this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

The Festival of Frugality is over at Lazy Man and Money today. My post on Christmas activities that cost little or no money was included. One article I particularly liked talks about how millionaires are usually smart shoppers.

In the world of groceries, I decided to opt for planning out two week's worth of meals to take advantage of some good meat sales, and hopefully I bought enough to carry over into the second half of the month too. So I spent $60.61 at the store today. That, however, does not include the chicken I was going to buy. The store was out of what I wanted, so I'll have to go back another day. I don't anticipate paying more than $8 for that, so that still keeps me under $70, and in theory that's for two weeks (minus bread, milk, and some produce which I'll have to buy more of next week) so I'm on track with my $50/week. Maybe.

Some good deals I'm excited about:

• Brownie mix was on sale for $0.89. I had a coupon to save $1/3. That makes each mix about $.56 each.
• Albertson's sometimes gives out a coupon for a free loaf of french bread so long as you call in and do a survey on your shopping experience. I did this last time I shopped there, so I got a free loaf of bread this trip.

And a great deal that I'm excited that I passed up:

• Fruit snacks were on sale at Albertson's for $2 and many of the boxes had a $1 off coupon on them. Great, great deal. But, I realized that I would only be buying them because they're such a great deal, and when does buying something ever really save you money? It's not a normal thing for us to have around the house, and I actually have some now because I bought some for not quite as a great a price ($1.37 - they were on clearance and I used the coupon on the box). I meant for them to be a special treat for our trip, but forgot to take them, so they'll go in Bug's Christmas stocking. Since I'd only be buying them to take advantage of only having to pay $1 for them, I passed.