Grocery Coupons

As I have admitted, I am fairly terrible at saving money. I am a careful coupon cutter and such, but I do not plan meals well and I tend to buy a lot of things I don't need when I am at the store because my eyes wander. However, I think I had two fairly successful grocery store trips this week. The first was to Kroger:

Where I bought all of this for $4.11. Now I actually made a mistake buying the peirogies. I wanted to get them and had a $1 off coupon, but when I got to the register, I realized the coupon was actually $1 off 3. I bought them anyway because my daughter wanted pierogies. So, with a BOGO on Sobe Lifewaters that were on sale for $.88, a $1 off 2 bags of lifesavers that were on sale for $1 each, $2 off a Loreal children's shampoo (bonus that it was Toy Story themed), and the $3.99 pierogies, once I used a $3 Catalina that I had obtained from my last shopping trip, it came to a whopping $4.11. Notice that if I hadn't bought the pierogies, everything else would have been free.

I also went to Walmart today. I love the deals at Walmart, but hardly make it out there because it is 5 times farther away than my local Kroger. But since I am trying really hard to watch my money, I thought I would make the effort to go out there. This is what I purchased there:

With coupons and roll-backs, all of this ended up being $31.94. Even though I was trying to keep my shopping to under $30, I think it ended up well. I purchased:

Strawberries (roll-back to $1.47)

Bananas ($.47/lb.)

Pears ($1.47/lb.)

Breyers Ice Cream ($1.98!)

Minute Maid Lemonade and Limeaide (2/$2)

409 Cleaner & Clorox Cleaner with bleach ($4.69 & I had a $1 off coupon)

Bandaids ($1.50 & I had a $1 off coupon)

Olay face wash ($4.47 & I had a $1 off coupon)

Dove Deoderant ($2.47 & I had a $2 off coupon)

Sour Cream ($1.44)

Lender's Bagels ($1.43)

Maple Syrup ($1.98)

Mustard ($1.28 & I had a $.50 off coupon)

Bic Soleil Razors ($3.97 & I had a $2 off coupon)

Red Baron Pan Pizza ($4.98 on roll-back and I had a $2 off coupon)

Trix 6-pack of yogurt ($1.96)

2 Taco Bell meals ($1.50 each and I had a $1 off 2 coupon)

Michelina's Breakfast ($1.00 & I had a $.50 off coupon)

Pierogies ($2.16)

Now, I got different Pierogies (we usually get Mrs. Ts), so I hope they are good. Also, the price of Mrs. T's Pierogies at Walmart was $2.98 I think (non roll-back), so they are substantially less expensive than Kroger (which prices them at $3.99 I believe. But I was still unwilling to buy 3 boxes to use my coupon, so I decided to try the less expensive brand. You may think I am pierogie obsessed, but the truth is that my daughter just discovered them and is a big fan.

I could have saved a bit more money had I purchased some of the personal care items at Walgreens, but dealing with their incompetence (I will have to write a whole different post about that when it is resolved) was unbearable, so I figured spending the extra dollar at Walmart was worth it.