Shopping for 5 (and a half)

So ever wonder what shopping for 5 1/2 people looks like? Here goes!

I'll be honest. I'm not very good at planning meals ahead of time and doing my shopping for the week at one time. However I tend to grab meat when it's on sale and stick it in the freezer so that's always my first stop when I'm trying to decide what to have for dinner the next day! I generally buy most of our fruit at Sams because we eat a TON of fruit and they have the best deals. I generally go to Sams once every week or two and stock up. (Depends on how much I'm restricting Ruthie's fruit intake. Sometimes she eats too much fruit with not very pleasant results.) About once a month I make it to Trader Joe's to grab some of our favorites (Mandarian Orange chicken is one of Ellie's favs and Emmie loves their Vanana yogurt!) and once or twice a month I go to Aldi...I really should shop there more because they have great deals and it's right behind my house but I tend to forget about it! I generally buy our meat at Publix or Kroger and I try really hard not to ever pay full price. If I'm just running into the store to grab a few things I usually fare better at Kroger but if I'm doing a serious money saving trip With lots of coupons I always go to Publix...you just can't beat the deals (or the service!). 

Every few weeks I do a BIG shopping trip and stock up on lots of things we need. I generally do this trip the week that Publix has Cheerios on sale, especially if they have bread on sale as well! Well that was this week...the sale ends today so I had to get my act together this morning! The girls and I spent over an hour in Publix but we saved a lot of money and stocked up on lots of things we needed.

We got:

Bananas

1 gallon of milk

Cantaloupe

2 boxes of Luv's 

2 6 packs of bounty paper towels

6 boxes of honey nut Cheerios

A carton of eggs

6 containers of Chobani Greek yogurt

1 simply lemonade

1 carton of Breyers ice cream

1 package of 10 pork chops

2 3 packs of dial soap

2 boxes of snuggle fabric softener

2 tubes of crest FROZEN toothpaste

2 bottles of All detergent

1 large bottle of 7th generation detergent

1 7th generation dish soap

1 Neutrogenia sunscreen
1 syrup

1 large container of Ragu

5 boxes of Mueller pasta

3 Larabars

2 boxes of Betty Crocker muffin mix

1 bag of white chedder popcorn

1 box of Mangum ice cream bars

2 bags of bagels

4 loaves of bread

1 jar of Nutella 

1 container of cream cheese

1/2 lb of deli turkey

Total before deals/coupons: 250.29

Sale savings: 66.34

Coupon savings: 33.25

Ibotta savings: 8.10

New total: 150.70 then I had a fifty dollar gift card so I only paid 100.70 out of pocket for 250 worth of groceries! And when I got home I got 8.10 worth of rebates from Ibotta!

There was either a sale or I had coupons for everything except the turkey!

The Larabars and Frozen toothpaste were obvious bribes/rewards for good behavior. However 2 of the Larabars were 20 cents each and the other was 60 cents. (Also, my kids are grocery shopping rock stars. The big girls are ALL about the coupons and the sales and they're really funny because they know there are certain things they only get if there's a sale!)

Some of my favorite deals were the Luv's which I got by for 13.99 each by stacking  a Publix coupon with a manufacturer's coupon along with a great sale and the 7th generation items which were on sale plus I had a really great coupon from a Target mailer and there were really great Ibotta rebates! I also got my eggs for 30 cents thanks to a sale, store coupon and Ibotta coupon!

Just a peek into our grocery habits. Those 4 loaves of bread will probably last me just over a week and the Cheerios will probably last me 2-3 weeks. The package of pork chops will make about a meal and a half. (I generally freeze them in 2s and cook about 6 per meal.) the bananas will last us about 3 days if just Ruthie and I are eating them and the milk will last a little less than a week...and the big girls are the only ones drinking it! (Ruthie still drinks whole milk.) If we have breakfast for dinner one night we will use about 7 eggs!