turkey Sausage or a family pack of pork chops.
Bread Can be a tricky item to find a coupon for. Usually you may have a certain brand or type of grain your family is use to. And when the bread coupons are limited this lowers your "bread couponing options" LOL
Therefore I like to keep an eye on the bread isle in Martin's!
Almost Every Other week it seems they have a sale for B1G1. When they do I like to buy two loaves and throw the extra in the freezer. We go through a loaf of bread a week with our two kids and half price bread is always a good find!
Another find at Walmart last week was The Kraft Macaroni and Cheese!! They have a flat of 5pks near the frozen section for $4.50 with a Peelie coupon for $1.00 Off!! That beats the almost $1.00 Or sometimes more per box when you buy them in singles. So with two macaroni and cheese eaters at home I scooped one up! This Deal makes them ONLY $.70 Cents Each! : )
Today at Walmart I found these on the clearance carts just before you go the the registers (in front of the women's clothing) They had Air Wick and Glade Plugins at an unbelievable price!! Just check out this picture!! The Glade Plugin included TWO Scented oils! Super Savings and I always need new plugins. So I stocked up and now my house will smell fresh for EVEN LESS! Yay!
Okay. Saving money on Pet food is a pain. I do not run to Petco or Petsmart where you can find some decent deals I am sure, because I only have one cat. So it is just easier to pick up her food as I see it. I was buying multi packs of Whiskas Pouches. Now just so you know I only feed these to her at dinner as an extra protein filled dinner. Otherwise she has dry food. The multipacks of Whiskas run up to $6.00 for only 10-12ct. Then I found these handy little individual containers for $55 cents ea. at Walmart and realized they hold more food in them than the pouches and so I can feed her 1/2 a container per night, which gives me 2 days out of each container. That's only around $.27 cents per dinner and beats the multi pack price for sure. This is just one example of how to stretch your dollar and think "outside the box" or in this case "outside the multipack" LOL
Her dry food is the Purina Cat Chow which was on Sale this week at Martin's for only $4.50. And I had a coupon for $1.00 Off. So now I can give my cat her favorite food without taking a huge chunk out of our grocery bill to do it. It's the small stuff that adds up folks. It's work but it's worth it.
Also Another Idea to try and stretch you meals out. If you are having, tacos, nachos or burritos It is super tasty and cheaper to stretch your beef, pork, chicken or cheese when you add refried beans to it. Adding the beans for only a $1.00 or less per can is much cheaper than adding on more of the meats or cheese. For Example Velveeta cheese bricks for nacho dip can be a bit pricey. Even the generic option. That's why I like to buy the smaller size, and add a can of beans in with the Rotel as well. Just a thought : )
These cute clothes in the girls section of walmart were on clearance as well and at full price would have been $47.00, but I only paid $23.50. I found four long sleeve shirts, two shorts and one Hello Kitty T Shirt! This was a great find for my soon to be 8 year old and she was very happy to see what I had picked out for her!
