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Archive for the ‘Grocery Shopping’ Category

Yesterday’s trip to the grocery store included a lot of swapping for things that were similar to what I wanted but lesser in price. This post is about sharing what those things were and how much I saved. Not that these item-swaps are anything novel to you seasoned-savers out there, but they were to me and might be of interest to those who are just getting started down this frugal-living path.

Now, given that my 3.5 year old was in tow, you have to excuse that I bought a few items that I could have saved more on or done away with altogether (ice cream, wine, expensive steaks). Even though on today’s trip my child was something of a poster-child of good behavior you never know exactly how things are going to turn out so you tend to make some hasty decisions in order to get out of there as soon as possible.

There’s nothing like a parent with a baby or toddler to add some cash to the grocery’s coffers simply due to the fact that said parent is speeding around the store at break-neck speed trying to simply get the heck out of there before: a meltdown occurs on the part of the child, child needs to go to the bathroom, baby has to eat now, or parent has a meltdown.

So anyway, here are the items that I swapped:

My usual butter ($4) for a different brand ($2.50)

My usual liquid dishwasher detergent ($8) for the same thing in powder form ($4.50)

Did not buy the Fontina cheese on my list at all due to the price ($12 for a small bit!) but then bought a $12 bottle of wine completely spontaneously. No, that one did not make sense. Mmm…now I am wishing I had bought the wine and the cheese!

My usual name-brand 5 lb. sugar ($4) for generic ($2.50)

Instead of fresh pasta ($5/9 oz.) and fresh pasta sauce ($6/7 oz.) I got dried linguine ($1.25/16 oz.) and a jar of sauce ($2/26 oz.). Now that was a big savings.

I also bought a few items specifically so that I could use up the rest of the wild rice I had left over from the wild rice casserole a week ago. Tonight we’ll eat the wild rice mixed with a saute of onions, mushrooms, and celery. The kids are so full of all the fruit that I bought (grapes, strawberries, and oranges) that I doubt they’ll need anything more than this simple rice dish to fill them up. I know I won’t need anything more considering the milkshake I snuck in while they were at my 6 year old’s karate practice. Shh!