The Grocery Game

I'm totally piggy-backing off my friend Lauren's recent post on menu planning and grocery shopping, so if you read both of our blogs (Marcie), sorry if it's a little repetitive!

Few of you know this about me, but I am a grocery gamer. I'll admit, I'm not as avid about it as I wish I was, but I really have a great time trying to see how much I can save each time I make my weekly grocery trip. It started out about a year ago with me setting a goal to save 25% on my grocery bill... I wasn't clipping coupons or shopping the sales sheets, I just thought I could do it on my own... wrong! When I realized that it wasn't going to happen that way I made a game plan and just now am I starting to see the fruits of my labor.

For the last few months I have observed, adapted, and revised my game plan and am loving my new system of grocery shopping! Each Sunday I take our local paper and pull all the grocery sales sheets and coupon booklets out of it (and give the rest to Kevin!), and spread out on the kitchen table with my scissors, a legal pad and pen, coupon organizer, and recipe binder - I keep a 3-ring-binder of all of my favorite recipes organized into categories (appetizers/party foods, chicken, beef, pork, fish, soups, sides, desserts, etc.). Side note: I LOVE the IDEA of organization, and I really try to be an organized person... I love putting together notebooks, and making lists and charts... it is the following through with things that's often difficult for me... but that's a whole other post for another time... So, then I make a menu chart (much like Lauren), of each day of the week. I mark the days that Kevin will not be home until past dinner time (b/c of football or golf practice, or grad school work) - and those are our leftover/clean-out-the-fridge nights. Then I plan for the other nights - I usually end up cooking 3-4 nights a week. The first thing I do is look at the sales sheet. I do all of our shopping at Kroger for 2 reasons. (1) It is the most convenient location for me, and (2) I like their Kroger Plus Card savings -we rack up so many points on our card, we get gas for 10 cents off every time we need it! I digress... back to the sales sheets... I see what Kroger has on sale that week, and then find a recipe in my binder (or online) that uses that particular food - for example, this week they have baby back ribs on sale for $2.99/pound... guess who's having ribs on Thursday night?! :) Then I check out the produce that is on sale, and plan my side dishes around that as well. The majority of the meals I make each week (everything included) are right at or under $5.00... Of course I will "splurge" (usually once or twice a week - like ribs this week) and spend around $10.00 a meal, but for the most part, I'm pretty thrifty with our meals. In each box of my menu plan I write down the main dish and each side dish (and I usually will do one dessert a week as a treat). Then in the last box of my chart I write down the ingredients that I will need to make that meal. I do that for each of the nights I plan on cooking. Then my meal chart, and each of the recipes I will use that week, go in the clear plastic cover of my binder for easy access!

I also check out the produce that is on sale that week to see if there is something that Addison is running low on... like last week, green beans were on sale $0.99/lb, so I stocked up on those and made about 3 months worth of green beans to freeze! Yellow squash and zucchini were also on sale for $0.99/lb. She won't start eating those for another month (they are 7-month-old foods), but they were so cheap, I stocked up on those, and pureed and froze about 3 months worth of each of those as well... seriously, you should see my freezer... I put Gerber to shame... we may have to invest in a separate baby food freezer for the basement of the next house. It's a little ridiculous.

Once my meal plan for the week is made it is time to make the grocery list. First, I go to my pantry and fridge and take note of the "staples" that we are out of, or close to being out of. Cereal and milk are the two biggest staples in our house... I drink skim milk and Kevin drinks 1% (he swears he tastes the difference and will not touch skim milk - whatever), so we each have our own gallon in the fridge, and EACH OF US will usually go through about a gallon-and-a-half of milk a week. Obviously we use it with cereal, and most of the time we drink it with dinner as well... And cereal... I'm not sure if I am embarrassed or proud of this fact, but I'll share it none-the-less... at any given time, we will have no fewer than 6 boxes of cereal in our pantry. We love cereal. But, we aren't cereal snobs; we eat whatever happens to be on sale when it is purchased. Again, I digress... grocery list. So, after putting the staples on the grocery list, I add all the ingredients that we are going to need for meals that week. Then I take that list and copy it into another grocery list.... did I mention that I love making lists?!... I organize my second grocery list by store aisles. I put all the produce first because that is where I start, and then I go aisle-by-aisle in my head and list each item in the appropriate section of the list - this is where being familiar with your store comes in handy!

Lastly, I clip coupons. I do this last for a reason. I love coupons, I really do. I believe you can save a lot of money by using coupons... BUT, they can also end up costing you money as well... If I am not careful, I can be very bad about buying a product that I normally wouldn't buy, or I flat out don't need, just because I have a coupon for it! So, by clipping coupons last, I make sure to only clip coupons for the things that I already have on my grocery list! That way I'm not buying something just because I have a coupon. Now, I'm not completely rigid about this. If it is an item that I do use, but I don't currently need (like toilet paper, pantry staples, etc.), I will clip the coupon and stick it in my organizer, that way I do have it when I need it. Then I go through my organizer and toss out expired coupons (gasp!) and pull out any that I need that week. While I obviously use coupons, I really could do better... I like websites such as this, and this, and this, where you can pick and print coupons for specific items that you use, but our printer has been on the fritz for a while, and honestly I just haven't made it a priority to have it fixed (really, I know we are probably going to have to buy a new one, and I'm just not ready for that reality right now). So, while I do use coupons, I know I could do SO much better than I am.

Now when Monday (aka "Grocery Day") rolls around I have my organized list and my coupons ready, and off we go! Addison loves to grocery shop with me. She is endlessly entertained just by holding the list for me, and we (ahem, I) make up silly songs about each item we (I) put in the cart. I can't wait until she can play along.

So, like I said, I know I could do SO much better than I am with the grocery game, but at least now I am consistently saving right at 25% each trip I make. I could clip a few more coupons, or wait to buy everything I need until it is on sale, but for now, I'm pretty content with my 25% savings! Who knows, maybe after another kid or two (God-willing), I'll up the ante and shoot for 30-40% savings!!

Now, if I could just get those darn baggers to stop putting the raw meat in with my produce we'd have a great thing going!! :)