Today's shopping trip was...interesting. I decided that a dollar for Goldfish crackers was definitely a good stockup price, and 50 cents for cat treats wasn't bad either (wish I'd planned ahead and just bought some coupons to get more for...well, free plus the cost of buying coupons, which would be less than 50 cents for sure). I added a few other things from the 10/$5 sale to my list and off we went.
The trip went well enough. My daughter has decided that checking out of any store is a terrifying thing that must be avoided at all costs. The second the shopping cart pauses near a register or line, she starts thrashing around, crying, and making lots of word approximations that I don't understand. It's a situation where I really wish she could just...talk. Or at least use some of the few words she does have. I haven't the slightest clue what part of this upsets her, and usually the result - including this time - is to have my husband take her out of the cart and walk around with her while I check out. It's an extra added bonus of stress and I hate it. Shopping on a weekend also sucks and neither my husband nor I deal well with that.
Please note that I am not asking for suggestions as to what might be upsetting her or how to handle this. I am just venting for a minute. Thanks!
And finally, I find something about this whole excursion very amusing. When you see the list of purchases below, you'll see that I didn't really get...food. I got snacks, treats, and condiments (and laundry detergent) on sale. Things we use and enjoy, but not necessities this time around. Sometimes I get great deals on those too, but I wanted to acknowledge that I didn't get great and important deals.
All prices are after coupons and 10/$5 savings:
7 bags of Goldfish crackers for 99 cents each.
2 bottles of Ken's salad dressing for $1.19 each.
2 bottles of All Free & Clear laundry detergent (our preferred brand) - 32 loads - $1.99 each.
2 bottles of French's spicy brown mustard - 19 cents each (basically filler - how many bags of Goldfish do we really need?)
2 bottles of Frank's hot sauce (buffalo wing and sweet chili) - 49 cents each.
2 Reach toothbrushes - free (more filler!)
3 packs of Whisker Lickins cat treats - 49 cents each. I'd rather have gotten more of these than the toothbrushes, but someone else had already been by and cleaned the store out. My husband found these three bags in the wayyyyyy back of the top shelf.
So I could have just gotten the crackers and cat treats and stopped at that, but we did really want the salad dressing and I wanted the Frank's sauces (they're great on tofu). Thus the filler items. We'll use and enjoy the mustard, but I didn't absolutely need it.
I also got a bottle of Kroger salad dressing for free and a pack of baby carrots for free thanks to coupons I got in the mail directly from Kroger. And then we also bought tofu, salad, bananas, and a few vegetables (and a scouring pad for a pan with burnt rice on the bottom). Some of that was on sale too.
I spent $28.77 and saved $41.30 - a savings of 59%. Not bad.
Money is going to be tight for the next few weeks, so I'm hoping there will be sales/coupons on actual food items, heh.
With the kid crying near registers ... when she DOES begin to talk, maybe it will turn out to be something like, "OH MY GOD, CANDY! WE'RE NEAR THE CANDY! OW, IT BURNS, MOM, IT BUUUURNS! GET IT AWAAAAAYYYY!!!!!"
ReplyDeleteYou can always hope.
That would be pretty hilarious, actually, a kid throwing a tantrum because they DON'T want candy.