Good shopping week

Both Meijer and Kroger have some really good deals going this week. While Meijer does not have many coupon match-ups they do have the 10 for $10 deals going right now so it may be a good time to stock up. 1 very good Kroger deal I noticed today is the Gillette Pro Glide razor, they have it on sale for $8.99 and there is a $3 OC on this as well as a $4 MQ that was in the 02/27/11 Proctor & Gamble insert (yes they can be used together) which made the razor $1.99....

This is one of those weeks where it will pay you to take a few minutes to look at the ads and go through your coupons and make the match-ups.

I now see how a budget can be a "saving grace" in times of need

It has been quite some time since I have had the heart to sit down and write anything about being thrifty or budgeting. And not because I haven't been following what I write myself but because I have been in kind of a depressed slump over not being able to find a job over the last 7 months. With unemployment paying roughly $200 a check less than what I am used to bringing home the family budget needless to say has been stretched pretty tight at times. But the key word in that sentence is budget, we have held to our guns and kept working towards our goals even with less income coming in and roughly the same amount monthly still needing to go out.

Lucky for my family and I we did not wait until the bottom fell out to try and get a budget together. Since we had been on a budget for the past year before I lost my job we hit the situation in a state of preparedness. We were able to live off of my 401k (something that I do not recommend if you can live by any other means) until my unemployment was approved some 4 months after I lost my job. Since that point we have stocked the cabinets full of food by couponing, ad matching, and just looking for the best deals. Saving money has become a hobby as well as a lifestyle and when I make my payment tomorrow the only credit card I have ever had will be paid off permenantly. We still have our $1,000 in the emergency fund, we still have a couple hundred in regular savings and all bills are paid and on time. We have cut the eating out to just here and there and that is usually just when we get the hankering for pizza.

Being off of work has been an eye opener for us that is for sure, while we were never well to do we were definitely above poverty and on track to have our bills paid off and working towards our future. Now, even though we don't have the extra money to do much, I have used the time to catch up with my children. I have seen them more in the last 7 months than I had seen them the entire 4 previous years, which to me has been a blessing. Without a proper, thought through, and followed budget the household finances would have collapsed long ago and I would have been struggling to take any available job at any pay rate. Thankfully that has not been the case and I have been able to keep up the search for something at least marginally close to what I was making previously.

Keep your head up, I know I am by far not the only one out of work right now, with unemployment at one of the highest levels in many many years but life is still manageable and you can still fulfill your obligations to your creditors if you really want to, it just takes a no nonsense approach to your finances and a well thought out plan.

Seasonal clearance

I was in Meijer yesterday and I noticed that a lot of the hunting and camping gear has started to go on seasonal clearance sales. I picked up 11 packages of Sterno for under $5 (they were clearing them out for $.42 a pack). If you are into hunting, camping or building an emergency cache then times like now are good times to pick up some deals.. They also had some grilling equipment and fire tinder on clearance.

If you take the time to look around you might find some really good deals!! And Meijer is nice enough to put most of its clearance items all in one area so you don't have to look all over the store for the stuff.

Time to stock up

Kroger's is running another buy 10 mega sale event and this is one to stock up on. Del monte canned vegetables are on the mega sale for $1 a can but if you buy 10 items and get the $5 back it makes them just .50 cents a can. If you can manage to find any coupons for them it would make it an even sweeter deal but at a time when even store branded canned goods are .75 cents a can or more I took the opportunity to purchase 36 cans. Progresso soup is also on the mega sale and after the 10 item discount it becomes .99 cents plus I had a coupon for a dollar off of 4 cans making it just .74 cents a can. If you have a few minutes to look at the Kroger add and match up the mega sales to your coupons you can save quite a bit of money this week and stock up on a lot of food, plus there are more items marked in the store on the sale that were not in the add.

Helping the Economy one step(purchase) at a time

I received an email earlier this afternoon that had a really good saying on it: While one grasshopper on the railroad tracks wouldn't slow a train very well, a billion of them would. With that saying in mind it really got me to thinking about all the things in life this saying could apply to and then the main one hit me, the economy.

Our nation with approx 330 million (registered) inhabitants may not have total control of how the economy runs but if we all were unified in our approach we could make a dent in repairing it. And by that I am not saying that we all just run out and buy stuff off of the store shelves or spend money recklessly into the system (like they wanted us to do with the stimulus money)with no game plan. No I mean if we all took the time to consider what we are purchasing, where the money goes (what country) after we purchase it, and to who's economy we are stimulating by purchasing that product.

Looking through my weekly purchases from the grocery store I notice a few things on the weekly list that help keep the money, and hopefully the jobs here in the US. And it is simple everyday things you take for granted or just grab the name brand without really thinking about where the factory that makes it is located. Like Bounce Dryer Sheets are made in Canada, the Everyday Living store brand that I picked up, guess what? Made in the good ole USA and about $1.40 cheaper per box to boot. Colgate toothpaste, once located across the river from me in Indiana, well they moved their operations to Mexico I guess to save a few bucks, my new toothpaste of choice Crest, still made here in the US. GE Lightbulbs, another company now making products in Mexico, so with a little looking around there was a dollar brand made in the US.

