grocery shopping

I spent about 4 hours this past weekend organizing my coupons and getting ready for the big grocery shop that we do every other Tuesday.
We have a pretty good arrangement. I get the lists and coupons ready, and then Ken pays at each store because as we know, I hate talking to strangers. Plus I am embarrassed to use the coupons. It stems from being embarrassed of one of my grandmas when I was a teenager. She was tenacious in getting her discounts.
But I digress.
Anyway, Ken and I went shopping yesterday morning. We left just about every store feeling like we robbed the place.
We used to shop at 'the wallmat', feeling like we were saving soooo much money. We would spend around $200 (for 5 people) and would have just enough to get thru 2 weeks, maybe. And that was just for groceries, never household cleaning items or personal stuff.

Here are pictures of our haul. We also got 2 more 12 packs of pop not pictured here because Ken put them up before I told him that I needed pics :)




FREE items: 10 bags of vegetable steamers, the bouquet of flowers, 4 containers of yogurt,6 pairs of shoelaces.
Buy One Get One FREE: bread, ground beef, ham steaks, pork chops, salad,face cleaner pads.

Nearly FREE: Wisp flameless candles: was $12.99 got them for .99, tomato products:less than .20 per can.
We paid $198.50 for all this stuff. Plus I got a $30 certificate for Crocs shoes, and $9 in register receipt coupons for the next trip. We saved $255.49 off the shelf price. Total cost of items off the shelf is $453.99.

All in all, it does take time for me to be organized but we feel much better after grocery shopping this way. Ken is much less stressed out when we get back from a grocery shop, and I even get to buy a 'little something' for myself (lip glosses).