worth the trip- get thee to the grocery store!

i’m still having a hard time getting my shit sorted out well enough to get my worth the trip dispatches out by sunday- which is probably when they would actually be useful. however, i do have high hopes that at some point i’ll finally be able to shift everything back into its proper place. but for now… GET YOUR ASS TO SHAW’S IMMEDIATELY! there isn’t anything worth getting at any other store in town- unless of course  you want a page full of crappy weirdo cold remedies from rite aid, or some marginally discounted pumpkin pop tarts at target (ick).

i’m very serious.

now, take your flier, and flip it over. $10 back (coupon toward a future trip) when you buy $25 worth of jazz on this page. with the vast array of coupons available on bettycrocker.com, smartsource, & coupons.com… basically, it’s a page of mostly free food. here’s what i did:

-3 boxes cheerios- @ $2 each w/3 $.55/1 coupons doubled- $2.70

-3 boxes cinnamon toast crunch- @ $2 each w/3 $.55/1 coupons doubled- $2.70

-2 boxes reeses peanut butter puffs (BEST CEREAL EVER)- @ $2 each w/2 $.65/1 coupons doubled- $1.40

-2 boxes scalloped potaoes (gross, i know, but i love their salty dehydrated goodness)- @ $1 each w 1 $.55/2 coupon doubled- $.90

-2 “healthy colors” valley fresh steamers- @ $1.50 each w/2 $.50/1 coupon doubled- $1.00

-2 boxes cascadian farms sweet & salty granola bars- @ $2.50 each w/2 $.75/1 coupons doubled- $2.00

-2 packages pillsbury simply refrigerated cookies- @ $2.50 each w/2 $.55/1 coupons doubled- $2.80

SPENT: $13.50

GOT BACK IN CATALINAS: $20

basically, shaw’s paid me $6.50 to take home 8 boxes of cereal and a bunch of other jazz. i know that save for the veggies and the cheerios, it’s not exactly the parade of health food- BUT next week i have $20 that i can spend on whatever the fuck i want. zebra cakes? crisco? crystal light? i think i may re-attempt the freezer cooking dance come november (need to free up my time for nanowrimo), so maybe i’ll spend my bonus cash on supplies.

in case you wanna see what other magic can be worked with this deal, the coupon goddess is back from greece and officially tearing shit up at her local shaw’s. also, she totally spotted the free crest toothpaste (on sale 10 for $10 with $1/1 from the last P&G brandsaver), which i completely missed.

the hot pockets diet.

i talk a lot about the post-divorce chunk that i gained last year. roughly 30 lbs. of chunk. 2 pants sizes of chunk. realization that i’ve become the “fat friend” chunk. devastating. i’ve tried and failed all manner of diets and strategies and regimens. hell, i even started a blog about it. and i failed that shit too.

well, march at shaw’s is frozen foods month. buy any 10 participating products, get a $10 catalina back toward a future purchase.  as i was perusing the smart ones selection, i remembered that the last time i was this big, and coincidentally the last time i really managed to lose any weight (post-college gravity bong and cap’n crunch chunk), it was on weight watchers. to0 bad that the smart ones were $2.50 each and with very very limited vegetarian options and dismal coupons ($1/10!). but it doesn’t really matter if the food comes in a little red box or not. as i recall, the point was to limit calorie intake by paying attention. they called them points instead of calories, but the conversion was really just an extra step.

i hate doing this. weighing and measuring food. keeping a journal. being hungry. i think where i failed before was by trying to find a scheme that would work around this basic principal.  no dairy. no sugar. no wheat. all of which i might add are ridiculously impossible to hold up for more than a few days. regardless of my past failure ratio, i kept trying to avoid the inevitable torture that would be weight loss by calorie counting.

saturday morning i woke up at 164 lbs, my heaviest ever. and as i scoped out the smart ones in the freezer case, i realized that it was time. as much as it is my dream to eat organic and unprocessed foods, i have a bigger dream to not be a fatty tatties. i enjoy eating processed crap, and if it can help me lose weight like it did before, maybe it was time to give it another go round. hot pockets were on sale for $1.99 each, and i had a bunch of $.75/2 catalinas. at 240 each, and totally delicious, i decided that they would be the perfect cornerstone of my rekindled relationship with calorie counting. sadly, there’s only one flavor that’s vegetarian (broccoli cheddar), but my mind was made up.

and that concludes the story of why i have 7 identical boxes of hot pockets in my freezer (never you mind the ice cream in the foreground). will they make me skinny? possibly not. but i signed up for a 5k in 2 months, and i better by trying something. anything.

so lazy. (plus, the shaw’s shakedown)

i didn’t even bother to post my grocery deals last week. mostly because there weren’t any. i’ve been stockpiling a lot of my morningstar farms products using the booty from my super tear-pad score from a few weeks ago. i’ve been paying about $2.50 per product, which is a good $2 less than they are at shaws. they’re cheapest at target & walmart (usually between $2.99- $3.25), and they never really go on super sale… so i’ll take what i can get.

other than that, the most impressive deal i got last week was paying $.39 for two dial hand soaps (they were on bogo for $1.79 ea). those $.35 coupons need to be doubled to be worth anything!

anyway, i’ll be proactive this week (but still lazy) by pointing you to all the best shaw’s deals this week via money saving maineac (she’s great). i have to say she’s got it covered. she even found some deals for me amidst the MEAT SALE!.

most notably, $15 catalina when you buy $30 of certain products. most of it is garbage food (which i love but shouldn’t eat), but i’ll be loading up on a ton of $1.88 cheerios, some $.99 green giant corn niblets (the only canned veg that i actually like), a couple boxes of $3.39 savorings (one of my favorite binge foods, plus i gotta put that $.55/1 coupon to work), and i’ll probably fill out the rest with some paper towels or kleenex. details to follow.

also deal worthy this week:

frosted mini wheats on sale 2/$5- but you get a catalina for a free gallon of milk (up to $4) when you buy three. i’m pretty sure that if you use 3 of these $1/1s, you can get 3 boxes of cereal and some milk for $.50-ish.

birds eye bagged vegetables are 10/$10 … if the lightly sauced varieties are on sale, i can use this $.50/1 coupon and pray for doubling. my freezer is getting really full.

california pizza kithen pizzas are on sale 2/$9, which is otherwise unremarkable- EXCEPT when combined with the two $1.50/1 catalinas that i’ve been hoarding, and two of these babies. $2 pizza, here i come!

i also might go for a couple bags of the 2/$4 fresh express salad blends (i still have one $.55/2 coupon from  the 10/4 smartsource- confirmed to double), and some $2.29 tribe hummus ($1/2 from the 10/18 redplum).  if i work it all out correctly, i’ll be taking home roughly $60 worth of groceries, for just about $20.