Price Matching

As I have previously posted, I am doing all that I can to save a few dollars - as we are on a slightly tighter budget these days with one income. For example, this frigid cold winter brought temperatures both inside and out down rather low for a few weeks. SO, Matt and I decided to invest in a space heater since I'll be home and we'd rather not run the heat all day. Other than having to carry it from room to room with me, it worked out rather nicely...like a portable fireplace. :)

As we decipher where else we can save money, I decided that my next project was to be on groceries. Usually I spend about $60 on groceries a week (we don't eat out except occasionally on the weekends) and my goal is to get it down to at least $50. Last week I shopped at HEB and through in-store coupons I save over $10...darn close to my $50 range. I was pretty excited especially since HEB puts the amount you save in big bold numbers at the bottom (this got posted on the fridge - I know I'm a nerd, but celebrate the little victories). Then I heard about the price matching that Walmart offers...now this seemed like an easy task at first but thankfully it only cost me what I have to spare at the moment...time! First Matt and I went and bought a Sunday paper yesterday and clipped all the coupons that we might use now or in the near future. I also had saved all the grocery ads from that week that we got in the mail. I made my weekly grocery list and marked next to each item the place and price it was on sale or if I had a coupon for it. That was the easy part...

Today at Walmart, I walked up and down the aisles with my ads, coupons and list in hand trying to figure out if it is cheaper to purchase the item on sale at Walmart, the generic brand, or the item I have price matched...I'm sure I looked ridiculous as I stopped at the end of each aisle double checking all my resources. Over an hour later I get in line to check out. I put all the items I needed to price match at the end and one by one I pulled out the ad (sometimes I forgot which ad and had to search through the 5 that I brought. oops, lesson learned!) and the nice cashier changed the price for me. I think my best deal was on bagged salad that was $3.78 that I got for $2 for being on sale at Kroger. It all worked out wonderfully except for:

1)the toilet paper that I got the wrong kind ($4.99 for a $12 package did seem too good to be true!)
2)the poor lady behind me that was unaware until too late how long it'd take me and
3)my unnecessary trip to HEB to buy their brand chicken for $1 a pound only to find out that split chicken breasts have bones (who knew?) :( so I had to trek back to Walmart to buy their chicken (again, lesson learned).

But today I saved $9.78 by price matching and was just slightly over my $50 mark. Not too shabby for my first time and buying $10 worth of chicken that will last us a few weeks. I plan on getting this down to an art and it not taking nearly so long!

It's so wonderful to feel productive...