Kroger Shopping 03/31/11

I had a great time yesterday sitting with my friend Natalie. I was trying to teach her what I am doing and show her how she can save money on her grocery bill. She was very excited to get started. We had a printer glitch, but I did show her how to load the e-coupons at Kroger. Very exciting to think you are saving money and what you can do with that money.

I went to Kroger today to go shopping. I needed get the free items I won during the March madness game before they expired. I had a few things I knew I needed to buy and I was going to check on some items to see if they had good prices or sales on items for coupons that were about to expire. My Kroger changed their official coupon policy to accept e-coupons with manufacturer coupons. They did this anyway just now it is official. I was so excited to hear this. I wanted a copy of their coupon policy, but they didn’t have one they could hand to me.

Here is how I did:

Recipe - Tequila Chicken

Last night I was trying to figure out what we were going to have for dinner. I wanted something Mexican, but I didn’t want tortillas. Since I didn’t have any. I was planning on going to the store Thursday, today. So I remembered I made Tequila Chicken. This is also a very healthy meal. If you don’t drink or opposed to alcohol you do not need the tequila for this dish. We didn’t have any last night and it was delicious.

Tequila Chicken

I forgot to take pictures so here is the recipe:

1lb Chicken (I use the breast)

1 tblsp cooking oil

1 12oz of chunky salsa

3 tblsp fresh cilantro

1 tblsp tequila

1 tablespoon lime juice

2 teaspoon lime zest (zest of one lime)

1 teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon red pepper

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

2 cups cooked rice

Cut chicken into ½ inch strips.

In a skillet brown chicken in oil until a light brown, drain cooking liquid from skillet.

In a bowl combine the salsa, cilantro, tequila, lime juice, lime peel, sugar, cinnamon, red pepper, and garlic powder. Pour over chicken in skillet. Bring back to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 10 min until chicken is thoroughly cooked. Serve over hot cooked rice.

This is the actual recipe, but if you don’t have some of the ingredients that’s ok too. I didn’t have cilantro last night and I wasn’t going to run to the store just for cilantro, but it still tasted great. If you don’t have a lime you can always substitute a lemon. I never actually measure spices I just eyeball them. A dash here a palm full there. It tastes great. I usually use fresh garlic too when I can. For this recipe I used one clove and cooked it with the chicken. I also added one medium onion for extra flavor and an extra veggie when I cooked the chicken.

I had a nine year old girl, 19 month old son and a husband at home last night and they all loved Tequila Chicken. It has a classic salsa taste, but the cinnamon really makes it. I just love the flavor of this dish. Try it out sometime and let me know how it turns out or if you do anything different to the recipe and it tastes great.

I would love to hear from you.

Target Shopping

Today is a yucky cold and rainy day here in Dallas. I am not complaining, since we need it. But it does keep us indoors and little face pointing at the door saying “Outside. Outside.” With his cute little puckered lips and then I have to tell him, no because it is raining and yucky outside. He just loves to play out there.

Rain aside I had been checking out some Target deals and I decided it was time to make a trip to Target. I shop there about once a month once I get enough deals for me to go. This week with there were a lot of Target coupons of buy three get one free and I was able to do quite a few match-ups  to make it cheaper.

Overall I spent $25.79 and saved $19.12.

Here is how I did it:

CVS Shopping

CVS Shopping

I was excited to receive our Free Friday paper again this week. This week was lucky since it had 3 Smart Source inserts. However, the paper doesn’t always include all the ads. There was no CVS add in the paper for me to plan my Sunday shopping trip. So I went to Simply CVS for the weekly sales flyer. She always has it posted early.

There wasn’t a lot I wanted at CVS this week. I went there without a plan in mind and I brought extra coupons to see what I could work out. I was excited I had $6.99 in ECB’s to spend from last week. Shopping was more difficult, since they had not put up the sales tags yet. I had to take the sales flyer with me and go to the scanner to see if some of the items qualified.

Here are my results:

Walmart Shopping

I went to Walmart today because I wanted to buy some table wine to restock our small wine fridge. We drink the cheap stuff for our casual house table wine. I have up graded a little to Lucky Duck it is $4.00 a bottle. I really like their Chardonnay better than Oak Leaf. But I like the Cabernet Sauvignon Oak Leaf better. Since I was going to be at Walmart I decided to check to see what other deals I could find before I headed out. Spent $0.19 for 16 items.

