Well, we got the news back a couple of weeks ago, my son has all kinds of food sensitivities. He is also autistic so we put him on the gluten free casein free diet (aka GFCF diet or the autism diet).
Roughly half the kids on the spectrum have GI problems where they cannot break down the proteins in wheat and milk, gluten and casein and it affects their brain and behavior. Anyway, we had bloodwork done and it confirmed that he was allergic to gluten, eggs, wheat, bananas, cows milk, cheese, yogurt, and swordfish. I'm not too worried about the swordfish as we would never eat that in a million years, yuck! But the rest is a major drag, especially the eggs and bananas.
The doctor referred us to a nutritionist who we met with and she was wonderful and gave us some pointers. She recommended a local market and Trader Joes. I loved Trader Joes but it is kind of far for us. This weekend I went to Whole Foods, and boy was that a mistake. Whole Foods is awful, in fact I would put them in the sucks the big green weenie category. It was laid out like a maze and took forever to get through it, the aisles are too narrow, and they are not coupon friendly. I even was charged twice for an item because a coupon did not scan. The lady behind me left the checkout lane in a huff because I gave the checker a bunch of coupons. Actually, I wouldn't even call it a bunch, only $12.50 worth, which is nothing for me. I spent close to $100 for two bags of groceries!!!
Un-freaking believable!
It wasn't like I bought a whole weeks worth of groceries. I bought stuff at Aldi on Saturday. I just shopped the sales at Whole Foods and tried to match with coupons. I bought a 3 lb pkg of grass fed ground beef, 8 Gluten Free Pantry mixes (on sale), some mangoes, organic peanut butter, GF frozen waffles, 2 frozen entrees, cereal, dream bites, and a few other Gluten free, dairy free or organic pantry staples. Two paper bags of stuff. Needless to say, I am not going back there unless I really need something I can't find elsewhere. I simply did not like the place, the prices or the people there, although there was one young girl working there who was helpful and tried to find some Dairyfree for me. I think she was new or it was a fluke. They did not have it and she recommended I go to the health food store up the street.
In better gluten free news, I baked my first loaf of Gluten free bread. Actually, it was the first time I have ever made bread. It was quite tasty and moist. My son said it was much better than Udi's or stuff from the store. I will need to do it more often. Here is the video from Pamela, who makes the mix I used. I only wish I had watched this first. I think if I used warmer water it would have been fluffier.
I shamelessly love money...cash, gold, silver...whatever I can get my paws on. And when I get it I'd like to keep it, thank you. This is my blog on money, frugality, getting out of debt, couponing, silver and gold, saving and investing. In these uncertain economic times I am educating myself on personal finance matters, getting out of debt, and taking the necessary steps to improve my financial situation.
Showing posts with label grocery shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grocery shopping. Show all posts
Monday, April 16, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
Coupon Queen
Oh yes! Now I am a coupon queen. Getting there anyway. I went shopping this weekend after working on my mini coupon binder for a couple of weeks and it made a difference. With all the BOGO sales I sure did buy a lot of stuff though....
After getting a load of coupons from friends and buying extra papers, I had a lot of work to do, clipping, sorting and filing. My son helped me sort them this time. I made a PowerPoint deck with the number and categories as the title and products as bullet points and printed them as two on a page handouts. I laid these 8 sheets of paper across the foot of the bed and laid the coupons on top of each category so I had a stack on each before I started stuffing them into the binder.
I have 15 categories in my book and because the sheet protectors are wider than the dividers, I put numbered post-it flags at the top of each divider and also printed out and taped an index to the inside of the front cover so I can always see it whenever the binder is open. That is tremendously helpful.
My binder pages are the homemade 3-pocket and also 2 and 4 pocket. Martha Stewart introduced a new Avery product line at Staples and they have 5 x 8 mini-binder sheet protectors divided into 4 pockets. Awesome timing and I got a 20% discount because they had a coupon on this new line (that I had to chase around Chicago to find BTW) These 4-pocket sheet protectors are the perfect size for most coupons. Business card pages also hold tiny ones 4 to a page. I'll admit, it probably did cost a little bit more to set up a small binder vs a big one, but it is so much easier to handle while shopping... and having it really makes the difference between pulling out $5 worth or coupons or pulling $50 worth of coupons. How cool is that!!!
OK, I bet you're wondering how much I saved. At Food4Less I'm not quite sure because the receipt doesn't tell you.
