My Favorite Places to Shop

" She is like the merchant ships loaded with foodstuffs; she brings her household’s food from a far ... She looks well to how things go in her household."   ... from Proverbs 31  

(And okay, she makes us crazy at times, too, but she certainly is inspiring!)  :)

*****

I keep hearing that 1 in 6 people in our Country don't know where their next meal is coming from and I keep hoping that's an exaggeration. But then it comes to me that even if it's more like 1 in 12 (or 24) or even 1 in 100, that's still too many.

So today let me encourage you, let me say--again (I know, I know)--that it's possible, even in 2014, even with grocery prices rising like crazy, to feed your family cheaply.

My two favorite places to shop where the deals are always super?

Debra's Mini-Mart:

And Tom and Debra's Bargain Basement:

These places are conveniently located. They never require annoying drives on snowy nights (or during ice storms or floods or--) to the market for one lone item. They're open 24/7 and I can shop there in blessed quiet. The shelves are stocked with cheap groceries, purchased on sale and with coupons, never at full price.

Here are examples of the weekly savings: 

2 Yoplait Greek Yogurts -- free

3 Marie's strawberry glaze -- free

4 El Monterey breakfast burritos -- free

1 Domino brown sugar -- free

1 Breakstone cottage cheese snack -- .30 cents

2 Coffee Mate Natural Bliss creamers -- .69 cents each

1 Muir Glen organic pasta sauce -- .89 cents

2 Triscuit crackers -- $1 each

1 Cascadian Farm organic granola -- $1.75

1 Earthbound Farms salad mix -- $1.99 (I miss the days when they provided weekly coupons  & I'd get these for .49 cents)

Oh, and I'm still smiling over the 2 boxes of Panko bread crumbs which I bought for just .25 cents each. It was one of those makes-me-feel-like-the-1970's-young-bride-I-once-was. So did the .08 cent taco seasoning mixes and .12 cent Betty Crocker cake mixes.

Here is yet one more area where we can complain and do nothing or we can 'muster our wits' and do what we can. And as I always say:

We are not victims.

We are not helpless.

We can do anything through Christ that He wants us to.

Grace will help us when we rely upon her rather than our own know-it-all heads. (And blaming the Government won't help, either.)  :)

******

Other hints:

Even if you only buy items on sale (enough to last till the next sale) without using coupons, you'll still save hundreds, even thousands of dollars yearly.

My best advice if you want to use coupons? Find a local coupon blogger in your area. Mine has a Facebook page where we Buffalonians help each other--we answer newbie questions and share unadvertised terrific deals and our leader does a weekly match-up of sales and coupons for us, saving us hours of work. (Way back in my Nevada Days, I would have killed given nearly anything for a group like this to have fun with in the Coupon World.)

Contact me at GladOne4@yahoo.com for a one-time email to help you get started couponing big-time.

There are coupons online nowadays for nearly everything and when combined with sales, they make for some inexpensive groceries. And how terrific it feels to use the money saved for other things, other bills, other people ... things which last much longer than food.

*****

"Blessed is he who considers the poor;The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble,The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive." ... Psalm 41:1-2

"In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "   ... Acts 20:35

****

You can request a free sample tube of Arm & Hammer toothpaste here.

Order a free gardener's idea book here.