Bargain of the Day -- Ground Beef

While home visiting my parents I went to Wegman's since its right near them. Sure enough, they do sell as a regular price, 90/10 Ground Beef for $1.99/lb! That's as much as half off of what I would pay at some other stores. Admittedly you have to buy in bulk, with the smallest being about 6 lbs, but all you need to do is divide and freeze and you are set for tailgates, Saturday nights or whenever else you need ground beef. What I like best is that this price is even lower than what I have seen 80/20 (with far more fat content) so you are not only saving money but eating healthy too!

And while we are on the subject of Wegman's, they have milk on sale through 10/3 for $2.29, which is at least .70 less than what the new lower standard price around here (VA) of $2.99 is.

Calling all (Diet) Coke addicts..

This Bargain of the Day tip comes in today courtesy of a Virginia reader.

She was in Harris Teeter last night and realized they were selling 12 pack/12 oz cans of Coke products for 4/$10. So one package is $2.50.

Easy math here. $2.50 divided by 12 = .21! So than means you can get your Diet Coke fix (or regular Coke, Sprite or whatever you fancy) for less than a quarter!

By way of comparison she stopped at 7-11 on the way home and found the same Diet Coke can for $1.01, five times more.

Harris Teeter sale runs until Tuesday at 11:59 pm.

This is one of many examples that shows how buying in bulk, when you have the space for it, really REALLY pays off!

Bananas Bananas!

This is clearly a Bargain of the Day if there ever was one!

Trader Joe's sells their bananas EVERY DAY for 19 cents each! Most other stores in my area are either 2 for a $1 or 50-60 cents a pound. Our son loves bananas so the savings add up. I usually go to TJs on Fridays and buy a bunch of our staples from there at one time, and bananas are always on the list!

Happy Saturday!

Bargain of the Day -- Eggs

BoD -- 12 Large Eggs at Trader Joes are always .99 cents! While I can't give exact price for the other stores (I know, I know I need to get better about that, working on it) I know they usually run more than $1.50 and sometimes close to $2.

Have a great weekend!

Money in a bottle

Two points for today. First, money matters.

A good way to "save" money without even trying is putting spare change at the end of the day in a bottle or jar. We use one of those big plastic water bottles. Our plan usually revolves around summer vacation. We need money for gas, and gas has not exactly been cheap of late. For our vacation we drive to Upstate New York, about 11 hours from home. We easily spend $100+ on gas. But instead of charging this and making our vacation more expensive than it already will be, we use our change. Some years I have had as much as $130 in the jar!

One way to build up this nest, is to literally put all the spare money --change and bills $5 and under -- in the jar at the end of the day. It helps if it is difficult to get the money back out. Set a start and end date.

The year we had $130 we were helped by selling some things on Craigslist, so that was unusual. But this past year, even despite our challenges we still had more than $50. I can't say how much exactly because Chevy Chase changed their policies. They used to have a money counter you could use for free to count your coins. Then they changed it so you were charged if you brought in more than $100. Now, a few weeks ago when I went in, they charge you if you have more than $5. I am not paying some machine to count my money for me. So, we carried around the bag for awhile, used it to pay meters, park fees, ice cream, and anything else random. But we are asking God for a lot right now, and the other night I decided it would be nice to just donate the bag. So I put it in the Sunday collection.

Its great to see the money grow and it was always exciting to see how much money we had in there after the year. We are not perfect so we definitely raided the cookie jar from time to time, but getting in the habit of putting our money away and saving for a rainy day is fun, especially if you can watch it grow.

BARGAIN of the DAY: We had to go buy Dishwasher detergent today. It was 2.5 months since we bought it last. We paid $3.50 for it at Giant, 75 oz, powder. This compares with more than $5 for Cascade powder at Giant. We were at Target yesterday and their powder detergent was $3.79 I believe.

I got lucky at Giant, my seltzer was on sale too. So two one-liter bottles for $.80, not bad!

UPDATE: Aug. 22, 2009 -- I purchased Electrosol brand detergent, that was on sale. I should have just bought the generic Giant brand, if memory serves it was the same price and I have used in the past. I am very disappointed in the Electrosol, it leaves a film on my silverware and glasses that reminds me of an old detergent commercial (Cascade perhaps?) Anyway, haven't decided if I am going to keep using or scrap all together, but wanted it out there -- Electrosol, not so good :(