The Grocery Game

My local grocery store was having a fun sale this week where if you bought 10 participating items, you got $5.00 off your bill. You could get the deal up to 3 times, meaning $15.00 taken off your bill at check out. So Fun! Combine that with coupons= FOOD STORAGE!!
I saved more yesterday than I think I ever have. I usually average about 60%-65% but yesterday I saved 75% WOOO HOOO!! Here's the list from my shopping trip... Green Items were free....
8 cans hormel chili (only 50 cents per can- normally over 2.00 per can)
2 cans hormel chili- FREE
2 Curves Granola Bars
1 Nature Valley Granola Bars
1 box OR Naturals Microwave Popcorn
1 Goldfish Crackers
1 Cheerios Snack Mix
1 Franks buffalo Sauce- FREE
1 Newman's Own Marinade
1 Frenches Yellow Mustard- FREE
1 Frenches Spicy Brown Mustard- FREE
2 Pace Picante Salsa's
1 Kraft Light Mayonnaise
2 Revlon Colorsilk Hair Color (only 99 cents ea.)
3 boxes Kleenex Tissues
1 box Triscuit Crackers
2 Glade Aerosol Sprays
1 16 oz Light Sour Cream
1 box Nabisco Wheat Thins
1 Cantaloupe
1 lb Ground Turkey (only 1.99/lb)
4 Atkins Meal Bars
1 box Fiber One Granola Bars

Total Groceries= $122.00
Total Actually Spent= $31.00!!!
Total Saved= $91.00/75%

Stocking Up Using Coupons: My Method

I've been sick lately and in bed, so I haven't been able to post or go shopping. I missed last weeks shopping deals and I will most likely have to wait to shop until next week for my food storage items. Now I'm a week behind in gathering my food storage- Dang it!!!

I want to share the method I use for clipping coupons. When I first started the grocery game (coupon help website: http://www.thegrocerygame.com/ ), I clipped all my coupons and put them into a folder by category. like canned goods, paper goods, etc. Well, after about one week of that, I wanted to find other ways because it took me over an hour to find my coupons and I only had one weeks worth of coupons to go through!! I couldn't imagine how long it would take me to find find them when I had months worth of coupons. And you have to calculate all that time spent cutting them all out too. NO thanks!! I went online and looked up different ways of organizing coupons and found this method. I love it! The next week, when i went to find my coupons, it took me less than 20 minutes and that's including the time I spent cutting them out. It have saved me tons of time and also saved my hands from hurting from all the cutting. Here's what I do...

STEP 1: Buy the Sunday Paper! Duh...

STEP 2: Remove all coupon inserts. Usually there are 2 inserts, a Smartsource and a Redplum. Some Sundays, you will get only one coupon insert, some times you will get more. The week after Christmas, I got five and was super happy! Last week, I received three coupon inserts. The two mentioned above and also, the P&G Saver

Step 3: Mark the front of each insert with the date.

This paper was received on Sunday, January 18th.

Step 4: Buy a large 3 ring binder and clear page protectors.
I bought one with a plastic slip on the cover so that I could keep miscellaneous items in there.
It works great to hold my Walgreen's receipts so that at the end of the month, I can redeem my cash rebates. (I will be getting $13.00 back this month from Walgreen's)



Step 5: Slide one week's worth of coupons into one page protector (all three inserts this week).
So each time I turn the page, it's for the next weeks coupons and so on.

Step 6: Buy a coupon wallet or a plastic divider envelope.
These are from the $1.00 items at Target.
I shop at two different stores each week. Walgreens and Ralphs but occasionally, I go to Von's as well. So I bought three in three different colors. One for each store. Some day I will make fancy labels for them.

Step 7: Mark your dividers into categories. What I have done, is set it up the way my store flows. Staring with condiments, canned, side dishes (like rice, pasta, etc), beverages, baking, snacks, breakfast, personal (shampoo, toothpaste, etc), household (cleaners, etc), paper goods, frozen and meat/dairy. I shop for meat, dairy and frozen last so I put those at the back of my envelope.

Step 8: Clip your coupons, put them in the proper category so you're not standing in the isles searching for them for twenty minutes and head out to the store.

This entire process takes me 20 minutes and I'm getting faster each week!!

I use the grocery game to help me with coupon shopping. This way, I am not searching ads each week and racking my brain to see if something is really good price or not.

Just a quick tutorial on how the grocery game does the work for me:

The grocery game tells me which items are on sale and when to use a coupon.

It will say something like this:

Daisy Sour Cream

orig price: $2.00

on sale: $1.50

coupon: $1.00 rp 10/19

final price $0.50

So I mark my list of the items I want to buy, print it out, sit down at the table with my coupon folder, flip to that date's insert and clip the daisy sour cream coupon out and file it into the divided envelop in the "Dairy" section. Then I repeat with other items I want to purchase.

