Frugal New Year

 I used share on my fb when I'd go shopping and what I got and how much I saved and such.
     It seemed like no one was really interested in learning to save any money, so I pretty much gave up.

This year, things changed.
    Between young relatives just starting out trying to save for a home, and the scare of the virus/quarantine, I've had questions about saving money on groceries and stocking up for emergencies. 

    Although, I think most of them have already forgotten the need to stock up in case of emergencies. Just about a month or so ago several of them were complaining about not being able to get toilet paper again. I wanted to scream at them, "Did you learn nothing?! Why haven't you been stocking your cabinet with toilet paper over the past few months?!". 

    Anyway, I'm not the deal shopper I was a few years ago. I just got burnt out, I think. So I quit getting coupons, quit religiously following the deal sites trying to get every deal possible. Went back to regular grocery shopping at WM. 

    But there were a couple of money saving tactics that wasn't complicated or requiring much effort - stocking up on sale items (that you use), and buying mark-down products. 

    With today being New Year's day, last week I wanted to get some collard greens for our traditional NYD dinner of collards, black eyed peas, and cornbread.

Before I headed out to the grocery store to buy some, I checked the ads for my local grocery stores online.
I found that one of the stores, Ingles, had them on sale for 2/$4, or $2 a bunch.
I saw they also had several other things on sale for prices good for stocking up on. 

I was busy canning most of the day, so it was later in the evening when I got to the grocery store, and it seemed practically the whole produce dept. was marked down. Potatoes, squash, corn, cranberries, oranges, grapefruit, apples...so much was marked down. 

Granted, the produce is nearing it's end date, not the freshest but not bad at all, you just have to eat or do something with it fairly soon.
I grabbed a little tray of seedless red and green grapes for snacking, 99cents.
Found two 3-pound bags of onions for $1.49 each, or 50cents a pound. I had been waiting on an onion sale so I could make/can some french onion soup.
I was waiting to find bell peppers on sale for 50cents each to make/can chili...found a 3-pack for 99cents. Even better. 

My $2.00 *bunch* of collards turned out to be what I would have considered three bunches, but it was three -stalks?- in a rubberband called a bunch. That's getting my money's worth. 

I didn't note the original prices but I saved probably $6.00 or so on produce. 

They also had all their Luck's beans on sale for 50cents a can, regular $1.00 a can. Dried beans are cheaper, but not everyone has time to cook beans, or has jars and a pressure canner to can them for heating and eating, so 50cents is a good price for stocking up on canned beans.
I mostly got these for my emergency-food-stock. 

Saved $10.00. 

They also had 2-ltr soda and Tonic water for 50cents each. 

I'll be honest, I drink aaaaa loooooot of coke (cola). I know I shouldn't, but I do. I usually pay 57cents a 2-ltr for Sam's colas at WM, so it wasn't a huge savings, but pennies add up to dollars eventually. 

I only bought one cola here because I wasn't sure I'd like it...I didn't hate it, but didn't love it enough to go back and buy more before the sale ended. Otherwise I picked up a few 7-Ups and ginger ales. 

The tonic water is 77cents at WM, so I saved a little over $1.50 on these. 

Some cereals were BOGO (buy one get one free) which made them $1.98 a box. Not the best price, but under $2.00 a box is my buy price, so I got a few boxes while I was there.
I can usually get cereal for $1.49 or $1.79 without coupons at Kroger during a sale, but they haven't been on sale lately (watch, they'll go on sale this week, lol) and, too, I have to drive to another town to a Kroger, so unless I'm going somewhere anyway, or it's an especially good sale, it costs more to drive to Kroger than I would save if I went just for a few boxes of cereal.

I saved about $6.00 on cereal. 

(Don't know why my picture is upside down, sorry!)

This wasn't really a savings, but I paid over $3.00 for a box of those peppermint candy sticks for my Aunt for Christmas, so I grabbed another box while they are half off. 

I had seen the Coconut bon bons before Christmas, but passed because of the price, which I don't recall exactly what it was, but I'm positive 64cents is much less than half off regular price. I love coconut bon bons, so I got all three bags they had left. 

The gummy and jelly bean religious candy marked down to $1.74 each I got for John-the-husband to snack on while working. 

The bread was $1.00. It's 88cents at WM, but I didn't want to go to WM, and I figure I saved enough on the other stuff that I could spend 12 extra cents on bread. 

My receipt says that altogether I saved $28.93.
Had I bought all this stuff at regular price it would have cost me nearly $30.00 more. I don't know about others, but 30 bucks is a good chunk of change to me. Three and half times and it adds up to $100.00.