It won't solve the entire economic issue beseiging America right now (because the gov't spends faster than they can print it)but it would definitely help if we stop sending all of our hard earned cash to China, or Mexico, or anyother country that takes too much advantage of NAFTA and uses it to flood our markets with cheap goods while raising the tarriff's on US produced goods going into their countries.

The next time you go shopping, take 5 minutes extra to check a few labels to find goods produced here. Who know's that one extra step may one day save you or a neighbor's job from shipping out over sea's.....

Cheap protein bars @ Kroger part 2

I headed out to Kroger last night to get my protein bars on the sale and picked up a few items. 38 total items for $28.98 after sales and coupons, original total of $110.97 a savings of $81.99!!!! That is right at $.76 (76 cents) an item, and as you can see most of the stuff in this picture is not cheap items.

OK the match-ups:

Best Life Butter spread on sale for $1 each, used 2 of the $1/1 MQ from the 1/2/2011 SS coupon insert and both were free.
Colgate toothpaste 6.4oz on sale $1 each, used 2 of the $.50/1 MQ from the 1/2/2011 SS insert and since Kroger doubles coupons up to $.50 they were also free.
The old spice deoderant was on sale for $2.40 each I had a $1/2 MQ  and a $1/2 OC  making them $1.40 each and then had a coupon for a free Old Spice body wash with purchase of the deoderant (savings of $3.68) not sure which insert they came from......
The Planters Nut-trition was on sale for $2.29 had 2 MQ for .75/1 making them $1.54 each
Slim Fast drinks were on sale 2 for $10 and I had a coupon for free slim fast bars with purchase of 2 savings of $4.99 on the bars
Pure Protein Bars are on sale $1 each I had a $1/2 OC loaded to my Kroger card and I had 4 B1G1 coupons from the RP website making 5 bars instanly free (and as I look at my receipt I notice the cashier rang the coupons up for the original price of $1.66 instead of the $1 sale price so I got a total of 8 protein bars for $.36 (yes 36 cents)
MetRx Protein bars are on sale for $1.66 each and have a $2/2 OC available on Krogers ecoupon site, RP also has the B1G1 for these as well and I managed to print 5 of these (3 seperate PC's as they have a print limit of 2 per PC) so I was able to purchase 10 bars for $6.30 (not bad considering these are usually $2.29each or more)
Quaker instant oatmeal is on sale for $1.99 each used the $1/1 MQ from the 1/2/2011 SS insert making it $.99
The Sundown Vitamins were on sale for $4.39 each I had a $2/1 store coupon from a kroger mailer (not sure why they mail them to me but I'll use em) and a $2/1 MQ from the 1/9/11 Kroger insert plus a $2.50/1 OC on my Kroger card making 2 bottles $1.14 each
Coke Zero 2 liter was on sale for $1.25 and I had a .50/1 catalina which doubled making it $.75
The 3 bottles of Glaceau water and the bottle of Vitamin Water Zero were on sale for a $1.00 each I had a $1/1 catalina on the vitamin water and a $1/4 MQ from a store mailer making 4 bottles $.50 each


The OC (online coupons) are from sites like Krogers Ecoupon site or CellFire.com that load directly to your Kroger card and are taken off instantly at the register when your card is scanned and you purchase those items.

Cheap protein bars @ Kroger

Pure protein bars bars are on sale 10/10 this week at krogers and not only does krogers have online coupons on them that you can load to your kroger card but there are also B1G1 coupons available at Redplum .  You can print up to 2 coupons for the pure bars from RedPlum and if you use the $1/2 coupon available on the Krogers online site you can get 4 bars for $1.

RedPlum also has B1G1 coupons for the MetRX protein bars plus Kroger online also has $2/2 on those as well so you can pick up 2 MetRX bars for free, or get 4 of them for $1.66.

If you have a little extra cash  then this website Zeal For A Deal can show you how to get $15 worth of food for $3.50 using Kroger match ups.

You can also check out I Heart Kroger which posts all of the coupon to sale match ups on a weekly basis, you can also like them on facebook.

Wow, eating healthy is expensive (discussion)

OK, I would like to see if I can get a discussion going on this one in the comments. Maybe some of my readers will have some insight into this issue for me. When I started this blog a few months ago I was couponing and saving money eating normal everyday food that most people eat. 80/20 hamburger, fries, mac and cheese, you get the idea and I was doing a good job at getting it for very good prices between sales and coupons. But after the 1st of the year I started a new diet, plus my wife is going to weight watchers and one thing we are seeing is that eating healthy costs a WHOLE lot more than eating the other stuff.

I don't know, and haven't been able to find if there are any coupon sites on the net for getting coupons toward the healthier food like the Jenny-O turkey products or the Laura's 93/7 lean beef but if any of you know of any please leave me some comments.

