Day 3 - Groceries

Last night was grocery shopping night here in the house. (Mom and I like to shop on Wednesday because everyone in Northern Kentucky goes to church on Wednesday night and we have the store practically to ourselves. It's just one of the things to love about Northern Kentucky living.)

We tried a new store last night, too - one just down the road from us, but in a different direction. The Kroger we normally frequent has a terribly busy parking lot made worse by the addition of 22 cart returns. I swear, there is a cart return for every three parking spots at the Kroger in Union. It is ridiculous. If someone can't walk six parking spots to return a cart, they don't deserve to eat their groceries. But I digress.

The store was pretty much the same, although it was disconcerting that it is basically the mirror image of the store we normally shop. Instead of turning left inside the door to begin shopping, you turn right. Mom was confused the entire time. She must have asked me five times if I'd switched directions on her. I just hit her with a frozen pizza and moved on.

But, the shopping trip was a success. We got lots of food, saved some serious money with coupons and came in under my budget figure. Total, we spent $161.52. Our share of that is $64.60, which leaves $335.40 in the grocery budget for the rest of the month. Now, this weekend, I have to go to Sam's Club because we are out of Kleenex and Fig Newtons, so I will have to practice restraint there. It is so easy to spend $200 without batting an eye at Sam's.

Oh, and for the coupon mavens, we saved $48.62 total between Kroger's plus card stuff and the regular and e-coupons I had. It came out to 23%, which isn't my record, but as long as I stay above 20% in savings, I feel pretty good.