Here are my results:

Time Saving Tips

Don’t we all need to save some time here and there. I do try to cook healthy meals for my family, but cooking a meal from scratch can be a challenge when you are in a time crunch to be at soccer practice, school, brownies or whatever. Then try to have a wholesome meal on the table. Here are a few tips and tricks I use to keep good food going in and have time to do all the other things:

CVS Shopping

Big name change today! Thanks to my husband who pointed out the obvious to me. I always compare how many pounds of food I can get to the cost of the item. This week I bought almost a pound of pasta for $0.19. I think that is a pretty good deal to get a pound of food for $0.19.

I went to CVS on Sunday with only a $1.00 ECB. Here are my results:

Kroger Shopping

Yeah we are back from vacation. I don’t like to post I am on vacation when I am away from my home, but I am so glad to be back. We went to Eureka Springs Arkansas. It is very interesting little mountain town. I recommend you going to visit some time. There are a ton of things to see and do. We didn’t get to do them all. Also a great workout, since there are so many hills. My calves feel it.

I want to thank Laura from Frugal Follies for joining my Blog!

When I got home I was bummed, since I thought I missed most of the good deals for the Kroger Super Saver event. However, on my last day of vacation and our 12 hour journey home I made my list. I already knew what coupons I had. (I took my printed coupons with me) I normally go to the store on Wednesday or Thursday. Sunday there are too many crowds. I was sure the .49 pasta was going to be all gone and was bracing myself for disappointment when I got to the store. I hit the pasta aisle first and was amazed there was a lot of pasta left.

Here are the 51 items I purchased for $39.73:

Target Shopping

I needed to get crackers this week and I was waiting for them to go on sale, but there were not any good prices on crackers. I found a $1.00 off two Nabisco crackers Target coupon. Since I was going to be there I decided to see if there was anything I could get for really cheap or free.

Walmart and Tom Thumb shopping

I was sick yesterday, but still managed to get out and get some shopping done. I needed to stock up on some fish items for lent and there were some really great sales out there. At first I was not so sure I did that well at Tom Thumb. I took my receipt with me to Wal-Mart so I could compare prices. There was only one item I could have done better on, but overall I did very well at Tom Thumb. I did stay on the couch for the rest of the evening. Little miss took care of everything for me. After 10 hours of sleep I am feeling much better today.

Tom Thumb

We were having our traditional Monday night meal of Red Beans and rice. My husband is from New Orleans and this is tradition there. I usually pick up French Bread at Tom Thumb. I do pay full price, but it is fresh that day. Since I was already planning on making a trip I decided I might as well do some shopping and saving.

Free Newspaper Coupons

I was very excited today, since today is Friday. We receive a free paper here every Friday with sales flyers and coupons usually from Smart Source and they are usually the ones found in this Sunday’s paper. It doesn't come with the other inserts for coupons. I still need to buy the Sunday papers to get them all. With the Friday paper I can get a little jump on what is coming up for Sunday. On my way back from watching my daughter get an award at her school, I noticed the papers had come. I ran to the door and pulled the paper out to see what is coming for this week so I can plan.

Coupon Stacking tip:

I have noticed a lot of coupons for $1.00 off of meat. Please read your coupons carefully and make sure you understand what they are for. The good news is most of these can be stacked with other coupons so you can get meat for free. The coupon that is coming out this Sunday says $1.00 of any fresh beef purchase of two Classico Pasta sauces. Since this is a coupon for beef. You could use two coupons for each jar of sauce if you have them and a coupon for the beef. Also if you bought 6 Jars of sauce and had three coupons for a $1.00 off beef. You could get $3.00 off of one beef purchase.

Cellfire is giving away free coupons from .50 to 3.00 today just for logging in. I got .50 off my next purchase a Kroger. Next post will be about using e-coupons and stacking coupons at Kroger my new favorite store.

3/3/2011 Start of Something Great

I am giving this extreme couponing a try. So far I am in week four and I am doing quite well, but I know I can do better. I am still trying to work on a system that will work for me. It is a lot of organizing and planning, but I am starting to buy things we really would eat and I am getting a lot of items free I would not normally buy.

I went to Kroger this week and the register first rang up to $105.00+ with an entire cart full of food. I nearly had a heart attack. I was hoping I had enough coupons to get that total way down. I had a lot of coupons and I thought the people behind me would get angry, but everyone was smiling at how much I had saved. When I was finished and the lady said I only owed $41.23. I was so happy. 

Both me and husband are so happy to have battery toothbrushes for the first time in our entire lives and especially since they were free. I would never buy them, because they were not worth the extra money. We needed money for food. However we do have enough toothpaste for months now. But again it was free.

Now I am telling all my friends about this and they want to learn how to do it to. It is a great feeling to spend $10.00 and save over $30.00. This is about how much I save each week at CVS.