His Hers Money

When we go grocery shopping we don’t go empty handed. We have a list, our coupons and a plan. This weekend’s grocery shopping trip is an excellent example of what our bill looks like. This is for two people and we are not starting from scratch as we have things in the freezer / pantry / fridge at home already that we are augmenting. I look at what’s on sale, what coupons I have and what we need.

This week’s trip was to Safeway but we don’t always shop there. It all depends on who has the rights things on sale that week.

• Ketchup $.99
• Cheez-Its $1.47
• Cranergy Juice $2.50
• Canned Cat Food 6 - $.33 each
• Kraft Cheese Singles - 2 - $1.50 each
• FF Half & Half $4.49
• Yummy mini ice creams 2 - $1.00 each
• Limeade $1.25
• Duracell 8pk AA $2.49
• Men’s Shave Gel $1.50
• OM Hotdog - 3pks for $1 total
• Lean Hamburger $6.11 for 4.8lbs
• Jumbo Raw Shrimp $5.39 for 0.9lbs
• Green Onion $0.99
• Ginger Root $0.25
• Cinlantro $0.99
• Beer 24pk $12.99 (July 4th parties)

Our total was $50.24 and obviously the beer at $13 was the biggest item but with July 4th parties coming up next weekend we grabbed it at a good price to bring to a big party we are attending. The shrimp was a treat for us which we will grill up for dinner and the hamburger has already been mixed up and made into hamburger patties and in the freezer for later use.

Our receipt claims that we saved $61.34 (56%) off of our bill which in fact we did but we wouldn’t have bought some of the items if they weren’t on sale and had coupons to go along with them. The hot dogs for example we couldn’t pass up at 3 Oscar Myer packs for $1, I just threw them in the freezer for later use. The same thing with the cheese slices, I’m not a huge fan of that kind of cheese but at that price I’ll make so for a couple weeks!

So in our lovely new apartment I finally have a room to myself to call an office. It’s actually our second bedroom which is quite spacious. We also have an office area which is a smaller alcove which HIS uses an office. I decided I would like a tv for my office space in hopes that I would spend a bit more time getting stuff done in there if I had a tv.

Now, there’s many options available to me to procure said tv. I could go to the mega mart and by a shiny new flat panel tv which would cost a fortune but that’s really not in my budget nor is there really any reason to go that route. We do have a nice new flat panel tv in our living room and that’s really all if not more than we need.

So I went onto craigslist today and simply searched for a tv for sale. Let me tell you, there were a ton of them! With everyone getting their new mega mart slat panels it seems there are a ton of those old fashioned tube tvs out there for just pennies on the dollar. I got a 27″ name brand tv with a dvd player, a stand and all the necessary cords for $75. I am more than pleased. The guy even carried it from his apartment to the elevator and then out to the car for us. This tv will more than fill my need and I paid about 10% of the cost of a new one.

I really do like craigslist and have gotten a number of things off of it. Most notably my KitchenAid stand mixer which was always a dream of mine. I was so happy the day it became a reality for me especially since I got it for only $100. I have also sold a couple tickets on there that we were unable to use as well as a spare dining table and chairs. I also got my wedding dress on craigslist for only $260! Brand new, never worn and it fit nearly perfect requiring only $75 in alterations (I found the women who did my alterations on craigslist as well). We also have gotten a bike rack for the car and sold a nearly new cell phone.

No matter what I am looking for I always turn to craigslist first! If you can find what you want it’s almost always worth it.

Well as of last Friday I no longer commute to work via car. Previously I have about a 15 minute commute to my office where my employer paid my $60/month parking fee. It really didn’t eat up THAT much gas but still resulting in a $75/month petrol bill. With the recent increase in gas prices I will be glad to leave the car at home.

As I have eluded to in previous postings, we recently moved to a new apartment. I wish I could say that the new apartment will be saving us money on rent and utilities but in reality it won’t. We didn’t make the move based on financial considerations but really just on general sanity (more on that later). Luckily the new place is exactly one mile from my office so as long as it’s not pouring down rain or over 100 degrees there’s really no reason for me not to walk.

I turned my parking garage opener in to my boss in exchange for a nice new shiny Smarttrip card. For those of you not in the Washington DC area, Smarttrip cards are like a little credit card which has preloaded funds on it to ride the public transportation. My company gives their emplyees two options for transportation, paid parking or paid public transportation. Even though I will be walking I took the public transportation option since I do ride it occasionally and I might as well ride free.

So Friday was my first day walking, it was an absolutely beautiful day weather wise and the walk was quite enjoyable. I recently had loaded my iPod with the audio version of Steven Covey’s 7 Habits book (from the local library) so I have plenty of listening material since it’s something like 14 discs long!

