Living Cheaply, Edition 1.0

It's been quite a while since I posted anything here. Previously, I was blogging about my health, weight loss, and so on. A lot has changed in my life since then, so it's time to turn a new page here as well, and possibly blog more often, about simple everyday happenings.

Lesson 1: Money.


I like to save money. I like to spend it, too, so it's important to save where you can. For the past few weeks, I've been averaging about 10% off my grocery bill by using the stores discount card. Depending on where you shop, what you buy, and any coupons you use, it's easy to save some dollars. I'm not talking about extreme grocery hoarding here. I'm simply a guy that is going to tell you what I've done to save here and there.

Food Lion is where I normally go to buy the bulk of my groceries. Their prices are reasonable, and it's cheaper than Harris Teeter, unless HT is having a sale on specific items. This week, Food Lion had 1 pound Gwaltney sausage on sale with your MVP card. So I saved .90 cents total off three rolls. Sausage doesn't get enough respect as a tastier alternative to ground beef, so I'll probably use that along the way. I'll let you know how that goes. They also had their boxed Pasta Roni and Rice-A-Roni on sale, 10 for $10. I'll take six, thank you very much. That should easily be two weeks worth. That price is .50 cents off for every two, so I saved $1.50. Doritos brand nacho chips were on sale. I was going to cook some sort of taco salad dish anyway, so that was a good find, especially at $1.79 off retail. They also had pre-packaged pork tenderloins for $1.00 off. All in all, I saved $6.40 off for a total of $63.84, almost 10% exactly.

Looks good to me!

But it isn't about just finding a sale.

Sometimes you have to go to places you don't normally associate with grocery buying. Big Lots for example. Sure, a lot of the items are off brand, but you have to be willing to let go of your name brand hang-ups if you're living on the cheap.Take for instance, granola bar and multigrain bars. Sure, they might be high in carbs, but are a relatively healthy snack at work. And for $1.25 and $1.50 (the ones pictured) per box, depending on which ones you're getting, that's a good deal. Compare that to putting $1 in the snack machine every day.