At Dominicks, the receipt calculated 43% ($129.30)but with the catalinas for $10 + $3 next shopping trip, $5 off next purchase of frozen food and free milk, in addition to other coupons, I'm sure it is closer to 50%. I'm not quite a super couponer like Jill Cataldo yet, but I'm getting there. I was stocking up on groceries, not stockpiling BOGO body wash, so I did quite well actually. When you are stocked up and just buy the sales, that is when you get to 70% savings by matching coupons with sales and buying things before you need them. I did buy 3 Secret deodorants at Food4Less though. They were on sale for $1.98 and I had three $1 off coupons making them $0.98 each. That's how you do it, baby.
* * * * * *
Here's a good article on savings by Mary Hunt that is very spot on. I am not quite to baby step 3 yet and have debt to pay off first, but I think that Dave's baby emergency fund should have at least 1 month's expenses rather than $1,000, at least in my case being a single mom. I'm living lean and trying to both save and pay down debt. As long as nothing stupid happens, I will be out of debt (except the house) within a year.
After getting a load of coupons from friends and buying extra papers, I had a lot of work to do, clipping, sorting and filing. My son helped me sort them this time. I made a PowerPoint deck with the number and categories as the title and products as bullet points and printed them as two on a page handouts. I laid these 8 sheets of paper across the foot of the bed and laid the coupons on top of each category so I had a stack on each before I started stuffing them into the binder.
I have 15 categories in my book and because the sheet protectors are wider than the dividers, I put numbered post-it flags at the top of each divider and also printed out and taped an index to the inside of the front cover so I can always see it whenever the binder is open. That is tremendously helpful.
My binder pages are the homemade 3-pocket and also 2 and 4 pocket. Martha Stewart introduced a new Avery product line at Staples and they have 5 x 8 mini-binder sheet protectors divided into 4 pockets. Awesome timing and I got a 20% discount because they had a coupon on this new line (that I had to chase around Chicago to find BTW) These 4-pocket sheet protectors are the perfect size for most coupons. Business card pages also hold tiny ones 4 to a page. I'll admit, it probably did cost a little bit more to set up a small binder vs a big one, but it is so much easier to handle while shopping... and having it really makes the difference between pulling out $5 worth or coupons or pulling $50 worth of coupons. How cool is that!!!
OK, I bet you're wondering how much I saved. At Food4Less I'm not quite sure because the receipt doesn't tell you.
At Dominicks, the receipt calculated 43% ($129.30)but with the catalinas for $10 + $3 next shopping trip, $5 off next purchase of frozen food and free milk, in addition to other coupons, I'm sure it is closer to 50%. I'm not quite a super couponer like Jill Cataldo yet, but I'm getting there. I was stocking up on groceries, not stockpiling BOGO body wash, so I did quite well actually. When you are stocked up and just buy the sales, that is when you get to 70% savings by matching coupons with sales and buying things before you need them. I did buy 3 Secret deodorants at Food4Less though. They were on sale for $1.98 and I had three $1 off coupons making them $0.98 each. That's how you do it, baby.
* * * * * *
Here's a good article on savings by Mary Hunt that is very spot on. I am not quite to baby step 3 yet and have debt to pay off first, but I think that Dave's baby emergency fund should have at least 1 month's expenses rather than $1,000, at least in my case being a single mom. I'm living lean and trying to both save and pay down debt. As long as nothing stupid happens, I will be out of debt (except the house) within a year.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Grocery shopping today
Today we went to Sam's Club to buy groceries. I am trying very hard to stick to a budget of about $150 a week for groceries. Sam's is the place where you buy things in bulk, but for my piggy family, it goes too fast to feel like we're buying in bulk. Yes, food prices are rising and even our beloved 8 o'clock Colombian coffee that used to be one of the best bargains there went up in price from $11.22 to $11.96 per bag. They say prices are not rising and we have to worry about deflation, but that's a crock. What they don't normally tell you is that the consumer price index does not count food and energy prices in their calculations and that is where the consumers feel it most. At least my family does.
Anyway, today was the first time in at least 10 years where I paid for more than $100 groceries with cash. Let me tell you it was weird. Talk about keeping it real. You are way more aware of your spending when you are counting out that money at the checkout. I am not quite doing the envelope system and I do find that debit card transactions are so much easier to keep track of with online banking. Try paying for things with cash more and you find it more difficult to spend money. And if you are like me and trying to spend less and save more, it will help you avoid some of the impulse spending. Try it next time you go shopping.
Anyway, today was the first time in at least 10 years where I paid for more than $100 groceries with cash. Let me tell you it was weird. Talk about keeping it real. You are way more aware of your spending when you are counting out that money at the checkout. I am not quite doing the envelope system and I do find that debit card transactions are so much easier to keep track of with online banking. Try paying for things with cash more and you find it more difficult to spend money. And if you are like me and trying to spend less and save more, it will help you avoid some of the impulse spending. Try it next time you go shopping.
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