2015 Grocery Challenge

[FreeSalsa]

Saveinla, we bought 3 GCs at S&F with DH's card. Thanks so much for that.  Are you going to use your cards now or wait for the credit to come in?  

They were out of all the meat I wanted so I got rain checks.  I guess the tab in my coupon file that said Albertsons will now say Smart and Final.  

DH looked through the other Amex offers and there is another one for spend $20 on Amazon and get $20 back so you get something for free.  Check it out.

[saveinla]

Apr 21, 2015 8:52:42 GMT -5 FreeSalsa said:

Saveinla, we bought 3 GCs at S&F with DH's card. Thanks so much for that.  Are you going to use your cards now or wait for the credit to come in?  

They were out of all the meat I wanted so I got rain checks.  I guess the tab in my coupon file that said Albertsons will now say Smart and Final.  

DH looked through the other Amex offers and there is another one for spend $20 on Amazon and get $20 back so you get something for free.  Check it out.

Great. My son shops at a Smart N Final next to his college and so I got him a 50$ GC and already got my credit. I will slowly buy other Gift cards that we need this month and the next.

I got that 20$ Amazon offer a few months ago and already used that one to buy a free backpack.  Currently, I also have get 10$ off when you pay your ATT cellphone bill of 75$ or more and that is also for 3 months. You really have to check out their offers often - there are some which can be useful.

[marvholly]

Stock up time. Another HUGE (over 5,000,000 birds) chicken operation in IA has been hit with bird flu. ALL birds are/have been destroyed. Guess I was not totally nutso when I bought leg quarters. My ads did NOT come on Tue but I did check several stores online & 2 places have eggs for 0.99. Chicken has been on sale at one of my fruit/veg markets but their ad is not live/posted until Thur. I think beef prices ‘may’ be coming down. Ground beef has dropped a bit.

Since I have a BUNCH of cooked chicken I will be making chicken stroganoff probably next as I HAVE mushrooms on hand and they are on special at Aldi again this week. Since it is a MUCH cooler week & I have a potful of chiken broth, this week is devoted to soup with chicken based meals.  Other meals will also incorporate mushrooms.

Since my menu is pretty much set for this week and I will be out over the weekend I probably will not actually shop until next week except for CVS.  Nothing at WAG for me this week.

[marvholly]

A regional grocery chain has been expanding in the Chicago market. A new built store recently opened near me. I do NOT think it will survive. Why you ask? Let me count the ways:

They sent me a 4 sided notice BUT did NOT include any discount coupons or a sale info.
They did NOT put an ad in the weekly home delivered ad flyer.
They are VERY, VERY close to a brand mew WalMart Supercenter.  Walmart WILL compete.

I have absolutely NO incentive to shop there & am NOT going in the foreseeable future. Do they/will they care? NOT bloody likely BUT I wonder how many more like me are out there? I know a BIG part of the local population is ALWAYS looking for discounts, sales & deals

[rubyslippers]

From this week's Aldi ad, I got $.59 mushrooms, $.69 grape tomatoes, $.65 peppers and a very nice garden hand tool for $2.99.

From Kroger I got 1/2 gal. milk, Kraft dressings, hamburger buns and celery for $.95 and a lb. sour cream for $.55 after digital coupons and discount. I got quadruple fuel points on the gasoline gift cards I bought and will have a nice savings next month on gas.

At Meijer I got 3 ladies' shirts for $9.80 after using a buy 1 get 2 free digital coupon plus 30% off.

My new Rite Aid Plenti card arrived in the mail and since there are still $25.00 prescription transfer coupons, I will take advantage of that when I can and see if the new program is anything worth plugging away on.  I do like that the new rewards will be good for 2 years instead of 2 weeks.

At Walgreens I got a bottle of Irish Spring body wash and a jar of Hellmann's for $2.64 total.

I am waiting on a good sale for chicken and haven't seen anything good in the ads for awhile. 

