grocerysavings

What’s better than saving money on groceries? Getting them for free. Dunking Doughnuts is giving away free samples of their dark roast coffee. They have great coffee believe it or not.

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I love to decorate for the holidays. I actually think I am a bit addicted to it. One of my favorite things to do is put a different wreath on the front door for different holidays. Sometimes it can be hard to find the right wreath for Easter. I just saw theses adorable Easter Wreaths and I think I am going to order one!

I love visiting the produce section this time of year, because its Florida’s strawberry season. There is nothing better than a fresh Plant City strawberry. Here in Florida they not only sell locally grown strawberries in the grocery stores they also sell them out of the backs of trucks along side most major roads.

There is something special about buying fresh strawberries from the back of someone’s truck while avoiding dangerous oncoming traffic. But, what do you do with all these fresh strawberries?

My favorite recipe for Florida strawberries is to make strawberry shortcake from Jiffy mix. I take the strawberries and cut them up and cover them in sugar or even splenda so that they get a nice thick juice on them. I then serve them over the warm shortcakes with milk poured over the top. The crowning glory is the whipped cream on top.

To save your strawberries simply cut them up and cover them with sugar and freeze. You can have strawberry shortcake all year long.

When shopping for things like clothes almost everyone runs directly to the clearance racks as soon as they start shopping, before even heading to the other parts of the store. Did you know that most grocery stores have a clearance section for groceries?

Grocery store clearance sections are usually located in random hidden parts of the store such as in corners near the bathrooms. If you have a hard time finding it just ask someone at the store if they have a clearance section and if so where it is located.

I recently got cat bowls that retailed for $14 each originally for $2 in Sweetbay’s clearance section. I have also found artichoke hearts for sixty cents a jar in the grocery clearance section of Wal-Mart.

Grocery clearance sections can also be home to day old bread and pastry’s marked way down. This is especially great if you are buying bread to make recipes such as french toast that always taste better with older bread.

So clearance shopping can be key to your grocery savings.

Normally when most people think of grocery shopping they do not think think to shop at stores like Big Lots. This can be a costly mistake. Big Lots actually has a large selection of shelf groceries at extremely discounted prices.

Big Lots is definitely not a place people think to go to shop for organic and gourmet foods. Surprisingly, Big Lots has tons of organic and gourmet groceries for really cheap. I have seen bottles of organic olive oil at Big Lots selling for $2.00 per bottle.

As with any store make sure you do your price checking. Knowing what you normally pay for your items can help you make sure you are really getting a deal. Unfortunately, Big Lots does not accept manufacturers coupons for groceries or other items.

I have blogged in the past about how you should always google the restaurant you are planning to go dine at before you head out for dinner, because sometimes you will find half price gift certificates online.

One major site that has tons of discounted restaurant coupons is Restaurants.com. Right now they are running an awesome Valentine’s Day special. You can get $25 restaurant certificates for $4. You have to enter the special coupon code “Treat” in the check out part of the page.

The only caveat is that usually to use the gift certificates you have to spend a certain amount of money. Most of the restaurants by me require a $35 dollar minimum excluding alcohol. This is still awesome when you consider the fact that you are getting a $35 dollar meal for $14.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Remember, it is okay to spoil your Valentine, especially if you are saving money when you are doing it.

I am sure that almost everyone has seen the new “fridge packs” of soda on sale everywhere recently. I am also sure that almost everyone is annoyed by them, because while they are cheaper for an eight pack the price per can is higher than a twelve pack of soda would be.

Right now the fridge packs are actually a pretty decent deal at Publix. The eight can fridge packs of Pepsi products are on sale for $2.99 each and are buy one get on free. Making the cost for eight cans of Pepsi products $1.50.

While this isn’t quite as good as the sales we were getting last year on soda, such as four tweleve packs for ten dollars. This is still a good deal. The price per can of Pepsi is about eighteen cents. So stock up now while they are on sale!

Almost everyone knows coupons are a great way to save money, if you use them correctly. Did you know that you can use two coupons when a store has an item on sale buy one get one free?

For example, I once had dollar off coupons for Lawry’s Marinades. The week after the coupons were in the newspaper Publix had a sale on Lawry’s Marinades for buy one get one free. I usually have more than one coupon for items, so I went to Publix and used two coupons to get the marinade.

The Lawry’s Marinade usually sells at Publix for around $2.25 since the sale was buy one get one free I was technically buying two marinades which means I got to use two coupons. This made my actual purchase price for both bottles 25 cents total.

 So when checking your coupon section see if any stores have any of the coupons for buy one get one free. Then run and get some more newspapers for more coupons.

I previously wrote about freezing milk when it is on sale. Right now milk is on sale at Walgreens for $2.99 a gallon. That is a great price here in Florida where a gallon of milk was selling for around $4.00 a gallon at most grocery stores.

Drug stores often put milk on sale to draw in customers to the store. They hope that you will run in for a gallon of milk and get distracted by the new shade of lipstick that is overpriced. So avoid temptation and run in and out of the drug store without making any impulse buys.

Remember milk is one dairy product that freezes well. So stock up now when it is on sale and save yourself some money.

Dollar stores can be a great money saving source for groceries and other household goods. Things like kitchen gadgets, craft supplies, and even some groceries can be bought at dollar stores for big savings. However, sometimes the sizes can be drastically different that regular store products.

For example I once bought a pack of reese cups at a dollar store and they were actually about 25% smaller size reese cups than regular cups. I guess I could consider them reduced calorie reese cups. The smaller size meant they were actually more money per ounce though.

So make sure when you shop and compare prices at the dollar store make sure you are actually getting a bargain. Don’t waste your money.