My new grocery shopping strategy

Hi everyone

I apologize for my lack of posts. I've just had a lot on my plate lately. 

I've decided to increase our grocery budget, because it's just plain hard to keep up with the ever increasing prices.I've increased it to $400 per person per month. This includes food, HBA & cleaning. My goal is to only spend $300 p/m, but I'll take whatever savings I can get. 

To add insult to injury, Kroger kept skipping MI with the egg sale price. Well, the last time I went to the store for sale eggs, I saw a sign that our state passed a law that only Cage Free eggs can be sold in grocery stores. That explained our high egg prices. That's fine with me. I'm all for better quality food, but I sure wish they would pass a law for better meat. None of that 'broth' filled junk and stuff that doesn't even look or taste like meat. I told BF that I'm gonna check Trader Joe's & Whole Paycheck (aka Whole Foods) for organic chicken. I bought grass fed ground beef at Sams and what a difference that was in flavor and it doesn't even cost much more than their regular ground beef. I've noticed that their regular ground beef smelled & tasted different for the past month, hence my decision to try the grass fed beef. That's now my new ground beef of choice.

BUT

I still need to do something about the financial side of shopping. Walmart has been my go-to store since just before the pandemic, because of their low prices. Well, for the past year I've noticed that many of their store brand prices are now higher than some of the grocery store name brand prices. Then I switched to doing the bulk of my shopping at Sams (which I love) and the rest at Walmart & just cherry picking at the other grocery stores. 

Change of plan. Sams will remain my go to store. I will then fill in the gaps with sale items from Kroger, Meijer & Target. These stores also offer coupons and rewards, which add to the savings. Aldi has always been a cherry picking store for me. I mainly pick up bread, pie crust and a select few produce items at Aldi. I noticed that their eggs are 70c more than Kroger's. I'll still continue doing my drugstore shopping, although the deals are becoming more scarce.

I won't be purchasing everything at Sams. I noticed a Wags deal for Nature Made supplements for 99c, so I decided to stock up on my Iron pills. It turns out that the sale price is just for Zinc pills. My iron is $17.99/365 ct at Wags. So I decided to check Sams and saw that they charge $10.98/365 ct. Guess where I'm getting my supplements from. The same thing happened when we ran out of oatmeal (which I use for baking too). Sams unit price was way less than Walmart's. However, their Tide cost more than Target's (which also comes with coupons and usually a gc deal). Well, I'll use my discounted Target gcs (10% off) to roll into the Tide deal. 

I've always comparison shopped. The internet makes it so easy for us to find the best prices for things that we need. It takes a bit of time, but it's definitely worth the savings. Here's to hoping we can stay under budget while still living well. 

Have a wonderful evening peeps. Stay healthy safe & warm.