Yesterday I told Shelly (whose husband found work after 10 months, yay!) that I’m trying to embrace my inner frugal bitch.
I don’t think I’m being particularly successful at it, though.
Don’t get me wrong, all the extra spending has gone out the window. We don’t spend a penny without discussing it first and trying to figure out a way to get whatever it is we need to buy for less money. (And I’m constantly kicking myself for all the pointless spending we did in the past. Yes, we have savings and we’ll be okay for a good while – but imagine how much we’d have if we hadn’t been such bad, horrible, no-good impulse buyers!)
Every week I go through the Publix, Walmart, Target, and Piggly Wiggly* flyers to see if there’s anything on sale that we regularly use. I clip coupons, and I try to figure out the way to get the best deals on stuff. Thus far, my best deal was a few weeks ago, on Arm & Hammer kitty litter at Target. Between the sale price and the coupons I had, I paid $8.99 per 40-pound box. GO, ME.
My gripe is that you know those women who get $600 of groceries for $1.39 that you hear so much about? Those women are buying a lot of processed boxed stuff we just don’t use in our daily lives. So you have to wade through a bunch of crap to get to the good deals, is what I’m saying. Yes, 6 boxes of Hamburger Helper for 50 cents (if you have this coupon and that coupon, and only these flavors, and don’t forget to run through the graveyard and howl at the moon before you go to the store between 10:59 and 11:01 on the third Wednesday of months with “r” in the name) is a great deal – if you eat Hamburger Helper. We don’t.
But anyway, I go through the flyers, and then on Saturday mornings I hit Publix with my printed-out list of stuff on sale. This past Saturday, I had a pretty short list. So I got what I needed in the produce aisle, and I headed for the bread aisle to take advantage of some mini-bagels that were on sale, buy one get one free. (It would be more frugal to make my own bagels, I KNOW, but the one time I made bagels in the past, I was underwhelmed. What’s the point of making your own when they make you sad and wish for the store-bought version?)
I located the bagels I wanted, and I was just going to buy one pack (because when they say “buy one, get one free” what they mean is “each one is half price” – that might not hold true at all stores, I’m sure at some stores you have to buy both to get the “buy one, get one” deal, but not at Publix), and I stopped and thought “I wonder how much I’m saving here?” Publix is super-helpful and on the sales sign, it tells you how much you’re saving. So, according to the sign, by buying two packs, you’d be saving $2.59. IE, the regular price of the packs is $2.59 each.
Are you following me, here? Because I’m a little confused myself. Keep reading, I promise I have a point.
So I thought to myself “Oh, so these packs of mini-bagels are usually $2.59 each.”
This is where my frugal train ran off the tracks. My gaze wandered from the sale mini-bagels, and I saw a pack of mini-bagels by another company, and I thought “I wonder how much those are?” Those mini-bagels were 2 packs for $5. Which works out to (put your calculator away, I figured it out for you!) $2.50 each. “Hmm,” I thought, in my great big stupid head. “$2.50 is less than $2.59! I could save 9 cents if I buy those OTHER mini-bagels instead!”
And I did.
When I got home, I was all “Blah blah blah saved nine cents!”
Fred gave me the look of Something Isn’t Right Here and pointed at the mini-bagels I’d bought. “Those were less than HALF the price of the sale bagels?”
I didn’t understand the question, so I insisted “Yes!”
It took about fifteen minutes for me to figure out what the fuck I’d done. What an idiot. I was SO PROUD of myself for saving nine cents (it’s not the nine cents itself, you understand, it was the PRINCIPLE of saving nine cents!) that what I actually did was spend $1.20 MORE.
I’m going to nickel and dime us into the poor house, aren’t I?
*Yes, I said I’d never shop there again. But sweet potatoes, 39 cents a pound! Publix was selling them for 89 cents a pound! Come on, how can I pass that up?!
On Sundays, I generally try to make a big meal. Sometimes a roast, sometimes steak – some kind of meat, is what I’m saying. I always make several side dishes out of stuff I have in the freezer or (as is the case lately) some sort of roasted or mashed potatoes, because I got a huge-ass bag of potatoes for $2.75 a few weeks ago.