I even decided to cancel my local gym membership wince I will now be enjoying two miles of walking a day which has got to beat 2 hours of aerobics a week at something like $65/month. This brings my savings to about $115/month as I will still need to put some gas in my car for some errands and such.

Before you go thinking of where I could put those $115/month I will tell you where it’s going - a housekeeper. I am done spending my evenings and weekends trying to keep up with the cleaning. I would gladly walk to work in trade for house cleaning!

This week we made a huge runs to the warehouse club, Costco is our favorite but we went to BJs this time (free guest pass), and stocked up on a household items and food items that we needed. BJs is great becuase you can combine the club discounts, club coupons and manufacturers coupons.

When I say we made a huge run I wasn’t kidding. Our bill was $175 and that was after $50 in coupons! So what did we get for all o four hard earned dough? Toilet paper, crystal light, chicken, BBQ sauce, mayo, goldfish snacks, italian sausage, wine, breakfast smoothies, laundry soap, fabric softener, cat food… all sorts of things.

We have been preparing to move into our new apartment (more to come later on this) so we have really been careful to just buy the minimum and use up everything we have. When it comes to things like toilet paper and laundry soap I don’t like having to wonder if I have enough or do I need to buy more this week so I generally buy it in bulk and get it over with. Most of the warehouse clubs send out coupons every so often so I usually stock up then.

There has been a lot of debate as to whether the membership fees that the warehouse clubs charge are worth it. For us it really wasn’t even a matter of it being worth while or not, it was a matter of convenience. We live in a high rise that is literally right next door to a Costco. We will walk over there for just one item some times. I think over an entire year we could possibly claim that by being able to walk next door to shop instead of driving a few miles away to the grocery store and spending money on gas that we mitigate the cost of the membership even without taking any actual discounts into account.

What is your opinion of the warehouse clubs and the membership fees that they charge?

After reading a couple articles about Crissy Thompson, the Coupon Queen I can honestly saw that I am in awe. This woman spends like $10 on a week’s worth of groceries for her family of five, not one but five. It seems that I can’t even get by with $10 a day for the two of us let alone for a week.

Basically Crissy spends about an hour each week combing through the grocery store fliers and clipping coupons from four Sunday papers. She only cuts the coupons for items that she uses and combines them with the current sales items. After reading the article about Crissy and her extreme couponing I did learn a few great tips and facts that I didn’t know about.

My favorite tip is that you can use one coupon for each item you purchase. If there is a buy 1 get 1 free sale you can use a coupon on both of the items. I think the key here is to get multiple papers and/or have a good stash of coupons so that you do end up with multiple coupons for the items.

I don’t buy multiple papers each week but every once in awhile I do end up with two sets of coupons. I live in a high rise and one of my neighbors puts their Sunday paper in a pile outside the trash room on my floor to be recycled and if I see it I’ll grab the coupons books out of it.

I do try to keep an eye on the sales and what coupons I have. We actually got about $30 worth of groceries for $16 this weekend when we combined the sales and coupons. This isn’t nearly as good as Crissy does but it’s not too shabby.

Do you use coupons? Are you embarrassed using them or too embarrassed to use them?

I really enjoy cooking, but sometimes after a long and/or hard day at work I’m really not in the mood to cook so I suggest we eat out. It’s really the idea of sitting down, relaxing and visiting with Him and not having to do any of the prep, cooking of cleanup. We used to go out for wings on Monday night. There was a group of us that all gathered, had a couple of $2 brewery beers and ate our super cheap wings. For the two of us our bill was usually about $15 before tip. Well, the group has some what disbanded due to the disappearance of the wing deal and it seems that the wings just really weren’t worth almost 4 times as much as they were charging before. It was nice to eat out and never have to worry about the bill since it was so cheap.

After reading through our local DC paper I noticed that there were a ton of places that offered discounted food on certain nights during the week. If you live in the DC area here’s a few good options that we like. (Always check ahead of time as deals can change)

Crystal City Sport Pub: We like Friday happy hour half price appetizers and beer specials as well as Monday night half price burgers.

Eleventh St Lounge: Wed night half price prime rib (I heard this may be changing to Thursday night so verify first)

Mr. Days: $2 beers and $2 appetizers and burgers on Wednesday.

For more upscale options you can’t beat the deals at McCormick & Schmicks and The Front Page.

I’m personally not a fan of eating at 5pm so if we want to take advantage of any of these deals we try to head over there with just enough time to get our order in before the time expires (usually 7pm) that way we get our food a little after 7 which is more in line with my eating time.

Whether you take advantage of happy hour or weekly specials we have found it’s usually cheaper to eat out during the week. We tend to order less food and drinks. We went out for sushi tonight, while there wasn’t any deal going on out bill was only $20 because it was more just a quick meal out rather than an evening affair.