[marvholly]

Ruby

My metro Chicago Aldi ad is different: mushrooms are 0.69 and no special on the tomatoes or peppers.

[murphath]

RE Amex Smart & Final offer:

Thank you, save in la. I went to my Amex account and clicked on the offer. I then went to Smart & Final and bought a $50 JC Penny gift card along with a few other items. The terminal accepted my Amex card but the activation code for the gc was declined. Cashier had to call the mgr. She was very nice and explained it was because they don't accept cc's for gc's. She called their acting dept to see if the charge went through since the activation code was denied. It had. She decided to just refund me the $50 and then I could purchase the gc with the cash. That was fine with me because Amex would still charge me for the gc and I would get the $25 statement credit. It appears their whole gc system is down because she couldn't get the gc to activate even when paid with cash. I think S&F caught on to what folks were doing and shut down the ability to activate gc's while they figured out what to do. Maybe not, but it seems strange not to be able to buy a gc with cash.

Thus, I was one and done with the offer. I did see the email from Amex so at least I got that one. Late to the party, I guess.

[FreeSalsa]

Apr 22, 2015 5:51:12 GMT -5 marvholly said:

Stock up time. Another HUGE (over 5,000,000 birds) chicken operation in IA has been hit with bird flu. ALL birds are/have been destroyed. Guess I was not totally nutso when I bought leg quarters. My ads did NOT come on Tue but I did check several stores online & 2 places have eggs for 0.99. Chicken has been on sale at one of my fruit/veg markets but their ad is not live/posted until Thur. I think beef prices ‘may’ be coming down. Ground beef has dropped a bit.

Since I have a BUNCH of cooked chicken I will be making chicken stroganoff probably next as I HAVE mushrooms on hand and they are on special at Aldi again this week. Since it is a MUCH cooler week & I have a potful of chiken broth, this week is devoted to soup with chicken based meals.  Other meals will also incorporate mushrooms.

Since my menu is pretty much set for this week and I will be out over the weekend I probably will not actually shop until next week except for CVS.  Nothing at WAG for me this week.

It's sad about all those chickens but a good reminder to stock up soon.  I'm glad I got the rain check for chicken leg quarters last week.

[rubyslippers]

Marvholly, I price match from two different Aldi stores, both the same distance away from where I live but in different cities, and they have different sale items.  Often if they have the same items, the prices are different.  The one store almost always has mushrooms for $.59 which is lower than the other store. 

Meijer will have bags of chicken breasts for $4.99 and I printed out some $1.00 coupons so will stock up next week. 

[Deleted]

They've just opened a Sprouts store in our area. DH says they are very prevalent out west, but they are new to us. I gather they are sort of like Whole Foods with everything organic and rather pricey. I've never been in Whole Foods, though, so I don't know it compares to that.

Anyway, DH showed me an ad for extra lean ground beef at $2.99 a pound. He was stunned to know that extra lean ground beef is $5.49 at Walmart. I'd been meaning to go, anyway, but there was too big a crowd. So today I was there at 7:30. I bought three pounds of ground beef that I then used the seal-a-meal to make into four packages.

The funny part is that the ad in today's paper had upped the price to $3.99 a pound. Evidently, what I bought was ground and priced yesterday. That was fine with us.

We don't eat a lot of beef . . . mostly spaghetti, soup, or chili in the right season.

Meanwhile we planted our tomatoes today.    Last year we did cherry tomatoes. They were good, but there was barely enough for a salad. So this year we did the big boys.

Do you guys garden much? The deer ate mine the time I tried so I stick to containers on the deck.

[Blonde Granny]

Most of our chickens are local due to the Tyson processing plants that are here, and the Corp. offices also. Driving around the countryside you'll see big signs in the front of farm houses that say Tyson on them, and do they come in by the truck load.

Hopefully none of this bird flu will work it's way down here.