Yesterday, I decided to try a recipe that called for putting sliced onions and apples in a baking dish, pork chops on top, and baking it for three hours, ultimately ending with pork chops with caramelized onions and apples. While the pork chop dish was baking, I made parmesan garlic mashed potatoes, vegetable medley (summer squash and zucchini, stir-fried with onions, garlic, and dehydrated cherry tomatoes), and even a few pieces of garlic bread (I’d made Amish bread earlier in the day). Everything was really good – except the pork chop dish. The apple and onion slices had gone beyond caramelizing and were burnt, and the pork chops were dry.
At least the side dishes were good. SIGH.
Speaking of pork (see above, pork chops), we’ll be getting two more pigs pretty soon. The pig man** just has to corral them, then he’ll give Fred a call to let him know they’re ready to go. They won’t be the tiny, cute pigs we’ve gotten in the past – these are already about 50 pounds. We waited too long to get pigs, and he sold all the tiny ones to other people, damnit.
Oh well – next year we’ll know better and get our asses in gear sooner, right?
(NOT.)
We actually talked about getting pigs several weeks ago – probably back when the pig man actually had adorable, tiny baby pigs – but Fred wasn’t sure who’d take the other pig (when it was grown and ready to be processed, that is). He thought his sister wanted one, but it turned out she didn’t. And then he thought someone who’d previously bought a pig from us wanted one, and it turned out she didn’t, either. We had just about decided to go ahead and get two pigs and worry about who’d take the second one later, when Fred got an email out of the blue from someone he used to work with who was interested in getting one.
So I guess one day this week we’ll be headed out to the pig man’s farm to get us some pigs!
** The pig man’s nickname is “Egg”, and I can’t help it, every time I mention him to Fred, I accidentally call him “The egg man” instead of “The pig man”, and it annoys Fred like you wouldn’t believe.
“How YOU doin’?”
You can’t really tell from the picture, but Corbett was vigorously licking that ear in front of his face. Doesn’t he look pleased with himself?
“I. HAZ. A. COMPLAINT! I’m wide awake and everyone else is sleeping, then when I’m sleeping, everyone else is wide awake, and THIS WILL NOT DO.”
Bolitar, sound asleep.
I can’t help it, this picture makes me laugh and laugh. Reacher is just so CASUAL about it, all “Yep, here I am, laying directly atop Bolitar’s head. What of it?”
Oh, how Stinkerbelle ADORES her Tommy.
Previously
2009: No entry.
2008: An impromptu Saturday entry to share cool links with y’all.
2007: (What I wanted to say: YOUR MOTHER. Now go to bed!)
2006: So, in essence, the fucking DVR TATTLED on me.
2005: E’gar goes into the shop.
2004: I must be mumbling or something today. Everyone I’ve spoken to has looked at me like I’m speaking French and they can’t understand what the hell I’m saying.
2003: No entry.
2002: Blah blah blah.
2001: No entry.
2000: “Um… you mean, she lies on your butt to muffle your farts?” he ventured.
Those super-coupon shoppers drive me crazy, too. I don’t buy all that brand name stuff either. But I had an awesome Target trip this weekend – had 2 $25 gift cards from my Discover cashback bonus and a $1 off coupon for catfood. The total rang up at $51.65 so I gave them 65 cents of my own money for two 20 lb boxes of litter, a 24-pack of Fancy Feast, and a bunch of odds & ends I can’t remember. Just had to share!
Don’t you LOVE IT when that happens? Nothing’s more awesome than getting a big bunch of stuff and only having to pay a few cents out of pocket. 🙂
Egg is the pig man, koo koo ka choo.
ThankyewverymuchI’llbehereallweek!
Ha – you KNOW we’ve been singing that, too!
Our local news will occasionally have a story about some sort of “coupon queen” getting, as you said, $600 worth of groceries for $1.39. And try as I might, I can never get deals like that. I think I woke up my cats laughing at the “running through the graveyard and howling at the moon” line! 😀
And speaking of the “pig man,” there was a rerun last night on Seinfeld with Kramer wanting to save a “Pig Man” in a hospital. Hilarious! It’s one of my favorite episodes.
