I use to hate grocery shopping !!!!

Grocery shopping use to be my most dreaded chore. It was also about the most costly chore. I averaged over $100 a week on groceries, I ran up and down every aisle in the store to make sure I didn't forget anything. Then when I got the groceries home sometimes I had to rearrange the cabinets just to fit what I had bought in there. I just hated it.

Now my trips to the grocery store take about 15-20 minutes and I rarely forget anything and rarely pick up extra things during the week. I spend at least half of what I did before, maybe more, since I haven't really sat down and figured it out.

I learned how much I could save at the store one week while my car was getting repaired unexpectedly. Yes, I could have rented a car, but it was the weekend and I didn't have anyplace I needed to be, and didn't want to spend the money on renting a car if I could avoid it.

A man who rents the apartment above my garage called and said he was going to the store and ask if I needed him to pick up anything since he was going out and knew I couldn't. I opened up the fridge, and noticed the only thing I was really low on was milk, bread, and eggs, so that was all he picked up. I didn't stop at the store the rest of the week, and realized I saved at least $90 that week. I was amazed.

I then did an inventory of my refrigerator, freezer, and cabinets. My son helped me with this and we were both surprised at what I had stocked up on. I was surprised by the amont of stuff I had bought and never used. There was enough food in the house to make about 20 dinners, so my mission was to use the food in the house and not buy more until I got what I had organized.

I have not spent more than $60 a week since, and it is usually only one week during the month that I spend more than $30. I call it my splurge week, I love it. I will post more on the grocery shopping on a week by week basis, it would be very time consuming, confusing and difficult to post everything in one blog entry. However, here are a couple of sites that I use and love.

www.couponmom.com
www.freeflys.com