Categories
Every Day

Analysis of My Grocery Shop and Some Price Checking

I have had company for the past few weeks and now have a little break before more comes. Since I have fed so many people, I needed to get some items that we were out of.

I don’t know about where you live but prices are rapidly changing around here. So I am now price checking again whenever I shop so that I know where the lowest prices are. 

So this morning was one of those trips. I went to Aldi’s and Top’s. 

At Aldi’s I got Clancy BBQ chips(1.79), Clancy Pretzels($1.49), and  Whole Salted Cashews($12.99). These are all snacks that Hubby likes and they will have to last him until the end of August because I am buying no more junk food until September. I purchased the Family Size Wavy Lays Potato Chips for me and to go with sandwiches. They were on sale with store coupon for $ 1.99. The cashews were the cheapest I have found anywhere even at Amazon. They are only $.43 an ounce vs. $ .51 at Amazon.

The hot dog buns($.75) were a great deal at Aldi’s this week. We have sale Sahlen’s hot dogs to use up so I will put these in my freezer until we cook the dogs.

The produce looked fresh at Aldi’s so I picked up celery($1.29), baby carrots($.89) and strawberries($1.29). I also got 2 ears of corn at Top’s for $.30 an ear. I cut up the celery into sticks and use it not only for cooking but for dipping into homemade dill dip for snacks. I use the baby carrots for the same purpose. Hubby loves it and I am trying to get him to stop snacking on so much junk. The corn will be used for dinner tomorrow night. The strawberries are used for smoothies and strawberry shortcake.

I also purchased at Aldi’s the olives($1.19),the Tikka Masala sauce($1.99), and the Cocktail sauce($.95). I have a recipe to make the Tikka Masala sauce. But before I buy all the ingredients to do that, I wanted to make sure that we like it. The olives are a staple in our home and the cocktail sauce will be used for shrimp cocktails one night for dinner. We have a 1/2 lb. of colossal shrimp left from one of our company dinners. When I serve this, we just have a small side salad with it.

At Top’s I also purchased 4 – 12 packs of Diet Coke(not pictured) for Hubby. It was on sale B2G2F and I needed it along with other things to get to the $20. purchase in order to be able to use the store coupons. I got a dozen large eggs($.99) with store coupon, 1 sour cream($1.49), 1 gallon of whole milk( $1.59) with store cpn., 1 plain yogurt($ 2.49), 8 Hunt’s Pasta Sauces(only 4 pictured- $ .88 each wyb 8), garlic salt($1.25), and 1 Crest Pro-Health toothpaste($.99 after mfr. cpn).

I stockpile cheap eggs for 6 weeks since I make a big family breakfast almost every Sunday. The sour cream is to make my dill dip. The whole milk and plain yogurt(starter) are for making my homemade yogurt. The pasta sauce I use as the base for my homemade spaghetti sauce which I doctor adding lots of other things. It is cheaper than buying tomato sauce here. I made a big pot last week when my granddaughter was visiting. It is pictured above and is loaded with 2 lbs. of homemade meatballs. We are getting low on stockpiled toothpaste so I picked this one up cheap. 

I believe all of the prices at each place were the cheapest except the plain yogurt. That might have been cheaper at Aldi’s. I forgot to price check it.

The next time, I will check these prices at our Super Walmart. 

When I shop I try to conserve on gasoline since it is so expensive here. Right now I have a discount of $.60 off a gallon but I still have 107 miles in the tank. After we do some appointments this week and next the car will be pretty much empty and I will fill up with the discount.

I am lucky that I have Top’s, Aldi’s and Super Walmart all within 4 miles of my home. So if I shop in a circle it doesn’t cost me too many dollars for gasoline.


While I have been enjoying my summer, I have been brainstorming blog post ideas for the Fall. A couple of my readers have kept in touch with me and have given me a great idea that I can expand on. So I will be back then for sure. But I will also pop in when time permits. I hope you are all having a wonderful summer!  

Categories
Every Day

My Gasoline Challenge

Being retired we don’t spend money on gasoline to go to work every day. However we do a fair amount of driving on trips, running errands, going out to restaurants, going to doctor and dentist appointments, etc.  Because of this, I like to save money on the price of gasoline especially now that gas is so expensive.

This morning while I was pumping gasoline the price was $2.759. While I was doing this, the attendant came out and changed the price to $ 2.779, a $ .02 increase. Of course I was concerned that I was paying the higher price but the attendant said no that I was paying the $ 2.759. Unbeknowst to him, that was not what I was going to pay.

I had been earning gasoline points when I bought groceries over a period of time. I only bought things  within the gas deals that were free with coupons and that could go into my long term food storage. Things like Tic Tac gum, canned pineapple, canned diced tomatoes, Body Armour drinks, etc. I can’t remember all of the things from prior weeks. But they were things that we buy and use. We also earn points for 10 coupons being used in a transaction.


So this morning, I needed to fill the car up. I was down to very little gas and I have an appointment tomorrow and three next week.


So off I went with my key card with my gasoline points attached and filled up my car. This should give us 4-6 weeks of gasoline. By then gas point earning should start again and I plan on doing this again. It would be nice to never pay for gasoline again. But I know that might not happen. We will see.

The picture at the top is my fuel receipt minus my member # and the address of the gas station which I blocked out. Click on the picture to make it bigger. Sorry it is so messy. I didn’t realize that Hubby made a mess making his breakfast while I was out. I am cleaning that up now. As you can see I paid $ .00!

This picture is of the gasoline pump when I was done pumping. I couldn’t understand why they were charging me $.02. since I had more than enough gasoline points to cover this purchase. I went to the attendant and he told me, you owe nothing and here is your receipt. Evidently their gas pumps aren’t capable of showing the $ .00 price; hence it shows .01, .02 or .03 depending on how much you pump. 


I was so excited that I was able to do this. I will definitely be working to do this again when they offer these gas deals if they are for products we can use for our storage. 


Do any of you have gasoline deals? Please feel free to leave a comment and share with all of us.