Grocery Haul on a Budget
I don't know about you live but where we are the price of groceries is on the rise and doesn't appear to be going down anytime soon. A couple weeks ago I noticed that milk went up 20 cents and ground beef went up around $1! When those are items that are on your grocery list every week those increases can really start to add up. I used to budged $100 a week for groceries and because of these increases we are really trying to trim where we can. Now I have always been a savvy shopper. I got that from my mom. So today I am sharing with you how I saved $23.55 and earned $0.46 in fuel rewards at my favorite local grocery store, Cashwise.
1. Sales- Their sales beat those of any other on a REGULAR BASIS. Sure you may be able to find some items cheaper at Wal-mart or when the competing grocery store is having a big sale but as a mom of 3 under 5 I don't have time to sit down and compare all the sales fliers. Remember the steep increase in milk I was talking about earlier? That was at our local Target and I noticed immediately. No I don't keep a recipts or records of prices, although I have been considering creating a price notebook, I just shop at my favorite stores often enough to notice. While I have noticed a few items go up here and there at Cashwise it has not been near the amount of items or steep prices jump as other local stores. Even when I find not a lot of things on my grocery list that are on sale I still know that by shopping at Cashwise I am still getting a better deal than anywhere else in town.
2. Rewards Program- The rewards program is the best and easiest I have ever used. To earn rewards points you simply buy items that can earn you points. For example, today I bought canned vegetables on sale 10/$5 and earned 10 cents in rewards. This was something that was already on my list. Ok not 10 cans but at that price and with the rewards I had no problem stocking up. Here's probably the best deal I encountered today. If I bought 6 boxes of General Mills cereal I got 30 cents in rewards. Now normally don't buy GM cereals. I'm sorry but I am not paying almost $4 for a box of cereal BUT they also gave me a coupon that was $10 off those 6 boxes of cereal. Sound like a good deal? Oh it gets better! They also had a coupon that got me $3 off a gallon of milk when I bought those 6 boxes of cereal. So how good is this deal? I paid $8.98 for 6 boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk! What the what?!
As of those savings weren't enough, did you notice that I kept referring to the rewards in terms of cents? The rewards that you are earning you cash in at the gas pump. Yep that's right. I get great deals, on things I am already buying, AND I get the price per gallon of gas to go down at the pump?! YES!!! This morning when I filled my car with gas I cashed in my rewards and it took off 29 cents per gallon giving me a total savings on my gas this morning of $4.35! Another way to look at it is everyone else is paying $2.44/gallon of gas and I just paid $2.15.
Now I am about to put the biggest cherry on top of this whole thing. When you are a rewards member you never have to clip any coupons! They are already loaded onto your account and they ring up as long as you give the cashier your phone number to look up your account. Ok, so after all of that if you aren't hooked like I am than this blog post just isn't for you. If you are like me however, and trying to get the most out of your dollars I'm telling you THIS is the way to go! Happy saving!
