Adventures in Saving (with 5 kids in tow)

Needless to say, the kids are never happy with me when we go shopping. Especially yesterday for some reason. Not sure why but it took us forever to get ready to leave. Even with them, however, I managed to learn some new things about saving money on this trip. So all in all, pretty successful. But then again, I forgot to pick up a prescription at the Kroger pharmacy in all my savings excitement and I will need to be going back there after we eat our pizza and cookies. :)
1st stop: Family Dollar (All items I bought are not pictured because the kids had already ripped into things and opened stuff.)

Coupons:
MFGQ's: $1.00/24 Fancy Feast cans + $1.00/1 Friskies bag + $1.00/1 Oxi Clean + $3.00/2 Oxi Clean
FDQ's: 2 for $7.00 Coke (x2) + $1.00/5 Fancy Feast cans + $0.50/1 Friskies bag + $0.50/1 Oxi Clean (x2)
Percentage saved: 18%

2nd stop: Kroger (All items I bought are not pictured because the kids had already ripped into things and opened stuff plus, I drank a 20 oz coke.)

I have no idea what coupons I used, but I do know that everything pictured was at a sale price or cheap with coupon or both except for the 2 gals of whole milk. But I will show say this:

You should have heard the cashier. You know how they always do with the monotone, "Today Ma'am you saved blah blah. Have a great day." Well today it was more like, "Today Ma'am you saved...(very confused voice) fifty... dollars... and 25 cents? .....Have a great day."

So I learned a couple of things.
#1: Saving any amount of money that stuns your cashier is an amazing experience.
#2: Cashiers will ring up your items a LOT faster if you have 5 kids with you.
#3: All the coupons and sales in the world will not save you money if you buy things you will never use.
#4: Price matching to all the stores you love to shop at is essential. My advice would be to NOT buy at Kroger what you can buy at Family Dollar. The canned cat food might have been a better deal at Kroger with the sale and coupon but was actually the same price at regular price as Family Dollar. However, and I know I did not purchase this item, but I was just curious about this one:

All Free & Clear Laundry Detergent, 96 loads
Kroger regular price: 14.99
Family Dollar regular price: 11.99

So really, unless there is a sale at Kroger that brings it down below the Family Dollar price, or if you need the double on your coupon to get the lower price for a sale, it is probably best to buy this item at Family Dollar. Where coincidentally Family Dollar had an additional $1.00 off coupon from their website that I could use with my manufacturer coupon for $1.00 to bring the price down to $7.99. This is pretty amazing considering that at Kroger I would have used the manufacturer coupon, no store coupon or sale, and no double coupon because it is already $1.00 and paid $13.99 for the same item. Please note that these stores are not even 5 minutes apart from each other and Family Dollar is actually closer to my house than Kroger. So yes, comparing prices for your local stores may not matter sometimes, but at other times can save you $6.00 on the same item!
There are a couple of other deals that I would love to try this week. I am not sure when I will get to the store again, but I hope to hit up Kroger tomorrow to try another two sales that I forgot about. Ok, so I actually had them written down in my notebook but I passed right by them in Kroger because I was paying attention to the kids and not the isles and I did not want to go back at the end of the trip.

I ♥ Saving $
Happy Shopping!
Tams