Dh has been bugging me lately about all the meat products we have in the freezer, and ignores me when I remind him of all the eating out we do.  Anyway, we are on a mission to stop eating out so much and start eating what's in the freezer.  This is a good idea as I really need to get it defrosted, and will cut our grocery bill for a few months also.  This will also give me some much needed space when it's time to start doing some batch cooking for the upcoming winter.  We're not planning a winter trip this year, so having some ready made dinners seems like a great idea.

[saveinla]

Apr 25, 2015 10:53:53 GMT -5 murphath said:

RE Amex Smart & Final offer:

Thank you, save in la. I went to my Amex account and clicked on the offer. I then went to Smart & Final and bought a $50 JC Penny gift card along with a few other items. The terminal accepted my Amex card but the activation code for the gc was declined. Cashier had to call the mgr. She was very nice and explained it was because they don't accept cc's for gc's. She called their acting dept to see if the charge went through since the activation code was denied. It had. She decided to just refund me the $50 and then I could purchase the gc with the cash. That was fine with me because Amex would still charge me for the gc and I would get the $25 statement credit. It appears their whole gc system is down because she couldn't get the gc to activate even when paid with cash. I think S&F caught on to what folks were doing and shut down the ability to activate gc's while they figured out what to do. Maybe not, but it seems strange not to be able to buy a gc with cash.

Thus, I was one and done with the offer. I did see the email from Amex so at least I got that one. Late to the party, I guess.

murphath,

I did the Smart&Final deal today again - bought 50$ of Shell gas card and the got the email back. It may just have been a glitch the other day for you. 

[saveinla]

Apr 26, 2015 17:14:41 GMT -5 southernsusana said:

They've just opened a Sprouts store in our area. DH says they are very prevalent out west, but they are new to us. I gather they are sort of like Whole Foods with everything organic and rather pricey. I've never been in Whole Foods, though, so I don't know it compares to that.

SS, Sprouts is not as expensive as WF. They have both organic and regular stuff. They have good deals all the time and their produce section is very good. Some of the organic stuff is pricier, but I go there mostly for stuff in their bulk bins. Wednesdays are double ad days for us - ad prices from both the previous week and the new week overlap and you can see a few deals.

[Deleted]

Apr 26, 2015 18:39:15 GMT -5 saveinla said:

Apr 26, 2015 17:14:41 GMT -5 southernsusana said:

They've just opened a Sprouts store in our area. DH says they are very prevalent out west, but they are new to us. I gather they are sort of like Whole Foods with everything organic and rather pricey. I've never been in Whole Foods, though, so I don't know it compares to that.

SS, Sprouts is not as expensive as WF. They have both organic and regular stuff. They have good deals all the time and their produce section is very good. Some of the organic stuff is pricier, but I go there mostly for stuff in their bulk bins. Wednesdays are double ad days for us - ad prices from both the previous week and the new week overlap and you can see a few deals.

Thanks for the info.  I did see something about Double Ad Days, but I had no idea what they were talking about.  It is nice to know that they have good deals all the time. 

[FreeSalsa]

Apr 26, 2015 17:14:41 GMT -5 southernsusana said:

They've just opened a Sprouts store in our area. DH says they are very prevalent out west, but they are new to us. I gather they are sort of like Whole Foods with everything organic and rather pricey. I've never been in Whole Foods, though, so I don't know it compares to that.

Anyway, DH showed me an ad for extra lean ground beef at $2.99 a pound. He was stunned to know that extra lean ground beef is $5.49 at Walmart. I'd been meaning to go, anyway, but there was too big a crowd. So today I was there at 7:30. I bought three pounds of ground beef that I then used the seal-a-meal to make into four packages.

The funny part is that the ad in today's paper had upped the price to $3.99 a pound. Evidently, what I bought was ground and priced yesterday. That was fine with us.

We don't eat a lot of beef . . . mostly spaghetti, soup, or chili in the right season.

