Ground Beef. A lot of ground beef

At the beginning of January I set a goal to spend only $200 on groceries this month. This did include toiletries, but did not include diapers. So I wrote myself a check and cashed it. I need the accountability.

This week, the last week of the month I had $6 left. Yeah. See why I need to make Kelleigh’s envelopes? Really we didn’t need much though, so I went to the store with just my $6 and a Ziploc of coins. LOL. So I probably had $10ish. And I was doing fine. Got the things on my list and was about ready to go. Then I passed by the meat section. I wasn’t planning to get meat as we still have some in the freezer. But that familiar reduced sticker my grocer slaps on nearly expired products caught my eye. And then I looked closer and saw that it was on ground beef. Extra-lean 92% organic ground beef. For $1.20 a pound. Now I don’t know about where you live, but where I live extra-lean ground beef is $4-5 a pound. This particular brand was normally priced at $4.99/lb. Even if it wasn’t extra-lean, $1.20 is a great price even if it’s “use or freeze by” date is the next day. So I broke my promise to use only cash and only $200 this month I filled the front of my cart with 28 rolls of hamburger and then used the debit card at checkout. Jared was a little upset when I got home with so many groceries because he knew I’d gone over. But once I explained everything he was fine with it ). And to even it out, I am going to subtract my overage from next month. And I don’t think that will be a problem since I now have a freezer full of extra-lean ground beef!

Here’s my shopping trip for this week:

The highlights:

• It was the last day of the sale so I decided to stock up on frozen veggies since I had Birdseye coupons still. $0.30 for a bag of vegetables is hard to beat.
• I definitely chose the day to go because the chocolate chips were also marked down to $0.60 each. They are “limited edition” dark chocolate and mint so I guess they were left over from Christmas. But we love brownies or double chocolate chip cookies with mint, so they will be great for that. I was wishing I still had some Nestle coupons (printable) to make them an EVEN better deal, LOL, but I used them at Christmastime when I was doing a lot of baking.
• The Clean and Clear was also in the clearance bin. The bottle had leaked a little so it was really sticky. I guess rather than cleaning it off they just marked it down. I had a $2 off coupon, so this made the facewash more than free! $.80 overage actually, to apply to the ground beef!
• I used Rice-a-Roni coupons to get the rice for $0.66 each. I’m not sure if that’s a great price for Rice-a-Roni just to eat, but I like the long grain and wild rice blend to use in recipes, and $0.66 is a great price for that since wild rice is usually pretty expensive.  
• I found another coupon in an insert a friend gave me, so I picked up another free ramen.
• The coffee creamer (which we LOVE in hot chocolate) was free (got the coupon in the mail).
• The Hostess 100 calorie packs are a little treat for me since I’m still trying to lose that baby weight! Printable coupon here made them $1.25 a box.
• The Gorton’s grilled fish was $2.15 after the coupon (has 2 fish fillets). Not sure if that’s a great deal, as seafood is pretty expensive here in the midwest. But we’ve been craving fish tacos, so I splurged.