Day 16

It has been rainy and dreary for days now. I've had a serious case of cabin fever so when hubby arrived home from work we decided to take a shopping trip out of town. It is the first time in two weeks that we have traveled out of town. Unfortunately, when you travel out of town you tend to spend more money.

We stopped at Sam's Club first because we had a free one day pass. We looked around the store for quite awhile but Joe got free of the cart and ran free and chasing after him and trying to think at the same time were impossible so we left. I saw a few things that would be a good deal for us, but didn't see enough to contemplate spending $40 on a membership. Maybe next time I get a guest pass I will go alone and stock up on a few things and just pay the 10% non-member fee.

We then headed to Hy-Vee. We picked up things like bananas, apples, grapes, nectarines, and milk, and lunch meat. We also hit the day when a lot of items in the organic/health food section were marked down due to close expiration dates. I was able to get two bottles of Keifer for $2 each (yummy for breakfast!), three packages of organic yogurt for the kids marked down to $1.75 each, organic lemonade for $2, and hummus for $2.99 (yummy!). Hubby also threw a bottle of vodka in the cart which tipped the scales at $12.69. We spent $54 even there. Which leaves us at $246.54 for the remainder of the month.

I'm interested in eating more raw foods and more vegan items. I'm looking into joining a local co-op to save money on more natural foods. I'm thinking this may be a challenge for July...more to come on that later!

For now, one way that I save money on groceries is by signing up for every single free food coupon I can. Companies are going strong especially on Facebook, offering us free coupons by becoming a "fan" on Facebook. It's as easy as filling in a simple form and waiting to see what arrives in the mail. One way that I find out about all these freebies is through Hip2Save which is a website that I check daily for freebies and good deals.

Just look at these free coupons:

The free Go-gurt was found through Hip2Save. The booklet of free coupons was sent to me from Kraft First Taste, which I have blogged about before right here. Six free coupons for products with a total value of close to $20! You can't beat that when trying to save money at the grocery store. Even though it isn't all foods I normally buy it is food that we will eat and it is definitely fun trying new products that have just arrived on the market.