Meanwhile we planted our tomatoes today.    Last year we did cherry tomatoes. They were good, but there was barely enough for a salad. So this year we did the big boys.

Do you guys garden much? The deer ate mine the time I tried so I stick to containers on the deck.

I agree about Sprouts.  I used to shop there every Wednesday for the double-ad deals.  Sometimes I'd try something new and we'd eat it and like it so the next Wed. I'd go back again and get more for the same sale price.

They have a markdown shelf in the back where I've gotten some good deals.  The best was the $9 organic real maple syrup for $3.  I also once got organic coconut oil for $1 and $2 w/sale and Q (reg. $6.)  They usually have something on sale that I want in the produce and meat departments.  I find their fresh fish to be much more appealing than Ralphs/Kroger and Vons/Safeway and they make their own sausage there $2.99/lb.  It is less expensive than Whole Foods, for sure.  Here is the list I use most.  Maybe your location is on it.  www.survivingthestores.com/sprouts-coupon-matchups

I do garden.  I wish I could say I grow a lot of food but since I moved it's taking forever to get my containers up and running.  Right now we have enough herbs and green onions to keep us happy.  The tomatoes I planted (cherry, grape, roma) are doing well but the cucumbers I transplanted died.  Next up are beans, corn and some carrots sprouted inside.

[murphath]

saveinla: Thanks for the info re Smart and Final. I may try again, however, was told by mgr that they don't take cc payment when purchasing gift cards. Apparently, people that steal cc's then buy gift cards and sell those. I know the drug store chains won't let you pay for gc' with a cc. My Safeway will when I'm buying groceries because they know me.  The S&F, however, is located one town over and let's just say, it's not in the best location.

[marvholly]

I know I SWORE not to buy any more chicken BUT……………with multiple reports of HUGE, entire, local flocks of chickens & turkeys being destroyed because of avian flu AND a local store still having leg quarters for o.49/lb I bought another 3 pc, 3 lb package. I now have 8 leg sections and a whole chicken in the freezer.

I also bought another 2lb of ground turkey to add to the 1.5 lb in the freezer and turkey burgers are on sale this coming week (with my $1 coupon already printed). Should be in pretty good shape until stock, at least of chicken, can replenish. I also bought 2 dz eggs (0.99 ea) but that will only last about 6-7 weeks.

[saveinla]

Apr 28, 2015 10:25:22 GMT -5 murphath said:

saveinla: Thanks for the info re Smart and Final. I may try again, however, was told by mgr that they don't take cc payment when purchasing gift cards. Apparently, people that steal cc's then buy gift cards and sell those. I know the drug store chains won't let you pay for gc' with a cc. My Safeway will when I'm buying groceries because they know me.  The S&F, however, is located one town over and let's just say, it's not in the best location.

Yeah - that may be hard then - my RA used to be like that, but has changed now. Maybe try next month when you go somewhere else - we still have almost 2 months to do the deal.

[FreeSalsa]

Today at Smart and Final I got Pacifico and Modelo 12 pks. $9.99 wyb2.  There were rebate forms right there for Modelo - $5 rebate on any meat wyb Modelo so I bought some meat along with it.  Free meat!  They had two other rebates --one for Modelo and one for Corona -- get $5 rebate on chips and/or salsa.  I prefer the other beers to Corona and already bought chips somewhere else so I skipped that one.  We are having a party that happens to coincide with the Cinco de Mayo sales. 

They had 1 lb. brick cheese $2.99, ground turkey $1.99/lb. in a 3 lb. package, and La Romanella Italian sausage $4.69 for a package.  It has no MSG, no nitrates, no preservatives, and no corn syrup so I got extras for us to keep after the party.  And with the GC/Amex deal it's like everything is half-price.  I love it.

There is an offer until May 12 in my ad.  Buy a participating $50 GC and get a $10 Catalina-type q.  If you haven't bought your Amex GC yet, this might be a good time to do it.

