Best Yet!

I'm still learning but picked up a GOOD tip today in grocery shopping. Really stock up on "money making" items. Meaning items where the coupon discount is for more than you are actually paying for that item. That will put you in the negative and you'll have to use "filler items" to bring you back to the positive, aka - FREE GROCERIES!

I literally had ten minutes and 9 dollars for today's Publix trip and I plan on going back Sunday or Monday when I will have more time and can take advantage of the penny item, which I never get to do because I am always so impatient about going to the grocery and seeing how much I can save. Since we are back on the full side in our stockpile I can focus more on buying only the deals and trying to beat my best savings. This weeks best deal for our family was the Beneful dog food. The 3.5 pound bags were bogo making them $2.74 and I had 5 coupons worth $3.50 each, meaning that each coupon would put me negative $1.50. I actually got paid to buy dog food, and when you have to feed an 80 pound rottweiler... well, you can imagine how thrilling that may be. I really could of saved even more if I had of "bought" a couple more bags of dog food, but live and learn.

Once again, I only bought what was on sale and had a coupon for everything but the bread. My bread coupon was for bunny bread and they didn't carry bunny. Is that odd to anyone else but me? Our Piggly Wiggly carries bunny bread but I hate shopping where coupons aren't doubled. It seems like a waste to me. But if Publix doesn't carry the bread, I don't want the coupon to expire so I will probably use it at the Pig sometime. Luckily Sara Lee bread was on advantage buy making it cheaper than the other brands by $0.20

5 3.5 pound bags of Beneful dog food
4 packs of Knorr pasta/rice sides
2 boxes general mills cereal
2 loaves Sara Lee white wheat bread

Can you believe that without sales or coupons that little bit of groceries would of cost me $49.08??? Instead it only cost me $8.37 which is an 87% savings! If I had of picked up 5 more bags of dog food my total would of been under $1. I'm not too bright, am I? :)

Eat Fresh

And I don't mean at subway. I love seafood, we both do. But store bought just usually isn't as good as eating it at the beach. My father in law recently went deep sea fishing and his team caught an enormous amount of fish. He gave us some fresh amberjack steaks to tide us over until the big fish fry and we could not of been more excited!!

Fresh is the way to go, it was so mild, so light, not at all fishy. Bradley blackened it with our new favorite blackened seasoning recipe and we paired it with a simple baked potato. It was a great summer dinner!

Blackened Seasoning Recipe
found here

• 2 teaspoons ground paprika
• 4 teaspoons dried leaf thyme
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper, or to your taste (we used ground red pepper)
  
• 1 teaspoon dried leaf oregano
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Combine all into a ziploc bag or jar, seal, shake to combine. This makes a good bit - but you'll be thankful! Pat seasoning onto all sides of rinsed fish and blacken!

The way we blacken fish is to heat a cast iron skillet outside on the grill burner. You want it to get it really steaming. Then drop in a tablespoon or two of butter and when it melts lay the fish down into the pan. Watch the sides, when they start getting cooked through, flip and finish the job.

It's easy to over cook fish, especially when your pan is THIS hot! So keep a watchful eye!

three's a crowd

For some strange reason I thought it would be wise to hit up three stores for their sales in one day. And actually it wasn't even a day, it was after work. I will never do that again. The main reason being that once it was all said and done, I didn't see a big enough savings in adding an additional grocery store to my trip.

First up was Walgreen's. I was actually very excited about adding the walgreen's into my trip... until I read Publix sale ad and saw that most of the things on my walgreen's list were actually cheaper at Publix. My list of about 10 items dwindled down to 3, only one of which was on sale and the other two I had coupons for. I still did good, but it was thanks to my large discount coupons and not the sales. Doubt I will be going back. I bought Cascade gel which was on sale for $3.99 (discount of $1.50) two twix bars and an old spice deodorant. I had a 3 $1 coupons making my total $5.80 with a savings of $4.50.

I think the deciding factor in my "let's go to three stores!" idea was the face that we had been living off our stockpile and pretty much depleted it. We were out of everything. Literally I do not know what we would of eaten for dinner had I not gone to the store, and we still need a few things, but they either weren't on sale or I didn't have a coupon for them so they can wait until next week.

Winn Dixie was next. This is my opinion, "their sales... are not sales". At least not compared to Publix. Everything I bought was on sale except for one thing and I had a coupon for the full price so that doesn't count. I had a coupon for 7 of the on sale items and my total still shocked me. I will list out what I bought, since it wasn't that much:
2 packs of cole's garlic toast
2 big tubs of yoplait yogurt
2 tubs of breakstone's sour cream
3 16 slice packs of kraft singles
2 packs of ball park franks
2 packs of plumrose bacon
2 hillshire farms deli meats
3 martha white muffin mixes
cascade rinse agent
2 Tennessee pride pre-cut sausage patties
1 macaroni grill box dinner
2 bags of lays potato chips

My total was $53.29 and I saved $28.57, $18.73 in store savings and $9.84 in coupons.

Publix... ahhhhh! I wish I had of taken a picture of my buggy.... geez louise. Even the under carriage thingy was full. The cashier actually asked me how many people were in my house. But I got some awesome steals. Pop tarts were pretty much free when I combined a target coupon and a manufacturer's coupon, I got a free degree deodorant with a target coupon and I had several free coupons for baby items. Sadly I do not know my exact savings amount because she tore my receipt in the middle of my coupons. But I think it was $89.something and I spent $151.16. Much better!!!

Our pantry and fridge and even toiletries are well stocked back up now and I totally learned my lesson with taking on too much.