My Western Family

While at a class in Ogden, Saturday, the hostess was telling me about the FREE stuff she was getting from Western Family. I looked into it a bit more and found this site, My Western Family. After you watch a little video you get to print a coupon good for a FREE item (this changes weekly). This week it is Western Family Apple Sauce. To find a store participating in this great deal click here (this looks like it may be available to most of the western US).

Thanks Katrina for letting me about this!

~If any of you out there know about any other great deals and would be willing to share either post a comment or email me and I will post it.

Oh, and by the way Applesauce is an awesome substitute for oil in your baking. I just add the same amout of applesauce that the recipe called for oil. It doesn't flavor it it just makes it moist AND lower in fat! LOVE IT!

On My Own

This week I did something I have never done before. I went shopping on my own budget! For those of you who haven't read the About Me on the side bar I may need to explain. My family and I have been living in my parents basement since December '07. Officially we move into our own place on November 1st. Today I went out and bought food for our single family and not combined with my parents. I felt tears well up in my eyes as I not only met my budget (okay, I was $2.13 over but hey I used the change in my purse to cover it and besides in the past I never dreamed I could get this much for that amount!!) but saw the results. How grateful I am for GrocerySmarts. I never thought I could purchase groceries and household items for $50 a week while still building and maintaining a food storage!

For this week I did actually go to three different stores. Here are the breakdowns:

Smith's

2 Purex Laundry Detergent @ $1.49 each, Cache Valley Cheese String Cheese $5.84, 1 Doz. Large eggs $1.29(not shown), 4.78 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts $8.08, 2.91 lbs Organic bananas $2.01

Albertsons

4 Campbell's Beef Gravy @ .50 each, 2 Barilla pasta sauces @ $2 each, Barilla pasta FREE, Hot dog buns $1.19(totally meant to buy hamburger buns-sloppy joes on hot dog buns can work:), 2 Progresso soups @ .15 each, 4 Hunts tomatoes @ .50 each, 20 cans of Libby's vegetables @ .49 each

Lee's

2 Farm Bread @.99 each, hot dogs .99, bacon $1.37, sour cream .99, 2 Nerds boxes @ .25 each (consumed by children before photo was taken), 4 Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner @ .99 each, White Rain Body wash .91, candy pumpkins .72 (got to decorate some cookies!)

Grand Total Spent: $ 52.13

Grand Total Saved: $63.50

How to Use GrocerySmarts.com

Thanks to the help of the awesome gals at Food Made Easy I have this simple video to help teach you how to use GrocerySmarts.com

Trick of the Trade #2

As promised I am letting you all in on the 2nd Trick of the Trade when it comes to coupon use.

Maximize Your Coupons

Did you know there is a right way and a wrong way to use coupons? In my previous coupon use I would happily clip the coupon for the product I wanted, go to the store with great thoughts of savings and find what I wanted on the shelf only to be disappointed that even with my coupon savings the generic of the product I wanted was cheaper! Has that ever happened to you?

Let me illustrate this with my favorite example. We use Campbell's Cream soups as a staple in many recipes.

Wrong:

I would have gotten my coupon which was a savings of 10 cents on a can. Went to the store and saw the can I wanted was $1. With my coupon my end price would be 90 cents. The generic next to it was 69 cents so of course I would choose generic in order to save.

Right:

I organize my coupons like I explained in this post. I look on the Grocerysmarts website at the stores I want to shop at that week and what do I see? A screaming stock up deal on Campbell's cream soups at 50 cents a can but if I spend $10 I save another $3 instantly at the register. With all these saving I get *20 cans for $7 or 35 cents each. Now I use my 10 cent off coupons, (remember I know where they are because I used the Grocerysmarts website and filing system) and I get the same soup for 25 a can!

This example is true to life and actually happened to me a month ago. By Maximizing your coupons, and using them the right way you are enabling your self to Buy in Bulk and save more money!

*Trick of the Trade #3 will explain how I got so much at such a low price

Calling all Shoppers!

Next week is UEA in Utah and I would love to come down south anywhere between Ogden and Provo to teach a couple classes. On Wednesday or Friday after 11 AM with my evening classes starting either at 6 or 7 PM. If any of you out there are interested I have some wonderful gifts to offer.

For my hostesses I am offering a hanging file box to get you started organizing your coupons and a $10 gift card for every 5 moms new to Grocerysmarts (or who have never attended a class before). These classes are FREE, the website is FREE! I teach Enrichment nights, moms groups, family, and friends. (This is what I offer all my hostesses by the way!)

If you can get excited about saving hundreds of dollars on your household items and groceries then I can teach you how!

You can contact me at theobsessiveshoper@live.com or call me at 435-881-7387.

Four Score

This week's paper had four packets of coupons. Be sure you pull all four out before recycling or you'll be sad when sale day comes and you don't have the coupons listed!

Trick of the Trade #1

One of the things I teach at my classes is tricks of the trade with coupon usage. The first trick of the trade is:

BUY IN BULK

You will typically save 10-15% when you buy in bulk at big warehouse stores. When you use coupons and combine them with sale prices at your grocery store you can expect to save 50-70% and even up to 100% at times!

I am not the only one who recommends buying things in bulk when they are on sale. I was excited to see in the Procter & Gamble booklet this past Sunday(found in the Sunday paper, once a month). They had tips from John & Kate Gosselin from TLC's John & Kate plus Eight (I love this show by the way) on how to save money. One of the tips was buy in bulk.

"If your family has must-haves, make sure you keep them in the house and buy them in bulk on sale to save."

I am not saying that Kate uses coupons to save, I have no idea. However I have found that when you can combine sale prices with coupons you save ton's more.

This is where the FREE Grocerysmarts website comes in. The website takes all the store ads and lists the sale items from each store while also listing a coupon if one is available so you get the best price possible (look for the 4-5 star items). Then you can make the decision on what your family uses and buy as much as you can while it is on sale. In one of my previous posts (you can view it here) I explained how I organize my coupons so I can find them using the code from Grocerysmarts. That information is helpful too when using Grocerysmarts.

Watch for 2 more tricks in upcoming posts.