I try to be as thrifty as possible when it comes to feeding my family of 5 + dog + hamster. Our grocery bill didn’t use to be as large as it is now due to eating sensibly. Once Ken and I became South Beachers, our grocery bill actually went up significantly. It’s amazing how inexpensive processed foods are and how expensive fresh fruit, veggies, and whole grains are! But today I spent less than $200 for two weeks worth of groceries (I went to Aldi and Wal*Mart) and saved over $17 in coupons at Wal*Mart.

I get soooo excited when I save money! I’d rather put that money into something fun, like our vacation, or stuff for the house than on food. I got some products for FREE. Here’s what I got: Johnson’s Bath Buddies soap costs $.94 each but I had a coupon for buy 2 get $2 off. So I bought 4 and they gave me $.24. Yoplait Kids drinkable yogurt FREE because I had a coupon from signing up on their website. I had a ton of printed coupons for Cascadian Farm products. Their organic granola ($2.94 at Wal*Mart) and honey-nut cheerio equivalent cereal is really good. With my $1 off coupons I got each box for $1.94 — a rarity for cereal these days!  Oral B dental floss was $.97 but I had a $1 off coupon.  And that’s just the tip of my savings!!!

I’m a relatively new shopper to Aldi but wanted to try it out after a local blogger at livingonadime said she did most of her shopping there.  I must admit, it’s addictive!  Their ground turkey is much tastier than the Jennie-O version at Wal*Mart — and cheaper too ($.99 vs $1.56)!  I got a 3 pack of zucchinis for $1.56 as well as onion soup mix ($.59 box) and the kids’ drinks for the pool (50% fruit w/a 6 pk for $.99).  My favorite is the Benner green tea that I stumbled across last week.  It was the best decaffeinated green tea I’ve ever had so today I bought 17 boxes (oh yeah, I’m sharing them with Mum!)  For you Aldi shoppers out there, you probably already know that some of their stuff doesn’t last!

Anyway, I just wanted to share those savings goodies that work for me!  Check out my sidebar for the links to the websites that I read regularly!  I’m lucky I’m not working at the moment which gives me the luxury to chase down these awesome deals!  Let me know if you’ve found other ways to save $ on groceries and the like!