Frugal May Days – Week 3

May 17

Ugh. This week started off as such a cluster. A large majority of the stuff I had found good deals on wound up being at Acme, which, I have now learned, is a terrible idea. The Acme closest to my house is a giant joke. Acme had Burt’s Bees stuff on sale for 25% off, and I had a $3 printed coupon for their new Renewal line, and iBotta had a $3 rebate. Well guess WHAT. The Acme near my house didn’t sell Burt’s Bees except for lip balm. They also didn’t sell the So Delicious Coconut Milk they had on sale. OR the Noose yogurt they ALSO had advertised. And the college student they had working customer service was also a giant joke. “Oh uh, I’ve never worked in that department but check over there somewhere.” Gee. Thanks. I DID, however, manage to get a jar of Skippy for $1.20 owing to the Super Chunk being $2.50 on sale, plus I had a manufacturer’s coupon for $1 and an iBotta rebate for 30 cents. But the deal of the trip? I PAID 8 CENTS FOR A BOX OF CHEERIOS! No joke. Cheerios, normally $3.99, on sale for $1.88, a CRAZY $1.50/1 manufacturer coupon, plus a 30 cent iBotta rebate. It almost made me not be angry when The Hubs ate it in two sittings! Haha. I only paid $1 for the O.N.E. Coconut Water with Mango, which is good, because it was DISGUSTING. The Hubs and I split it and neither one of us took more than one sip. I don’t care how “good” it’s supposed to be for me, if it tastes gross I’m not going to drink it.

The next store was Shoprite, where I got additionally frustrated. Nothing really exciting to write about here, deal wise. I got Shoprite Angelhair pasta for 47 cents and a jar of Ragu for 69 cents. But they had the Pure Protein Bars deal again, so I grabbed two more. Except my digital coupon didn’t come off, which I didn’t realize until I got home. I ventured back out later to remedy that, and was told they had no control over the digital coupons in store, and that I should call corporate. So I did, and the nice young man on the end of the line told me he was sorry and that he would credit my Price Plus card so that I had $1 off this week. I thought that was fine. (Except it did NOT come off my bill this week, either. ARGH.) I spent a lot here because I bought meat, most of which went into the freezer. $1.99/lb for boneless skinless chicken breast, $2.99 for 80/20 ground beef, $2.49/lb london broil.

I did well at Produce Junction, where I got everything in the pic below for $10.50.

Walmart was limited as well. I nabbed my free coconut milk, a can of fat free evaporated milk and a box of 100-calorie kettlecorn bags.

For dinner I made Ham Pie, which I will post the recipe for when I have a chance.

May 18

I used this day to hit up a different Acme, and while they HAD the Burt’s Bees products, they still didn’t have the Renewal line, so I decided to skip that altogether. *sigh* They DID, however have the Noosa yogurt! I grabbed two of those, which I wound up getting for $1.15 for TWO. Noosa is usually $2.29 for an 8 oz. container, but they were on sale at Acme 2 for $3. I also had a 55 cent coupon, plus a rebate through Shopmium for $1 off, and a generic 30 cents of yogurt through iBotta! These are regular full fat yogurts, so The Hubs got them. He gave me a taste of each flavor: Blueberry and Strawberry Rhubarb. I preferred the Strawberry Rhubarb and he preferred the Blueberry. They also had Jennie-O Turkey Chubs on sale for $2.99, so I grabbed two of those, both of which happened to have been marked down to $1.99 as a Manager’s special, AND I had $1 coupon, so I got TWO POUNDS of ground turkey for $2.98.

I also hit the iBotta May Level 2 Bonus, so I got an additional $3 back thanks to the hard work of myself and my friend Cat!

Tonight’s Dinner was Steak Fajitas on Homemade Tortillas with Broiled Corn on the Cob.

May 19

I looked purty. (Also? The dress is secondhand and FREE.)

Nothing like getting crabs for your birthday. -_-

Mmmm, craaaabs. And saussaaage. And shriiimp. And cooorn. And potatoes.

IT WAS MAH BIRTHDAY!!! We went out to Joe’s Crab Shack to celebrate, which was a planned expense. Other than that, spend free!

May 20

Uhm. I do not recall anything at all exciting happening on this day. Spend-free day. Dinner was kind of a disaster though. My haddock and mashed potato fritters were delicious, but kinda fell apart and I’m sure they soaked up a ton more oil than I planned. Boo. The quinoa broccoli slaw salad with lemon vinaigrette was delish!

May 21

*sigh* Ever have one of those days where you just want to erase it forever? I had a severe bout of anxiety this day. Not my worst, but bad. Bad enough I asked to leave work early, and I NEVER do that. It was The Hubs day off, so he and I went to Barnes & Noble to get a drink from the cafe and buy some books and a tabletop game called Harbour, which was fun once we got the rules figured out. We had planned to have frozen pizza and salad. We had pizza, but out. I just, I needed to be out that day. We used money my Grandma had sent me for my birthday for that, so I’m not counting it against our “snacks” budget, and everything we got from Barnes & Noble was gift card, so we were good.

May 22

Spend-free day. Freezer leftovers for dinner. I had Chana Masala and Basmati Ready Rice from the pantry.

May 23

I was apparently too hungry to take photos of my Copycat Olive Garden Chicken Scampi with Angelhair. It was, however, delicious! Spend free day. Also, someone voted for BINGLEY on what they wanted to see more of on this blog. All caps and all. BINGLEY. So here’s more BINGLEY!

Summary

This was the spendiest week so far, mostly due to the amount of meat I bought. But my freezers (yes, both the fridge freezer and the chest freezer) are FULL. Total for the week was $106.23, bringing the total for the month to $233.89. That’s HALF of my old budget, and I’m 3/4 of the way through the month. And my freezer is so dang full right now that I won’t buy much next week either, unless there is a ridiculously good deal on something.

Here’s the chart of what I spent: Week 3 Savings – Sheet1

Referral links for the apps I use:

iBotta

Shopmium – Referral code KCGGYKKY

Checkout51

Did you get any amazing deals this week?