LOVE that episode! 🙂
My sister is really great at shopping sales and finding bargains too. I’m working on it. I’ve gotten so much better at frugality out of necessity but I also kick myself for not doing it years ago. I would have been interested in that pork chop recipie too-too bad it didn’t pan out.
Love that egg/pig man joke!
Do you have an Aldi’s near you?
Nearish – there’s one about half an hour away, which makes it worth stopping if we’re going in that direction (which we rarely are), but is kind of a waste to make a special trip of it.
I like coupons, and since I read the Sunday paper anyway – I might as well clip them. BUT – I’m with you on the processed crap. We don’t eat 99% of it, so my use is minimal. I usually save $20-$40 each trip by scanning the ads and clipping coupons. I don’t buy anything on sale just because it’s on sale, and same with using coupons.
I also shop at a local market for produce that’s pretty much the best place ever, and it cuts my grocery bill a bit.
I scan the ads for stuff that is on sale and make my regular list. Then, I go through my coupon book and if there are coupons that correspond I pull them out and take them with me. I then have the stack ready at the register and nobody has to wait.
I don’t have enough time to do more than that, meh!
Well, I guess I’m stupid too – cause I don’t get it. How does that add up to $1.20 MORE? I thought you saved 9 cents too. Splain, please. You’re makin my head hurt.
If I had bought one package of the buy one/ get one, it would have ended up costing me half of $2.59 – or $1.30 (because I only wanted one package), but I ended up paying $2.50, still for one package. Does that make sense?
Oh. (ding, ding) I understand now. 🙂
It took me awhile to figure it out too. Ha Ha
I started clipping coupons and scanning the ads when I lost my job. I stocked up on stuff on sale at really good prices. Right now, I have 5 pounds of butter in the frig. I won’t need butter for a few months! I figure I’m unemployed for the long haul since I’m going to school and there aren’t any compter training jobs. I figure stocking up will work for me in the long haul.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen this website, but I love it. http://www.sundaysaver.com/ It has links to all the online sales ads for all the stores. I only buy the Sunday paper once in awhile, but between online coupons and this website, I really don’t need to spend the $2.
Val
Thanks for the link – I hadn’t seen that site! 🙂
I stocked up on butter a few weeks ago, and we are alllll set for a good long time, too.
In my opinion, you should get tons of credit for already producing there on your property a lot of what you eat. I wish I did so well.
Money Saving Mom is a good site for perusing what the best screaming deals are each week at… walgreens, cvs, etc, so you can work on your shampoo and paper product budget and such.
Also, those kittens are getting some serious teenage cat looks on their faces, aren’t they?
I love that we produce so much of our own food – but I still feel like there’s more we could (should!) be producing.
Thanks for the link – I read a few of those kinds of blogs, but I’m always wanting to add more!
And not only are the kittens getting serious teenage looks on their faces, they’re getting the bratty attitude, too. 🙂
I’ve always been very, very frugal. Long story short, bad credit experience when first married (Okay, so it was stupid to buy both our families xmas gifts on credit!) Anyway my late DH & I realized the folly of ‘credit.’ We were debt-free at the age of 35, house/car, all paid for. Never any debt since, and I’m 58. There is wisdom in this corny quote: “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Makes life far less stressful to just save, then buy and do without if you can’t pay for it. Or be frugal and cut corners to save for what you want to buy.
I think you and Fred are ahead of the food game, since what you grow yourself and perserve will help you through the lean financial times.
I hate coupons, would rather just buy the store brand which is most often a bargain over the name-brand even with coupons. And you know, I think it might be an evil conspiracy by the grocery store chain managers to ‘confuse’ women by pricing stuff in twos/threes, etc. because a lot of us (me certainly) do not want to do the math. LOL
Hang in there. Consider it a learning process — like I treat my ‘adventure’ in lawn care this year!
P.S. Here’s a great website where you can find incredible frugal ideas, as well as sign up for the daily newsletter for tips. The Dollar Stretcher: http://www.stretcher.com/subscribe/subscribeDS.cfm
I am going to number my comments because there are so many of them I will lose track otherwise.
