First thing's first...

First thing's first...Please continue to pray for Sweet Annette and her parents, Kirk and Natalie and big brother, Grant"a saurus". Head on over to their site to learn more.

I have had a few blog posts in mind lately and didn't know exactly which one I wanted to do first. Do the boy's first day of school, nah. I will keep you waiting for that one. The next I Heart Faces post? Nope, that will be next though. BTW when I do that one, be sure to head over to my photography blog to see the pictures better. Well, what post am I gonna do? Glad you asked!

I have been trying like crazy to save money. Duh! Who hasn't? One way I have been able to save money is with my grocery shopping. Now I have read tons of site that go into great detail with everything. Well, I am a simple kinda girl and here is what has worked for me. When I decide to go to the store I go online first and check out the store's weekly ads. Lately, Publix has won me over. They have tons of different buy one, get one deals. Great! Double the merchandise for half the price. Well I don't stop there. I also have signed up for online coupons. A few of the places I have gone are Valpak.com, couponmom.com, gocoupons.biz. I print off the coupons of things that my family will use. I mean why use coupons on things we don't just to say we got it cheaper. Makes no sense to me. Well sometimes I get lucky and there is a coupon for something that is on my buy one, get one list. Get this, sometimes there are more coupons for that same product that I can use and I get that product for pennies.

Example: Buy one, Get one for General Mills Cereals...check Then I run across a dollar off for two boxes (yeah, I know I'm not paying for the second box, but they still take it), then I get a coupon for $1 off of the cereals. With a box of cereal near $4 I get two boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios for $1!!

I also get the Sunday paper. I don't do a subscription, but around where I live they are selling it on Sunday's for a dollar. Sometimes I get two papers. In it there are store coupons and manufacturer's coupons. Guess what? You can double those. You can also go to the manufacturer's website and sometimes get a sweet deal too.

Now, sometimes I do my grocery shopping at different stores. I know you are asking, why waste the gas to save money? Well, for me I don't do a lot of driving anymore so it doesn't affect me, plus the grocery stores I use are very close to each other anyway. I don't always do it on the same day either. I like to get my milk at Kroger because for the past few months it has only been $1.99, but at Publix it is $2.50, so I get my staple items at Kroger. They also have the 10 for $10 deals, which I don't always get 10 of and they still honor the $1 price tag for each item. I know not all Kroger Stores do, but I have the BOMB Kroger. I try to buy in bulk as much as I can since I have an extra refrigerator and deep freezer.

I use ground turkey in all my meals that aren't chicken and I buy the one pound rolls of Honeysuckle ground turkey in a pack four in the frozen food isle. I get 4 pounds of meat for the price of 2 doing it that way, and I would freeze the meat when I got home anyway. I do the same for my chicken as well. I buy the bagged frozen chicken too. It tastes good and I get 3 pounds of HUGE chicken breasts (boneless and skinless) for between $6-$7.

One thing to remember is when you are preparing your menu "shop" from YOUR pantry and fridge. Don't rush out and buy tons of stuff for your food because you will spend way more than you need to. I don't cook every night either. Some nights we have soup and sandwich night and some nights we do frozen pizza. This way if you already have tons of stuff at home you can't really in good conscience come home and say "there is nothing here, let's go out". Now, obviously I have to go back frequently for produce, but that just really can't be helped.

My family eats pretty healthy and with all the coupons I use I get to buy lots of name brand stuff and not the cheap stuff full of junk. It is possible to feed your family good things with out feeding them crap.

This is a rather lengthy post and I feel I have jumped all around so here's a recap...

• Check out the stores to see what's on sale before you go...
• Get coupons...
• Here are some websites again
• Valpak.com
• Couponmom.com
• Redplum.com
• coupons.com
• Don't forget to check the Sunday paper and save all flyers with coupons that come in the mail...
• Check out the manufacturer's websites...
• Buy in bulk...

• Plan your menu around what you already have at home...

Now there are other people out there that do an even better job at this than I do, but I have been asked how I have save over $100 dollars on my grocery bill last month. This is how I do it. If you have any questions, comments or other, pleas share. Any and all money that is saved it wonderful.

Don't forget to check back because I should have a few more posts ready. Don't forget to leave some love.