Cindy’s Shopping Trip – ShopRite & Acme + Grocery Envelope Update

Cindy’s Shopping Trip

It’s been quite a long time since I posted my shopping trips for the week. So, after much prompting by the LRWC team, I’m bringing them back. Each week you’ll get to see what I buy and how much I spend.

In case some of you don’t know, we use a cash envelope system for our groceries and many other items. You can read more about using cash envelopes here. To give you a little background, when I first started serious couponing we were faced with unemployment and mounds of debt. Out of necessity, we put ourselves on a tight budget and cut expenses with the biggest being our groceries. After my husband gained employment, we continued on that tight budget and were able to pay off all our debt. It took 4 long years but it was worth every sacrifice we made.

Now, even with no debt, we continue with our cash envelope system and adhere to a budget.  We are able to loosen it up quite a bit with our weekly grocery budget now at $100. With that budget, I am buying lots and lots of fresh foods, stocking up on my health and beauty supplies, household products and paper goods. You will see, as the weeks go by, that I am spending a bulk of that money on fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts, meat and fish. Currently I feed 3-4 adults each week (one of which eats like 3 people) with extended family coming over once every couple of weeks.

To make this easier to get started here again with my shopping trips and grocery envelope, I’m starting off with an even $100 in my envelope and $23 worth of rewards from various stores. Also, keep in mind I have a large freezer in my garage that is filled with meat and a garden where we grow many different vegetables.  As a matter of fact, we are in the process of clearing out a section of the garden to prepare for more cool weather plants such as lettuce, kale, spinach and cabbage.

You’ll be able to view my envelope (see below) after each shopping trip to see how I’m doing and how much I spent.  Some weeks I’ll spend hardly anything and some weeks I’ll spend a lot as I stock up on items from a sale.

So far this week I headed to ShopRite to take advantage of the Maybelline/Garnier Deal that is going on scoring a small money maker. I also had a $1 off produce catalina and $10 worth of catalinas that expired on Sunday. So, I picked up a bunch produce that was on sale.

Then I headed to Acme (which is right around the corner from my house) and picked up some bars and BBQ sauce. My goal was to take advantage of the gift card deal which is Buy $200 worth of Mastercard gift cards and get a $15 off $25 Catalina.  I thought, even with the price of the fee, which I figured to be around $9, it would still be a good deal as I could buy meat. However, after reading the restrictions, I found that you could only buy full value cards (not the $25-$500 card). Since they only have $100 cards I would have had to buy two cards which would have been $12 in fees. It was not worth tying up $200 for just a $2 profit, in my opinion. Things don’t always work out the way we planned at times but, as couponers quickly learn, you move on and look forward to the next deal!

So, without further ado, here is my grocery envelope progress and my shopping trips so far this week. Please note that coupons may not be available at the time this has posted.

Here are the deals I did:

Cindy Livesey is the force behind Living Rich With Coupons which provides it’s readers with all the resources they need to shop smart so they can get life’s necessities for a lot less.  Her family  has saved over $11,000 a year in groceries.  And you can too!