1. I refuse to do the newspaper flyer things. I’ll use a coupon if I have one handy, but for me, the convenience of shopping at one store, knowing what the usual price is and where things are, is well worth the few bucks I might save by driving to six different stores. I have tried it in the past, and found that the stress and loss of time that could be spent on other things was just SO not worth it. (My grocery bill is not too high to begin with, though – seldom more than $150 a month.) Having said that,
2. I hate to say it, but “Those women who get $600 of groceries for $1.39” are part of the reason why grocery prices keep going up for the rest of us. Coupons and sales are loss-leaders – i.e., they are designed to get people into the store to spend money. The $600 worth of groceries are marked up, oh yes, but they’re not marked up $598.61 worth, and the stores have to make a profit somewhere – where? The “regular” non-couponed prices that the rest of us pay. (Whereas, say, at $8.99 for a 40-lb box of litter, there’s probably still plenty of room for profits.) Don’t get me wrong – I can’t quite bring myself to find fault or criticize someone who manages to stretch a family budget that way; if I didn’t have a job (two jobs) and if I had a higher grocery bill, I probably would too – but I do wish the rest of us (who don’t have the time or wherewithal to power-shop like that) didn’t get stuck with the tab. Which means I wish the manufacturers/stores would STOP lowering prices to the point where they’re losing money and have to make it up somewhere else.
3. I also hate Hamburger Helper – except the potato stroganoff, which I could eat all day long, so if you have coupons for that I’ll take yours.
4. Recipe for apple-onion pork chops please? Although
4a. Perhaps I should avoid that, because the last three times I’ve eaten pork (from three different sources) I’ve had… um… gastrointestinal difficulties for 2-3 days afterwards. Still it sounds really good.
5. If you think the Pigegg man might be amenable to using his processing facilities for any, ahem, other sorts of meat, let me know. I have a candidate… (as the old joke goes, “If I’d killed him when I first thought of it, I’d be getting out of jail right about now.”)
6. I hope The Female Thing moves out of your recently read list soon, because the cover of that book gives me some serious heebie-jeebies every time I look at it. “AAAAH! It’s an enormous gaping abdominal wound in the shape of a vagi- oh wait.” *shudder*
7. I am coming to pick up Bolitar and take him home with me (and meet with the Pigegg man). See you in a day or so.
8. Val, you might want to put your extra butter in the freezer – I learned the hard way many years ago that butter in the fridge for more than couple of months picks up some nastay odors (even in a fridge that doesn’t usually contain any bad-smelling foods). I wound up throwing out about ten pounds of butter because it had all gotten funky. I now keep my Emergency Backup Butter Supply in the freezer, with no icky odor/flavor problems.
9. Off to get a life now.
Regarding point #2: anything marked “Manufacturer’s Coupon” is reimbursed to the store by the manufacturer, plus a handling fee of 8 cents per coupon. So the store is not out as much money as you think. *insert “The more you know” rainbow and star here*
Of course not, Cat. But do you think the manufacturer doesn’t make up for it somehow? The only reason they can afford to put out coupons – and handling fees – in the first place is because they’re already overcharging for their product and can afford to lose a little bit here and there to the people who have the time/inclination to clip coupons and drive hither and yon, knowing that the rest of us will more than make up the loss. And the higher they jack up the prices, the bigger the cents-off coupons they can put out, making it seem like you’re “saving so much” – wow, a dollar off??!?! Pfft. All that tells me is that it’s more than a dollar overpriced to begin with.
Coupons are basically just advertising that we sell ourselves. And as with any other form of advertising, they money they spend getting a certain set of the population to notice and buy their product is subsidized by higher prices across the board for everyone else – whether those people see/respond to the ads or not.
A good tip is to buy produce (until your garden is in full swing), rice, spices, etc at an ethnic market- Chinese, Indian, Mexican, etc. I don’t know what you have near you, but they often run half the cost of the grocery store.
I used to coupon hardcore, and while much (but not all) of the food is processed, you can score good deals on cleaning products, toothpaste, shampoo, etc.
There’s a Mexican market nearby, and I’ve been looking for an excuse to go in and check it out – this sounds like a good excuse to me! 🙂
Talking about bargins. I stopped at the thrift bread store – you know the one right next to the SaraLee Bakery (oh the smell – yum). I got 4 loaves of bread for $3. You know – the good wheat bread that is normally $3 each. That’s .75 each. Score!
