Coupon Shopping

I'm pretty good at ye old coupon shopping, even if I do say so myself. I amaze my husband and that's tough to do. Tonight Jacob's church youth group went to a water park, so Miss Jessie and I hit the grocery stores. She is a wonderful traveling companion and a reassuring presence when one is driving around at 11:00 pm. My original plan was to visit three stores, but I ran out of time after the second one.

At the first store (Albertson's) I spent $33.83 and got the following:

1 dozen eggs
1 bag tortilla chips
1 bag Cheetos
1 bottle fancy cherry water for my son
1 bottle canola oil
2 pounds butter
1 package of double roll toilet tissue
2 Kraft pasta salads
1 bottle Ranch salad dressing
1 bottle Italian salad dressing
1 bottle Bleu Cheese salad dressing
1 bottle Caesar salad dressing
1 pound monterey jack cheese
1 pkg beef mini hot dogs
6 onion bagels
6 cinnamon raisin bagels
1 pkg. Reese's peanut butter cup mini's

Then I went to Safeway and spent $21.48 on:

Bag of salad greens
Bunch of bananas
3 pounds peaches
1 loaf buttermilk bread
1/2 gallon lemonade
24 pack Pepsi
1/2 pound deli turkey
1 package flour tortillas

Not exactly a balanced diet, but we have chicken and beef in the freezer and are well stocked on most other staples. I am envious of those who live where stores double an unlimited amount of coupons. Safeway offers four in their weekly circular. I only shop at Safeway for whatever they have a good sale on, preferably when I can combine that with a coupon. Otherwise they are just too expensive. Albertson's does accept Safeway's doubles though....all four of them. So I have to be creative and often make a few trips throughout the week. Luckily we are within walking distance of the Big A.

It seems grocery prices are rising daily. Hubby planted a good sized garden so hopefully soon we will be getting our greens from there. I notice too that manufacturers are downsizing their products in the hope we won't notice (we do!). And there you have my little shopping trip for the day.