My wife and I went to the grocery today and for the first time in a long time spent around $300 for groceries. Considering my grocery bill here lately has been around that much for an entire month this was way outside of our budget but it was all foods linked to the diets we are doing and it is all pretty much healthier for us, even the snack foods we bought (rice cakes). We went between Kroger and Meijer to get the best prices on fresh fruit and vegetables since both places had different produce items on sale and then we used a few coupons (about $65 worth) but no where near what I am usually able to do.

This time I am open to any comments or suggestions on getting the grocery bill down while shopping for healthier food, and if any of you have an idea or suggestion on where to get protein bars at the best prices...

Online Games.

After seeing many of the online games that people are playing now, whether on Facebook or Myspace or where ever I start to wonder why people play these games. Almost all of these "free" Facebook and Myspace games have a gimmick to get you to pay more for these games than you would to buy multiple new console games for your home gaming machine. Whether it be for gems, mushrooms, karma, gaming money,  or whatever the in game currency is for each particular game it is often very expensive and very cleverly marketed to you.

One of the games I checked out it comes something like here lets build your city oh wait you can only go to level 9 without having gems to buy the level 10 upgrade, oh gems they are only ten cents each and you only need 50 gems to get the item to make your castle a level 10 and oh you only need one of those items for each thing that you want to make a level 10. So lets do some math 50gems x .10 = $5.00, now you have say 10 things to level to 10 if you want to have 1 of each leveled up so 5.00 x 10 = $50.00 and that is for 1 city... But wait you can have up to 6 cities!!!! $50.00 x 6= $300.00... Now to get the 2nd city you have to get 10 friends playing this game.. You send out say 100 invites pestering your friends to play and get enough to join you, so now you have 2 cities to spend money on (real money if you want to have all the build abilities opened up) and you could be up to $100 or more at this point depending on how far you want to build.. Now to get the 3rd through the 6th cities you can either spend many many hours online attacking wilds to hunt for the crests to get the city deeds or you can just spend gems!!! For your 3rd city you can buy these chests for only 90 gems ($9.00) that may or may not contain all of the crests to get your city and you may have to buy more than one chest. Same for the 4th city you can buy the chest for only 150 gems ($15.00) and you may have to buy more than one to get the needed crests... Now the 5th city is easier you can just cough up 1250 gems ($125.00) to buy the 5th city package, and same with the 6th city only 1080 gems ($108.00) to get your 6th city!!!!

Now somebody please tell me why people are actually DUMB enough to play these TEXT based games and ACTUALLY PAY these prices to get the stuff in game. Just from what I listed about the one game I checked out you could spend upwards of $500 on a text based game that really does nothing!! And I have spoken to some of the people in the game who have purchased the gems to play the game and they act like its COOL!! WTF Really??? for that price I could go buy a PS3, 360, or a Wii and a stack of games to play! Some of the people I talked to spend hours on end on these games, my Facebook wall is usually full of game request from the different games from my friends and it gets quite annoying deleting or blocking all of them just so you can see the other stuff. Maybe I am just mad because I am not quite smart enough, or maybe mean enough to profit from mass ignorance with something like that.

Either way it really makes me wonder what people are thinking when they send money into these games to get that next level or buy that new weapon, and how many of those people can actually afford to be spending the money they are using to send these game makers instead of paying off a credit card or an old doctor bill that has been hanging over their heads..

Oh well, I just hope whomever reads this realizes what a crock those games are if they play them and use that money elsewhere..

Preparing

I know it has been a while since my last post and there is no real excuse for it other than life in general (and a heavy dose of Call of duty Black ops) taking up my time. But in the last few days I have been reading up on a few of the blogs I like to follow and I noticed a really good article on DVM (Death Valley Mag) that kind of goes along with what I have been doing the last couple of years. Taking on your debt while preparing for disaster. I am not going to copy what he wrote over there (if you want to read it go here) but he basically says quit preparing for the apocalypse if you are not prepared for next Thursday, meaning pay off your bills and have your financial affairs in order as well as your household affairs if the SHTF. Because quite frankly at some point life will go on after most disasters and many of the debt holding companies will still be trying to collect what is owed to them.

Credit card companies still collected from displaced individuals after Katrina, they didn't pass them any breaks. Their computer are stored in bunkers to withstand all but full nuclear fallout so they will have their info on hand even after many major disasters. And it is a fairly smart idea to be prepared in all ways, not just with food or guns or water (besides think of all the survival gear you can buy if you have no debt) but to have no debts other than normal monthly utilites, at that point you are free if disaster strikes to get your household back in order.

The methods outlined in the article for becoming debt free are definitely different than those preached by Dave Ramsey but they both outlay the same goal with the same final outcome: Freedom from the opression of debt for those who can follow the path (I am working towards it, and one day I WILL get there) and continue along that path once the debt has been eliminated.

Stay thrifty and concious of your choices. Till next time.