February Grocery Challenge - Day 1

Here are the rules I've set out for myself this month:

$400 grocery budget, includes all groceries, pet supplies, eating out and health and beauty aids with the following exceptions...

One eating out freebie (cause the kids are out of school on 2/20 and an all out brunch is our tradition).

Girl Scout cookies. Yes, the family is demanding that I find a Girl Scout and buy some cookies. At $4.00 a box that can blow a budget pretty quick but I figure it's contributing to a good cause.

$20 for donations.

I didn't really need anything today but then I realized today was the last day of the Kroger Mega Sale and there were a couple more deals to be had. Plus, I had a $5 ECB at CVS that expires on 2/4/17 so I needed to roll it. Here's what I ended up with...

Total paid: $6.26, $2.58 of which was tax

Here's the breakdown...

Kroger

I did two separate transactions of the exact same stuff because my Axe and Vaseline coupons specified that I could only use two like coupons per transaction. All items were Mega Sale items where you 'Buy 6, Get $3 off."

2 Axe deodorant @ 2.69

2 Vaseline lotion @ 2.99 sale price (regular price 3.69)

2 Azteca 10-ct tortillas @ 0.99 sale price (regular price 1.49)

subtotal 13.34

- 3.00 (Mega Sale)

- 2.00 Axe coupon
- 2.00 Axe coupon
- 2.00 Vaseline coupon
- 2.00 Vaseline coupon
- 0.25 Azteca coupon
- 0.25 Azteca coupon
  1.84
+0.66 tax (on $9.36 which was the Axe and Vaseline price after Mega Sale discounts)
$2.50

All coupons were from the 1/29/17 Sunday newspaper inserts.

Next stop was CVS. There is nothing I need from CVS this week however I have a $5 ECB that expires on Saturday so I needed to "roll" it - by that, I mean I needed to buy something with it this week that produced another $5 ECB so I could essential extend the expiration date of the ECB. I decided to buy Suave shampoo and conditioner.

Deal this week was "Earn a $5 ECB when you buy $15 of Suave, Dove or Tresemme." Suave is priced 2 for $6, or $3.39 each. I also had a CVS coupon for $4 off a $16 purchase of Tresemme or Suave Keratin products, plus $3 off 2 Suave coupons from the 1/29/17 Sunday paper inserts, and the $5 ECB. So...

3 bottles of Suave Keratin shampoo
3 bottles of Suave Keratin conditioner
subtotal 18.00
- 4.00 ($4 off $16 Suave CVS coupon)
- 9.00 ( 3 x $3 off 2 Suave coupons)
- 5.00 ECB
  0.00
+1.26 tax (on $18)
 $1.26, plus I earned another $5 ECB

CVS is notorious lately for coupons not wanting to scan. All my Suave coupons kept beeping when they were obviously cut out from the newspaper and for the correct product so the cashier ended up manually putting in $9.00 for all the coupons instead of over-riding each coupon separately.

Everything I bought today is going to the food pantry except the tortillas. We're having enchiladas later this week.

February Grocery Spending: $0.96
February Donation Spending: $5.03