Shopping grocery stores for your stockpile.

When shopping grocery stores for your grocery stockpile, it helps to keep a few things in mind to help you save money on your grocery bill.

Ask yourself these questions before buying an item in bulk for grocery stockpiling.

• What groceries do we use the most and the quickest?

The answer to that will be what you will want to stockpile the most.

• How much room do I have to store my grocery stockpile?

Knowing how much space you have to store your stockpile will help you determine the quantity of groceries to buy when shopping grocery stores.

• Which coupons do I have or need to get?

Purchasing your grocery stockpile items using coupons will maximize your savings and help stretch your budget even further.  You can purchase extra coupons using a coupon clipping service or by purchasing extra newspapers and printing some coupons off the internet. 

Not so extreme couponing.

Lately there has been a noticeable change in the coupon industry, couponing isn't as easy as it used to be.  With the publicity of the TLC show Extreme Couponing and the surge of couponing blogs, consumers are starting to really use their coupons and retail stores are not liking it.

Manufacture coupons are starting to drastically drop in value.  Some coupons which were always $1.00 off are now only offering $0.50 cents or less and retail stores are rapidly changing their coupon policies.  The days of double couponing, coupon stacking and being able to use multiple coupons are coming to an end at many retailers. Some stores are ending their customer perks regarding special coupons and coupon incentives. 

What does this mean for extreme couponers?  It means that they will have be savvier and work even harder to get half the saves that extreme couponers used to get.  Maybe it's time to turn to the stockpile for a while and let the coupon frenzy cool down?

Stockpiling

My cereal & baking items stockpile shelf.

Stockpiling and couponing go hand in hand, you save up the good deals when they come so that you have enough on hand for your daily and future usage until that item is on sale again (typically 8-12 weeks is the time between sales for any particular item).

Stockpiles are also great for in case of emergency, let's say you're unable to afford food all of a sudden.  No worries because you already have a stockpile of the essentials to last you for a while.  Stockpiles allow you to donate as well.  Let's say a family member needs a little extra help this month, you can let them "shop" your stockpile with no worries (most of your stockpile items will be free or down right cheap anyway).  They're super helpful if you're someone who has a chronic condition and you don't always have the energy to go out to pick up things for dinner or want something easy to whip up.  This is my case and on the days when I'm too sick to make something elaborate, I go to my stockpile and pull out some mac & cheese or a hamburger helper.

Start your stockpile at whatever level you are comfortable with.  Save up your coupons and collect as many as you can, this way when you find a super sale on cereal and combine it with your coupons you can get most of them for free.  80% of the cereal on my shelf was free after coupons!

Coupon haul: Rite Aid

This is an excellent week to stack up on Stayfree sanitary pads and Vitamin Water! 

I got $27 worth of pads for 54 cents!!!  Here's how:  I used 3 Stayfree $1 off of 1 pack coupons from stayfree.com and 3 B1G1 Free coupons from SS 6/26. They were on sale 2/$5 and earn $2+Up Rewards.

I got the +Up rewards by spending $54.70 for $82.88 of food items.  They are having various +Up sales, such as buy $15 worth of certain items (like ketchup, Bush's Beans, Kraft Salad Dressing, Bacon Bits and more) and get $3+Up rewards.  Also 3- 12 packs of soda (Canada Dry, 7Up, Sunkist and more) for $10.98 and earn $3+Up rewards.  The Vitamin Water was 5/$5 and earn $1+Up reward. 

All in all I spent $62.46 and earned $18.69 in +Up rewards for $135.80 worth of products, including an awesome circulating air window fan which was only $7.72 after the sale and +Up rewards that I used.

Rite Aid is the idea place to learn couponing as well as rewards and rebating too!  It's one of the only places where you can actually make money from your purchases.

Reviews & a recipe: Dunkan Hines Decadent Brownies & Jet Puff Stacker Marshmallows

It is s'more season! So to celebrate I combined to products that were both free with coupons and make S'more Brownies.  I used Duncan Hines Dark Fudge Chunk Decadent Brownie Mix (prepared as directed on box), graham crackers and Jet Puff Stacker Marshmallows.  I layered the brownie mix with graham crackers and put the Jet Puff Stackers on top and baked.  Let's see the results for these mixed review brownies.

Dunkan Hines Dark Fudge Chunk Decadent Brownie Mix: I did not like this brownie mix.  Raw, the taste was rich and had small chunks as well as tiny real chocolate crumbs.  I thought for sure these would result in super chocolatey brownies.  FAIL! They barely taste like chocolate at all.  The "chunks" melt and seem to leave no trail of chocolate taste behind.  They taste annoyingly sweet, even if you peel away the marshmallow and graham crackers which I added, you still get a sickingly sweet non-chocolate brownie.  My resident sweet toothers passed after just one bite!

Jet Puff Stacker Marshmallows: Love them! They are not just cute but functional too! These are flat rectangle shaped marshmallows meant to  I laid these over the brownie mix before baking and crossed my fingers, usually regular marshmallows burn. These melted evenly and not too much, they browned slightly and did not burn at all.  Once cooled they remain soft and not crispy.  The Jet Puff Stacker Marshmallows taste great, fresh and not too sweet.  They have the classic marshmallow flavor.  I could not stop eating these and I must admit, I'm not a big marshmallow lover!  I would buy these, love them!

So there you have it, using a Buy 2 cake mixes get a Decadent cake mix free coupon and a Buy Hershey's and graham crackers and get Jet Puff Marshmallows free coupon, I made these s'mores brownies!