What's best at destressing your morning?

What is best at turning a rather stressful morning around? Why saving huge, and I do mean huge, at the grocery store! This morning started like any other, get the kids up and ready for school. Dropped the girls off and headed to Kroger for some grocery shopping. About half way through my shopping at Kroger, my phone rings. It was Rob and he needed me to help him out asap. His car ran out of gas and he was stranded not too far from home. I hung up on him and raced around the store to finish my shopping. Took me longer to check out because I had to go through the self check out line since before 8:30am those are the only lanes open. They guy who scans my coupons was having a difficult time scanning and I had to verify with most of my coupons that yes I have the exact item that the coupon is for.

After paying, loading up kids and food, I rushed home to get the full gas can in the garage. I made it home and back to Rob with 30 minutes till his class starts. Too bad he was about 20 minute away from school and still had to fill up and find a parking space at TCU. Good luck with that one Rob. I was able to get Rob back on the road. Now time to take a deep breath and continue on with my shopping. So Albertsons here I come.

I got my groceries from Albertsons, loaded up the kids and food, and headed home. After I got home and unloaded my groceries, I noticed that my iphone was missing. Great not another crisis. I remember Aaron playing it when we were checking out, but I could not remember if he brought it into the house or not. I tried to ask him what he did with the phone, but really got no where due to the fact that he has Hyperlexia. Which is a form of high functioning Autism. I checked the car, kitchen, my room, all the places I last remember seeing Aaron. After saying a quick prayer, I loaded the kids up and headed back to Albertsons to see if he dropped it out in the parking lot. I knew the odds were great that the phone was in the house, but I still wanted to rule this out. Got back to Albertsons, and nope no one turned in a phone from the parking lot. Loaded the kids back into the car and headed home. Five minutes after we got home, Aaron yells at me that he found my phone. It was on the bathroom counter. He must of gone to the bathroom and put the phone down. I thanked him happily for finding the phone and told him next time to just give the phone to me. Hopefully he will remember that. Now both crisis adverted, I can finally sit back and enjoy the awesomeness of my savings. And they are truly Awesome!

Let's start with Kroger. Kroger still has milk for 99 cents a gallon, but they are also having another buy any 10 participating items and get $5 off sale. Checked my coupons and was able to find enough coupons to get me the 10 items for a fairly good price. If you still have your 50 cents off of 1 bag of Nerds, then you can get that bag for under a $1. I got some cream cheese for under a dollar and Capri Sun for 99 cents. But my favorite deal was for the Nestle cookie dough. If you get your ten items, the final sales price for the cookie dough will be $1.99. I did have a coupon for $1 off of any 2 Nestle cookie dough, but while I was picking out my dough, there were some that had a coupon on the package for $1 off of 1. So I tucked my $1 off of 2 coupon back into the purse and choose 2 cookie dough that had the $1 off of 1 coupon on it. So I ended up getting the cookie dough for 99 cents each! I did not spend a whole lot at Kroger. I spent $19.71 and saved $25.00. A savings of 55%.

I saved the best for last. Albertsons has some killer sales going on this week. Eggs for 79 cents, Quaker products on sale and we also have a coupon from the flier too, plus the Conagra promo sale. Frozen bags of Tilapia are buy one get 2 free, so for $8.99 you get 3 one pound bags of fish. Evaporated milk is on sale for a dollar and we have coupons for 50 cents off of 2. I know it's not free, but since I'm low I went ahead and paid the 50 cents per can for some evaporated milk. I use it in almost everything from Mac and Cheese to soups. The Conagra sale was selected Conagra products were on sale for $1 and if you buy 10 of those items, then you get 3 free. Act II popcorn, Hunts canned tomatoes, Wolf brand chili, Chef Boyardee pasta, and Hunts pasta sauce were some items that were on the sale. Since I had coupons for only the popcorn, canned tomatoes, and chili, those were the ones that I bought. I had 2 coupons for 40 cents off of any Act II popcorn, two 45 cents off of any 3 Hunts canned tomatoes, and one 75 cents off of 3 Wolf brand chili. That saves on 11 sale items. I still had 2 more to go. I did not have any other coupons to use, so I decided to get 2 more boxes of popcorn since we will need it for Family Movie Night on Friday. Albertsons double the popcorn and tomato coupons. After everything was taken off, I paid $5.85 for all 13 items. That is 45 cents per item!

Another item on sale are the big cans of Libby canned veggies. I still had two $1 off of any 3 Libby canned veggies. The sale price is 88 cents per can. Since these are the big cans, that is not a bad price. So I got 6 cans and used both of my coupons to pay $3.28 for all six, which if you do the math, is about 55 cents per can. Ragu past sauce is on sale for $1.88 each. I had three 30 cents off of 1 Ragu sauce coupons that are expiring on Sunday. I decided why not use them and tuck the jars away for a rainy day. Albertsons tripled all three coupons and I paid 98 cents per jar.

My absolutely favorite deal of the week was the Quaker deal going on at Albertsons. In this week's flier, there were two coupons for $3 off of any 5 Quaker items. Albertsons has Quaker items on sale this week and if you use just the coupon from the flier, you will either pay $1 or $1.50 per item. From past experiences, I know I can also put my other Quaker coupons on top of this. For example, the Quaker Chewy granola bars are for a $1 if you use your $3 off of 5 coupon. I have another coupon for $1 off of 2 Quaker Chewy granola bars. Albertsons took my coupon and I ended up paying 50 cents per box. I also did this with a 75 cents off of any 1 Quaker Delights to bring the final price down to a quarter, and a 75 cents off of any Quaker instant oatmeal to make it 75 cents a box. Too bad I did not have any Quaker cereal coupons. Life and Captain Crunch is a dollar a box using the flier coupon, still not a bad price to pay for cereal. After I got my 10 Quaker items, I got ten since there are two $3 off of 5 coupons in the flier, I ended up paying $7.30 for all 10 items. That makes each item 73 cents each! I spent $38.37 and saved $82.38. Yes that is right, $82.38 at one store! I'm thinking that the Albertsons receipt is going in my receipt hall of fame.

After it was all said and done, I spent $58.08 and got $165.46 worth of groceries! I saved $107.38 which is a HUGE savings! I have never saved that much at Wallymart in one month, let alone one week! Savings like this, just make the stress from the earlier crisis go away.