[rubyslippers]

We have 3 garden beds and plant tomatoes, peppers, green beans, carrots, radishes, lettuce, zucchini, onions, peas, strawberries

and herbs.  I can spaghetti and pizza sauce, dehydrate my herbs, make pesto sauce for the freezer and also freeze peppers, peas and green beans.  This is our first year for strawberries so I will be happy if we have enough to eat fresh. I shouldn't have to make any jam this year.  A friend with a huge garden gave me a large bucket of jalapenos last year and I canned candied jalapenos.  This year I want to try dehydrating some of the carrots and spinach that I will plant.  The zucchini we eat fresh.  The garlic I planted last fall didn't make it through the winter.

Walmart is no longer comping their GV products and they were completely out of eggs because Aldi has them for $.89 this week and people have been buying them up.  I'll try to get some eggs this weekend. 

PAT, I would LOVE to get some farm raised chickens for my freezer!  That is something I can check into around here.

[saveinla]

Apr 29, 2015 22:23:31 GMT -5 FreeSalsa said:

Today at Smart and Final I got Pacifico and Modelo 12 pks. $9.99 wyb2.  There were rebate forms right there for Modelo - $5 rebate on any meat wyb Modelo so I bought some meat along with it.  Free meat!  They had two other rebates --one for Modelo and one for Corona -- get $5 rebate on chips and/or salsa.  I prefer the other beers to Corona and already bought chips somewhere else so I skipped that one.  We are having a party that happens to coincide with the Cinco de Mayo sales. 

They had 1 lb. brick cheese $2.99, ground turkey $1.99/lb. in a 3 lb. package, and La Romanella Italian sausage $4.69 for a package.  It has no MSG, no nitrates, no preservatives, and no corn syrup so I got extras for us to keep after the party.  And with the GC/Amex deal it's like everything is half-price.  I love it.

There is an offer until May 12 in my ad.  Buy a participating $50 GC and get a $10 Catalina-type q.  If you haven't bought your Amex GC yet, this might be a good time to do it.

Thanks for this FreeSalsa. Do you know if there is a minimum purchase requirement on the catalina that prints?

[FreeSalsa]

Saveinla, it doesn't say.  It just says it must be used all at once and cannot be used to buy a gift card.  Offer (to get the Catalina) ends 5/12.  Catalina must be used by 5/26.  Limit one per customer/transaction.

[saveinla]

Freesalsa,

The Albertsons close to us has been converted to a Haggens.  Have you been to any of the new ones?

[saveinla]

Apr 30, 2015 22:09:13 GMT -5 FreeSalsa said:

Saveinla, it doesn't say.  It just says it must be used all at once and cannot be used to buy a gift card.  Offer (to get the Catalina) ends 5/12.  Catalina must be used by 5/26.  Limit one per customer/transaction.

I bought 50$ of JC Penney cards today and got 25$ back from Amex and a 10$ off coupon at Smart n Final. There is no limit that I can see - it just says 10$ gift card.  I think I will buy Macys card next and then look at what other cards are available. Thanks for letting me know about the catalina deal.

[FreeSalsa]

May 1, 2015 22:11:15 GMT -5 saveinla said:

Apr 30, 2015 22:09:13 GMT -5 FreeSalsa said:

Saveinla, it doesn't say.  It just says it must be used all at once and cannot be used to buy a gift card.  Offer (to get the Catalina) ends 5/12.  Catalina must be used by 5/26.  Limit one per customer/transaction.

I bought 50$ of JC Penney cards today and got 25$ back from Amex and a 10$ off coupon at Smart n Final. There is no limit that I can see - it just says 10$ gift card.  I think I will buy Macys card next and then look at what other cards are available. Thanks for letting me know about the catalina deal.

