What We Bought This Week: March 11-17, 2009

Shopping Thought for the Day: We don't always buy everything on our list. Sometimes we don't even shop at all the stores on the list. This week we decided not to go to Thriftway for two reasons. First, the closest Thriftway is a few miles away in a direction we don't head very often. Second, we really didn't 'need' all of the things on our list from that store. If there would have been more of a need, we probably would have made the trip. The closest we came was weighing the price of grapes. Thriftway had them for 88 cents a pound and Safeway had them for 98 cents a pound. Since we were going to Safeway anyway, we decided to skip Thriftway and pay the extra 10 cents a pound (we only ended up buying 1.7 pounds anyway.)

Reminder that the Safeway, Thriftway, and Albertsons ads are good through Tuesday (except the Friday/Saturday only specials.)

Fred Meyer total savings: $11.80

Bath Towels: Buy one, get one half-price $4.99 each. Also, wash cloths $2.99 each. We bought two bath towels, one hand towel ($3.99). Total savings $4.00 - plus, we had been looking for another set for one of our bathrooms, so it was a good time to buy.
Cheddar Cheese: Bandon 2 lb. loaf. $4.99 each. We bought two (the limit) Savings: $3.80
Fred Meyer Butter: 1 lb. 3 for $4.00 (limit 6) We bought six. Savings: $4.00
Fred Meyer Hashbrowns: Large bag $3.79 for dinner, see notes*
Mushrooms: $2.99 lb, four mushrooms cost 48 cents, see notes*
Maple Bars: 3 at 59 cents each. see notes**

We went back to Fred Meyer because we found a flaw in the two wash cloths. We exchanged them for two 'unflawed' wash cloths. We stopped by the clearance table and found some cereal bowls. We have been looking for a long while for some bowls to replace the ones that became 'unusable' over time. We found a design we liked at a price we couldn't resist. The bowls sold regularly for $6.99 each. They were then reduced to $5.17 each. Since they were on clearance, we got to take an additional 60% off the lowest price. That lowered the price of each bowl to $2.07. So we bought six bowls for $12.42. They would have cost $41.94. That's a savings of $29.52! Booyah!



Safeway total savings: $26.55 (pretty good since it only cost us $19.88!)
Doritos Cool Ranch: $1.59 each (bought limit-2) savings: $4.80
Quaker Chewy Granola Bars: 99 cents 8 per box (bought limit-1) savings: $2.00
Nabisco Ritz Crackers: $1.88 per box (bought limit-3) savings: $7.23
Peter Pan Peanut Butter: 99 cents each (bought limit-1) savings: $1.50
Tropicana Home-style Orange Juice: $1.97 for 2 qt. (bought limit-1) savings: 2.62 see notes***
Ovenjoy Bread: 99 cents (bought limit-1) savings: 20 cents
Bananas: 59 cents per pound
Green Grapes: 98 cents per pound
Green Cabbage: 38 cents per pound (the St. Patrick's Day dinner is coming together!)

Albertsons total savings: $15.57 (pretty good since it only cost us $13.73!)
Hershey Reese's Peanut Butter Cups: 99 cents, (bought limit-2) savings: $1.60 see notes****
Taco Bell Taco Shells: $1.00 per box of 12 (bought 4 boxes - no limit) savings: $4.76
Tillamook Ice Cream: $2.49 per carton (bought limit-2) savings: $8.00
Cinnamon Rolls: Box of 4 $1.00 savings: $1.39 see notes*****

Haggen total savings: $6.80 (pretty good since it only cost us $3.16!)
Large AA eggs: One dozen 79 cents (bought limit-2) savings: $3.40 we each had a coupon, so we ended up with four dozen eggs and $6.80 in savings

Notes:
*Saturday is Jeff's night to cook. Tonight we had "Breakfast Skillet." The recipe (Jeff's not-so-secret-now) is sausage (usually the garlic/guyere from Costco), hashbrowns, eggs, garlic, onion, and red bell pepper. Directions: In a large teflon skillet saute garlic, onion, and red bell pepper in a little olive oil. Thaw frozen sausage in microwave, then chop into small pieces. Add sausage to vegetable mixture. Thaw hashbrown in the microwave. Add hashbrowns to the skillet. Cook until the hashbrowns are slightly golden. Add eggs. Continuously stir in skillet with a flat-edged wooden spoon until the eggs are cooked to the consistency of scrambled eggs. Serve hot and enjoy.
**Sometime you need a treat! I worked the Fred Meyer shopping into my trip to take Taylor to trumpet lessons at the high school. Fred Meyer is only a couple of blocks away. It was a Saturday morning and we both deserved a treat. (Theresia says I should just say, "Never send Jeff to the store hungry!")
***We (Jeff) like to have fresh orange juice (not from concentrate) on hand for breakfast or smoothies. The best price is usually Odwalla from Costco for about $5.99 a gallon. This Tropicana is 'not from concentrate' and worked out to a lower price when you compare the half-gallon price ($1.97 on sale times 2 equals $3.94 a gallon - see, math does come in handy!)
****This is the 8-count "Pack-A-Snack". With 8 individual cups, this is the same as buying four candy bars at about 25 cents a piece - you don't see that price too much anymore.
*****Very good price for a nice treat for our Skillet Breakfast 'dinner.'