Who says you have to buy a bunch of processed stuff to use coupons? I can’t tell you have many times I have heard that when people find out I use coupons. “Oh, I don’t use them because nothing I buy ever has coupons because it’s all processed junk food.” Or, “We eat really healthy, so we don’t use coupons.” Not only can that be taken as a little insulting, but it just simply isn’t true! Here is my shopping haul for this week to illustrate this. There is PLENTY of healthy stuff in here, and I saved 65% on my grocery bill. These groceries would normally cost $150.35 for all of them and I spent only $53.10. That is a savings of $97.25 and I didn't even have any of the awesome $5 off $50 coupons or anything (I wish I did!). I know we all have our different ideas of what healthy is, but this isn't too bad! And unless you count the orange juice, there is no processed food here.
I got:
- 3 whole chickens
- 8 containers of orange juice
- 2 bags lima beans
- 1 bag corn
- 2 bags green beans
- 17 bags of broccoli (my kids' favorite)
- 2 canteloupe
- 4 sweet potatoes
- 9 navel oranges
- 1 bunch of bananas
- 1 bunch of grapes
- 3 yellow squash
- 2 zucchini
- 1 bag of baby carrots
- 1 cabbage
- 5 pounds of potatoes (not pictured, but I did get them this week)
- 2 containers of blueberries
- 4 packs of vivarin
- 2 gillette body wash
- 4 old spice deoderant
- 1 reach toothbrush
The other question I get all the time is, how long does that last you? Well, we don’t really shop for stuff just for this week. For example, I bought 8 containers of orange juice and 3 whole chickens and 21 bags of vegetables. There is no way we will eat all of this in a week! My husband is the only one that drinks orange juice. It expires March 30th, he probably will only drink 2 of those in that time, so the rest of them will go into the freezer for later. The chickens, we will eat one this week and the other two will go into the freezer for another week. Same with the vegetables. I always like to have frozen ones on hand because we eat some sort of green vegetable pretty much every night (tip - to those of you that don’t microwave and won’t buy the “steamfresh” veggies ,we just use a pot and steam them on the stove top, the only ingredient is the vegetable and nothing says you can’t just steam it yourself). I don’t always have fresh of these and so I keep them in the freezer. By that same token, we will grab things from the freezer for our meals this week as well. I have 2 freezers and they are both stuffed full with things like bread, cheese, veggies, frozen fruits for our smoothies or to put in our oatmeal or yogurt in the morning, meats (we have pork tenderloin, pork chops, ham, lunch meat, whole turkeys, ground turkey, ground beef, steaks, bacon, hot dogs, sausage, even milk!). The fridge and pantry are packed as well with the normal items. I am spending less than I ever have on food and we have MORE of it in the house. I stock up on things when they are on sale and I have coupons for them. Then I don’t have to buy any the next week or sometimes not until weeks or months later. So although I bought 21 bags of vegetables this week, I probably won’t buy any again until next month. Last week I bought a TON of dairy products for almost free, and so I won’t have to buy them again until I can get a wonderful deal on it or a month or two away when we use it all. Same with bread, milk, eggs, etc., I got those in previous trips so that is why you don’t see them here.
So if you haven’t given couponing a try because you think you can’t eat healthy, think again, you definitely can!
2 comments:
I've been couponing for about a year now, and I almost never get coupons for produce. How did you do that???
I didn't have any produce coupons (well some for the frozen stuff, but not the fresh). I just had coupons for all the other stuff. :) So, most of my money was spent on the produce.
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