Mobile Mama

We had no food in the house, save ramen noodles and mayonnaise. I am not sure how that happened, but whatever. It wasn't going to be my best culinary day with those sorts of ingredients. NEED FOOD BADLY became the headline of the day

I had to work until 1 pm and Brian had to be at work at 2 pm. This left no time for grocery shopping (not with a baby anyway!) so we had a clever idea. I would drop Brian off at work and then go grocery shopping with Drake.

Sounds scary as hell. I was planning on going ALONE tomorrow, so I could spend some time making a price book, comparing items and using coupons. I wanted to go with a specific list, buy things that were only on my list and on sale, and that I had a coupon for, and pay only in cash.

But sometimes life throws a curve ball and you do what you can. I went to the store with an empty stomach, a baby, no list, a jumble of coupons, and a dying phone that was my only calculator. Luckily I did do a couple of things right: I only used cash, and I only bought things on sale. I bought meat, but only if it was $2/pound or less. And I did get some awesome buys on meat. I bought 6 pounds of drumsticks for $5.30 and 2.5 pounds of chicken breast tenderloins for $5.20, plus I saved an extra $2 for using my store loyalty card. Awesome!!

The grocery store was PACKED. It was 3 pm and everyone and their brother was shopping. I sometimes forget that normal people have weekends off.

I managed to keep track of my spending, pulling out coupons at the very end of my shopping, and I did surprisingly well. I had $80 to spend on groceries. I kept track of my spending like normal, and after all the coupons were applied, I spent $63.04. Not too bad! I put the rest of my cash in the piggy bank, and I pretended I spent it all.

My happiest find was Gerber formula! I had a coupon in the form of a "personal check" for $5.95 to any retailer that sold Gerber formula. This sucks, because it meant less cash in my hand at the end of the checkout, but it's cool because I still paid less for the formula. It cost me less to get the name brand formula than it did the store brand when the discount was applied. Awesome! I only get one of those coupons every three months, but whatever! Works for me :)

All told, I saved a shade over 20%, which is pretty awesome in my book, considering. Next week, though, I think I am going to go ALONE and see how much I can save.

Brian gets off work at 9:30 and I have to work at 10, so I am not sure if I am going to pick him up or have someone else give him a ride home (and they all owe him rides home lol)

I definitely enjoyed driving (alone) and I think I am going to do it more often. I have a special errand in mind tomorrow so I would love to be able to drive myself. It's a big girl panty moment, so I am going to see if I am still able to put them on ;) More on that tomorrow, or maybe the next day. Soon. I promise.