Frugalista

My intent for this blog was to catalog our everyday adventures - the exciting, as well as the mundane. Therefore, I would be remiss if I didn't devote at least one post to my attempts at frugal shopping. I have always been a stickler for studying local grocery stores' weekly ads and matching the sales up with coupons to get the best savings. This is often how I plan dinner for the week, too. Over the last year, prior to staying home, I was beginning to fail at my thrifty-ness. Working full-time, parenting full-time, taking grad classes, keeping the house up.......well, you get it, there just wasn't enough time to keep up with the ads, couponing, and shopping at multiple grocery stores.

Since I have been home with Josie, however, I have been able to get back to my old ways. Every week I clip coupons, study the ads, read a few frugal blogs, and make my plan to get to all of the stores with the best deals during the week. Josie has really picked up on this habit, too. She cuts pictures out of ads and pretends they are coupons, she begs to go grocery shopping with me, and every time she sees something at the store that she wants she asks me if it is on sale or not!

Recently I have had a few good shopping trips, purchasing many stock-up items for very little money out of pocket. One of my favorite trips netted me the purchases below, for a mere $9.27.


Seriously. By just working the deals - maybe an hour of prep time per week - and I saved 84% on this trip! It makes me excited that such a small time commitment can create such great monetary savings for my family.