See where it says coupon: $1.00 rp 10/19 ? that's telling me that I can find the coupon in the

redplum (rp) section of the Sunday paper that came out on 10/19 and it's for $1.00 off. Since I wait for it to go on sale before using a coupon, I am getting the item at a rock bottom price. This is a really great way to stock up on your food storage (don't forget personal items, like tooth brushes, etc). I love how I can buy things for so cheap or sometimes get them FREE and sock them away. I will rotate my storage and check expiration dates. The good thing now a days is, most packaged/canned items have a pretty long shelf life.

So stock up on them when they are at rock bottom prices!

Free Shampoo Offer

From time to time, I will post offers for the FREE items that I find. Today and today only, Suave is offering a free bottle of shampoo. Click the link to get your FREE full size bottle of shampoo. www.suave.com/nomics/index.html

Being prepared isn't just about food and water. It's also about those other needs like toothpaste, soap, toothbrushes, etc.

So anytime something is free or a super awesome deal, I will post it here so that you can take advantage and stock up baby!

Welcome!

Here's a new blog for a new year!
I've started this blog to show my journey into food storage. Food storage is something that the leaders of my church encourage. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Otherwise known as the LDS church or the Mormon church. I have included a statement made by the First Presidency off to the right which talks about preparedness. Please read it if you are not familiar with it. Food storage is about being prepared for the unexpected.
I have always wanted to be obedient and start my food storage, but felt overwhelmed by it all. There were the usual questions like, "Where will I store it?" "How can I afford it?" Why do I need it?" Well, lately I have seen the importance of food storage and decided to get my bootie in gear!
1st- "Where will I store it?"- My answer to this question is, anywhere it will fit! I recently did an entire clean up of my house. I got rid of a ton of things and cleared out a lot of closet space and garage space. I had a garage sale and sold so much stuff. My next goal is to organize the things that I did keep and store them more efficiently therefore providing more space for food storage. When you have a smaller home like me (1180 sqft) and no basement, storing food can be tricky. Here are some of my goals as to where to store my food. My closet down stairs is full of coats and board games. If i move the coats up to our closet in our room, and the board games to another location, I can use my entire coat closet strictly for food storage. There are also some cupboards in my kitchen that are not used in the best way. I have one cupboard that I know I can clear out and combine the items inside with another less full cupboard, freeing up the entire cupboard to store food inside. I also have space in my kids closets as well as my own closet that can be used if I just found the time to reorganize the things currently inside. My goal is to clear out these spaces and take before and after pictures to post here on this blog for all to see. I really feel like any one can have food storage. Even if you have a teeny tiny little home, you can find ways to store food. If you have found creative ways of storing your food and would like to send me pictures, I would love to post it here on my blog and show others your great ideas at making the best space of your food storage. My email address is myfoodstoragejourney@yahoo.com
#2-"How can I afford it?"- This is the one thing that has always been the number one issue of why I have not started my food storage until now. I guess I never realized that I could go slow and build up a supply over time. I always thought that if I ever got any "extra" money, I would use it on food storage. Well, ten years of marriage later I can say that all the "extra" money that I thought would be coming in never happened. Recently, my sister in law got me started on coupon shopping! I have gotten really good at finding things when they are at the best price and then using a coupon to make the price even lower. I only started coupon shopping a few months ago and have already stored at least 2 months worth of extra food. That's EXTRA food. EXTRA=FOOD STORAGE!! And, I have come in under my budget every month!! How rad is that? Coupons, buying in bulk and waiting for the sales is the best and easiest way to start your food storage. Start off slow. Clean out a space and every week, try to add a bit more to it. That's what I'm doing. I spend very little time organizing coupons. I used to think it was a huge process and I would never have the time. I use the grocery game website and it saves me a tons of time. I will also post pictures of how I organize my coupons and step by step instructions of how I get ready to shop at the store each week. If you are interested in the grocery game, Please email me and I will send you a referral!
#3-"Why do I need it?"- This is probably the one question that I always put to the back of my mind. I don't like to think about "icky" things, but let's face it, this world isn't getting any easier to live in. Times are tough financially for a lot of folks right now. Us included. Be prepared for anything. Food and water are the things we need every day to live. So why not stock up on it? You have to think of all the "what if's" when preparing for your future. What if there were a natural disaster and you could not leave the house or go to a store? What if you lost your job and could not find work? How would you feed yourself and your kids? There are so many "what if's" there's no way I could mention them all. But we have all been in situations where times were tough or something unexpected happened. How nice would it be to know "Hey, at least my kids will have food in their bellies"? What a great feeling to know that you have your own little personalized grocery store right in your home!

I hope that this website will help others get excited about food storage. You don't have to be Mormon to start your food storage. There isn't like a special food storage club or anything. I encourage all to start working on their food storage. Imagine how smart and proud of yourself you could be knowing that you are prepared! I don't know about you, but I love feeling smart and proud of myself. I hope you enjoy reading this blog. I will post pictures often of my grocery savings and my progress in getting my food storage together and organized.
Feel free to share this blog with friends and family. I'm hoping that others will be able to read it and get fun idea's and get excited about food storage! I've got the food storage bug and I'm hoping to spread it around!