Well as you know my mom and I went shopping this weekend for all the food we will need for our portion of Thanksgiving dinner this year. I told her I was doing an experiment and I wanted to see how much money she would save by shopping my way! My way, as you all know, includes using what you have in your pantry, looking at the store ads and using coupons to pay the BEST price and not a penny more! We took on Dillons, Hy-Vee and Apple Market... with my toddler even! It took us a total of 2 hours from start (leaving my house) to finish (getting back to my house).If I left it up to my sweet mom she would only shop 1 store, Dillons. She would take a few coupons with her for the brand name items she knows she is going to buy no matter what and then she would get what she needed no matter the price. I followed her around Dillons and priced the items (that we were not buying there) that she said she would buy if I was not with her. According to my calculations she would have spent around $45 for everything on our list. By shopping with me, using coupons and comparing prices she only spent $28! That is a savings of $17 or 33%!
I confess that by the time we were done I really started to wonder "Is this worth it?" I knew we had saved money but I was SO exhausted. I came home and calculated our savings and instantly threw the negative notion that all of this was not worth it out the window because folks saving 33% is totally WORTH IT!
If my mom shopped this way every week, saving at least 33%, she could cut her $400 a month grocery budget down to $270/month. She would save $130 a month or $1,560 a year!!! Now lets say she took that $130 she saved every month and let it sit in her 1% interest bearing savings account for 1 year. She would end up with $1698.48 in her savings account, a net gain of $138.48!
If she decides to get "risky" and put that $130 a month into a 6% investment she would end up with $1741.64 at the end of the year or a net gain of $181.64!
The point I am trying to make is that taking the time to shop the ads and clip a few coupons WILL BE WORTH IT! It may not feel worth it at the time, but if you are wise with what you save it can turn into gain.
4 comments:
I bet it was exhausting just keeping track of all the prices and calculations!
And thanks for taking the time. A great example and proof of savings!
I am like your mom...even one store shopping pushes me when I am having to drag 3 little ones around (or go after bedtime)...you amaze me. Not sure I will ever see the savings you do, but thanks for the encouragement.
Here's a thought (or more)...
When my husband and I started (actually before we bought a thing) at Sam's Club a couple of months ago, we went through and I started writing down prices/sizes of items that we usually buy a lot of that will not perish. After about an hour and only 4 rows of products, I decided to take out my iPhone and snap pictures of the items and prices. Now...I'll tell you that people kind of looked at me weird (any my husband kept a little distance). I came home and created a spreadsheet with the item cost and the per oz/lb (or whatever size) and then took some recent Hy-Vee and Target receipts and logged the information for the same products. WOW!!! For example, we were paying $5.99 for a 24-pack of Aquafina. At Sam's we can get a 32-pack for $4.99!! There are many things that we save money on like this.
Way to be Shannon! Great job!
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