Grocery Shopping – Great Deals!

In an effort to save money on groceries, I’ll check out reduced-for-quick-sale items at Dillons quite a bit. I’ve gotten some great deals on lunchmeat, ground beef, produce, and other things. It’s kind of fun to see what they’ll have. On Saturday I went to Dillons because I was in the area, with the intention of only buying a couple of things. When I walked by the dairy section, they had a refrigerated case in the middle with Lender’s bagels.  I paused to take a look and did a double take when I saw the price…$0.25 per package!! The sell-by date was coming up and they wanted to get rid of them. We love bagels but I don’t buy them very often so I stocked up and got 7 packages for $1.75 plus tax! Right next to the bagels was Sargento sliced Colby jack cheese, reduced fat. These things usually run $3 or more and they had them out for $0.99!! I don’t know how many packages I bought of the cheese because I just grabbed. I was so excited! The cheapest I’ve found for sliced cheese is at Aldi for just under $3 (it may be more now since I haven’t bought that in awhile). The next things I found were store-brand hamburger buns for $0.49 per package. It was fun! And now we’re stocked up for awhile. I’m thankful I have a freezer to put all this stuff in. And my freezer is definitely getting full. A couple of weeks ago, I went to the new Hy-Vee store here in town for the first time. They had a crazy sale that day. I got shredded cheese (8 oz.) for $1.25 per package, Hy-Vee frozen pizzas for $1.43 each, hot dogs for $0.50 a package, I think (healthy stuff, huh?), and a few other things. It was great!

I will probably post some other deals I find if I get to the store this week. I never used to think grocery shopping could be this fun!

Shopping at CVS

Life has been busy and maybe the novelty of this blog is wearing off slightly which may be why I haven’t written in awhile. But, alas, here I am again!

I promised that I would write about my shopping trips to CVS Pharmacy. Here is my feeble attempt at it. They have certain things on sale each month where if you buy them, you get all or part of your money back for that item in Extra Care Bucks. For example, I bought two boxes of CVS brand band-aids for $1.99 a box. When I paid for them at the cash register, I got $1.99 back per box in Extra Care Bucks which is “free” CVS money to use on your next purchase. If you have coupons for the item you buy, you can reduce your out of pocket expenses. I bought some Listerine mouth wash for $3.49, used a $1 off coupon making it $2.49 but got $3.49 back in ECB’s so that ended up being an even better deal. On my first shopping trip there, I spent $29.40 out of pocket after coupons and got $18.49 back in ECB’s! It was fun, a little confusing at first, and I don’t think I have it all completely mastered yet but I am hoping this will help with non-grocery items to reduce our expenses a little. I was also able to get Johnson’s Buddies soap completely free with a $1 off coupon! Yay! Free soap! So, I may be posting more about my purchases there in the future.