You're very welcome.  Thanks for letting me know about the deal to start with!  I'm glad it worked out for you.  I bought all my GCs right away because I've been known to procrastinate and miss the deal because they take it away or something.  If I had just procrastinated this time I could have gotten another 3 x $10.  I just can't win!  I spent a lot of it already on food and drink for the party we had, but I'm taking back a few bottles of wine to get the money (or card) back.  We have more wine now than before the party, since lots of people brought it as a gift.  

[FreeSalsa]

May 1, 2015 13:19:23 GMT -5 saveinla said:

Freesalsa,

The Albertsons close to us has been converted to a Haggens.  Have you been to any of the new ones?

I have been to the one by me.  So far, I am not impressed by their prices.  The food looks to be good quality, like Trader Joes or Sprouts, but they don't have any of the good sales that Albie's had.  No store peelies yet, and the markdown shelf was not exciting.  Other than the meat below I haven't seen much in the way of deals.

Yesterday I bought 80% ground beef for $1.99, the lowest I've seen in a few years, and flank steak for $4.99.  The cashier told me that's about half price but I've never noticed it for sale anywhere so I have no idea what it usually costs.  But the sale price is about the normal low for of any kind of steak I've seen.  I'm not a big meat eater if it's not ground up so I'm not sure.

There is still one more Alb. in LF.  Sometimes I have errands over there and I'm sure I could come up with one if I find anything of interest in the ad.  I still have a few more Monopoly tickets for free game pieces so I'll probably go one last time.

[marvholly]

How low can it go

Unbelievably, my big fruit/veg market has chicken leg quarters on sale this week EVEN cheaper than the last several weeks at 0.39/lb.  Do NOT understand how with the killing of so many entire flocks in the midwest due to bird flu.

I have NO more room in my freezer BUT will probably get 1 pkg and make either gumbo (okra is 0.99/lb) or jambalaya.

[murphath]

saveinla: I got the $25 credit on my Amex card for the S&F deal that never really went through. So, I guess I got $25 for "free". I'm going to visit DD1 in Reno for Mother's Day so I may try the S&F there. They may have a different policy.

I'm a member of the Raley's "something extra" program and get coupons mailed to me from time to time. They sent me 1 for free strawberries and another for free box of Ritz crackers. Prices at their stores are crazy high $5.99 for strawberries)so I just went and got the freebies. You'd think they'd notice and not send them anymore. Whatev...

For you Raisin Bran eaters, Safeway has a deal for loyalty card holders: Post R.Bran for .99; limit two. You can click on the J4U coupon or pick up the flyer with the q at the store. Good until 5/23. R.Bran is my fave cereal (and Post my fave brand--no sugar on the raisins like Kelloggs) so I'm doing this deal with my card and my daughter's card.

CVS sent me a survey and I got kicked out of it--didn't answer how they wanted, I guess. But they did give me $2 EB for the effort. I used that with a $2/3 Hallmark IP to get three cards for $2 plus tax. I usually get cards at Dollar Store (would have been $1.50 there for 3) but this deal gave me $3 EB back. I'll use that with a $3 Bic q to get DH some more razors. They're on sale for $6.99 with $1 EB I believe.

That's it for me.

[skubikky]

I just got a $20 credit on my Amex for purchasing something from Amazon.
Amex has a lot of these deals that you select for your card.
I've done a few of them for things I would have bought anyway.

I also get 6% back on groceries with my Amex.   What a deal..

[murphath]

CVS has sent me an additional 2 surveys and kicks me out at the same place each time. BUT, they give me $2 EB's for each survey. I've looked at the EB q and they have different numbers/expiration dates. Perhaps a glitch in their survey system but I'll take it!

saveinla/freesalsa: I'm doing the happy dance because I did buy two $50 gift card purchases at Smart and Final in Reno with my Amex card and it worked! Now I have $100 of Kohl's cards and paid a total of $50! Yea!  We are having a shower for our son's fiancé so the extra savings will really help in purchasing the Kitchenaid mixer she wants (in pink! she's a girly, girl).