A shopping trip

I took the little girls with me to Publix after dropping the bigger kids off at summer SAINTS this morning. We leave in a couple of days for our week in Georgia, but I wanted to take advantage of the sales anyway. Plus, our pantry and freezer will be stocked and I won't have to rush right out to the store upon arriving home. Most of the items I bought today were Buy One Get One. I had two coupons for grocery items and some coupons for diapers as well, but the diapers I payed for separately as we're trying really hard to track our food purchases right now and I don't want to have that confusing me. We may add diapers and formula back to our food budget eventually. We need to get our costs down with the actual food first.

I was very happy with how much I got for the money and with how much I was able to save just with buying on sale. I usually take advantage of the sales, but this time I paid very close attention and did not get much that was NOT on sale, maybe a few items like brown rice and cream cheese that we use all the time. I also tried not to buy too many sale items that were prepackaged convenience items......frozen pizza, boxed cereal, etc. While cheap and easy, they are not necessarily healthy and we are trying to go a little healthier route these days. I did get some hot dogs and some BBQ pork.......we will use those as Family Fun Night meals. Everything else I should be able to use easily in simple casseroles, soups, quiche, or alone with a side dish. I still need to buy fresh fruits and veggies when we get home, but I feel sure that what I got will feed us for two weeks once I do that, maybe longer.

I took a picture of my receipt. You can see what I spent and how much I saved......not bad for my first real try in quite some time. The photo is a little blurry but that's the best my phone could do.
I will update each time I go shopping. I'm looking forward to finding out just what I can get, and save, when I begin using more coupons along with the sales.