Last time I was there, the bread was .99 each and I bought 11 loaves. It was my first visit. I have freezer in the garage not being used so plenty of space. Found out about 3 weeks later the freezer isn’t working. So I just finished eating my last loaf of really stale bread. Luckily, I mostly make toast. I also learned 11 loaves – even at a good price – is a little much for just me. :-p
Oh, I love the bakery thrift store! We don’t make a special trip to go there, but we always stop when we’re in the area. We haven’t bought 11 loaves at one time before, but there’s always a first time. 🙂
I’m a couponer….tho’ I never get down to $1.39 since no stores double in Florida, but I do save a fair amount on necessities. I’ll tell you for the paper goods, cleaning supplies and toiletries, and pantry staples like peanut butter and tuna and so on you can really save some $$ (.06¢ for a 4-pack of Northern TP, .40¢ for a bag of The Good Life cat food, .06¢ for a roll of Reynolds wrap….well, it does add up and eases up money for other things and I’d rather spend .06¢ than $2.00). DH had a job scare a while ago, he’s also in the computer biz, so it made me realize I needed to tighten up and be money wise so we can be covered longer if something should happen. Check out hotcouponworld.com; the site is free, well organized and everyone pitches in to figure out the deals and match up the sales with coupons, so you’d just have to check the Publix forum (or whichever store you want), see what’s on sale or buy one/get one and see what coupons are out there for the things you need and trade on the site for coupons or buy them from one of the clipping sites or the bay…..easy as pie, plus the bonus is the sales are usually up a week in advance, so you can really plan it out! If I had to figure out every deal, my head would’ve exploded long ago and then who’d feed my cats!
Oooh, thanks for the link, Liz! 🙂
Ok, this may be a dumb question, and it may have been previously addressed, but is it a rule that the piggies have to be purchased in pairs? You can’t just get one? Just curious!
Excellent question, Dawn – I’m going to save that and answer it in Friday’s entry! 🙂
My grocery store sometimes has Buy 2, Get 3 Free. Sounds okay, but where the heck does one put all that stuff? Neither my freezer nor my hips have room for the five half-gallons of ice cream I could have bought yesterday.
I save the most money in the summer, once the Farmer’s Market opens.
Those coupon bitches irritate the living crap out of me. I especially love when they photograph them with their incredible “haul”: $742 worth of groceries and the store owed HER $17.42!!!! OMG!!!” Then you look at the picture, and there are ten 12-packs of Capri Sun, 12 boxes of Bagel Bites, 22 boxes of dishwasher powder, and enough single-serve packages of sugary cereal to last for the next five years. There’s not a pork chop or a potato in sight!
Publix has really good weekly deals on meat, and BOGO deals on pantry items. I stock up on the sale items, get anything else I need at Wal-Mart (I KNOW…I hate the Wal-Marts, too!), and get my fresh veggies from a produce stand. I do pretty well, and I don’t have to spend 20 hours a week clipping and sorting the damn coupons, AND the cashiers don’t run screaming when they see me approach their line.
I’ve been using coupons for about 3 years now, my boyfriend has been unemployed for over a year. We do what we have to do. We generally shop at Kroger and CVS. And sorry Lisa, but if I can get 18 containers of laundry soap (50 loads each) for $0.50/each after coupons I’m going to do it. Laundry soap doesn’t go bad and I might as well stock up at the lowest price. I spend less than an hour a week clipping and sorting coupons. We buy meat that has been marked down because it is a day or two before the sell by date and stock up on meat when it is on sale at its lowest price. We shop Aldi about once every two months and stock up on canned vegetables, they are always cheaper than Kroger or Publix. I like moneysavingmom.com for freebies and frugal ideas, and couponmom.com because they have free listings of what is on sale at different stores in different areas matched up with the coupons.
Ok, this is really bad and I am ashamed to admit it but I seriously still don’t get the bagel pricing thing. I have a fairly recently MBA too (shameful part) but they didn’t cover grocery pricing in my MBA! I can do derivatives though!