my shopping dollars

Wow! The cost of groceries is getting out of control. Our budget used to be $125 per week and somehow it's crept up to $200... on a good week. It's often a titch over that. When you factor in the increase to our hydro bill. I did hang my towels out on the line yesterday and I have the alarm on my cellie set to remind me to put a load of laundry in at 9pm to take advantage of the lower rate. So take that Ontario Hydro! And let's not forget gas. Oh mah gah! The price of gas! It's time for drastic action folks.

So I took to google to see what could be done about the groceries. I used to be pretty heavy into the coupons back when I was on mat leave with MyPie. Looked like it was time to get back into it. The lovely Scattered Mom over at Notes From the Cookie Jar has been posting a series on her own Grocery Budget Crunch. Seems to me like it's a universal problem these days.

I am looking forward to watching the new TLC series, Extreme Couponing. It would be nice if coupons were as readily available here as they are in the US, but don't despair fellow Canucks, they are out there, you just have to look for them. So I've been looking and this is what I have found... Websites like brandsaver.ca, save.ca, gocoupon.ca and websaver.ca are all places where you can go and order only the coupons you want to be mailed to your house. Most come with an expiry date of 6 week-ish so you can hold on to them to watch for deals. I have ordered coupons from each of these places and there are fairly quick in shipping them out. I tend to order all the toilet paper ones because at some point someone will have a great deal on TP that I can they turn into an even better deal with my coupon.

Additionally there are some great Canadian bloggers out there who blog about flyers and coupons and how to put it all together to get amazing deals. Blogs like this one and this one and this one. It makes the whole project a little easier to take when you've got someone already doing the legwork for you. Take advantage of ad-matching if it's available where you shop. Often times it's hard to get your hands on the really great deals because the early bird frugalistas have already cleaned them out. Ad-matching improves your odds since the sale is at another store.

Now the lovely Scattered Mom has been posting pictures of her grocery shopping haul and breaking down the budget. I didn't do that, only because we shop Friday after work and by the time we get the kids and get home I just want to be done with the whole mess..... I did snap a picture of my fridge, with my cellphone so to hide it's less than pristine condition.



Might be hard to see, but there is lettuce, peppers, carrots, apples, grapes, cucumber and zucchini. Lots of yogurt, eggs, egg whites, spinach, onion, salsa, chicken breast, and ground beef. For the pantry I picked up baking supplies like icing sugar and cinnamon, peanut butter, crackers and mustard. Non food items included breathe right strips for the Abster, conditioner and laundry soap.

This week I really went over the flyers with my coupons nearby and figured out how to get the best bag for my buck. I ad-matched my sunlight green clean laundry detergent from $6.97 to $3.99 and I had a dollar off coupon, bringing it to $2.99. I love Haagen Daz, but never buy it because it's so dang expense, almost $7, but Sobeys had it on for $2.97, so guess who's going to enjoy a spoonful of HD after dinner every night this week? That's right... this gal. I'm pretty impressed with how we did this week. Our total bill came in at $189, after I redeemed $8.50 in coupons, ad-matched an additional $12.68 and factored in our discount (10%) of $21.43. That brought our total savings to $42.61.

Are you feeling the grocery budget pinch?