With the recent announcement that after November 11, our Amazon Prime/Amazon Mom discount goes from 20% to 15% – I decided to really stock up during our October subscribe and save order. I continued to find good deals on food we eat regularly, adding them to our order. Before I knew it, the UPS man brought this:
To be clear, the nine year old boy already lives here, the blue cooler was sitting out waiting for farm fresh milk pick-up, the flowers and pumpkins have been on our steps for over a week, and the sacks of apples were delivered last Sunday. Amazon and UPS are good, but they’re not that good.
Did I blow my grocery budget for this month? Why yes I did, thank you for asking. Am I worried about it? No, I’m not. Because I regularly buy in bulk, or grocery budget is very small some months and very large other months. This is obviously a large month. Seeing as I bought the entire internet with this order, giving our family plenty to eat for quite some time, the next few months’ budget look to be quite a bit smaller.
What you see in the picture below is only a portion of our order. There were a 6 t0 16 packs of pasta in each box, and I ordered six different kinds. (That’s 80 pounds of pasta. God bless the UPS man and his back muscles.) With good planning, I will not need to buy pasta until April, 2015. I hope this plan works, as my boys never cease to amaze me with the amount of food we go through.
I got two cases of toilet paper, a case of organic tortilla chips, a super discounted case of Izze soda for a treat, a case of salmon…here, I’ll give you a bullet list. Some of the prices I paid are no longer available. I used coupons for almost everything in my order, as well. I soooo love combining my subscribe and save discount with coupon savings. I get SUCH good deals this way! Not all of these items have come in yet. The UPS man will be busy making deliveries to our house the rest of this week. :)
- case of Larabars
- case of Plum Organics bars
- case if Angel Soft toilet paper
- case of 24 Izze sodas
- case of Talking Rain mineral water
- case of Bearitos organic tortilla chips
- 6 different cases of Delallo organic whole wheat pasta varieties
- case of pink salmon
- case of Quilted Northern toilet paper
- case of cashews packs
- 2 cases of Seventh Generations diapers for a friend
Shucks. When it’s all listed out that way, it doesn’t really seem like much for my household. It only looks huge when it seems that Amazon blew up all over my living room:
Thankfully, we have many (almost) free blessings from our garden that help counter-balance our grocery spending.
In case you were wondering, we did not grow that pineapple in our garden. We Nebraskans are amazing, but we’re not that amazing.
Not only will you have lots of great groceries, you’ll receive fantastic boxes with which your kids can build forts and make messes in the living room. My nine year old was glad to see the Izzes, the pasta, and the chips, but he was very, very excited to see the boxes that hold so much potential for him.
Here are more details about how Amazon Prime/Amazon Mom works with subscribe and save works to save money. Be sure to keep up with our Amazon Deals page for all the latest deals!
How do you work your grocery budget? Do you spend the same amount each month, or do you spend more some months when you stock up and less other months when you don’t need as much?
This post contains affiliate links.
You’ve linked to the 96-count case of Northern bath tissue, but if you buy it by the 48-count case the unit cost is cheaper and it qualifies for the Prime free shipping. That’s probably what you did buy, since you’re a careful shopper.
Oh, no wonder! :)
Yeah, I think this is the link you wanted: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007UZNS5W?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=B007UZNS5W&linkCode=xm2&tag=wwwheavenlyho-20
Much cheaper!
Yep! We’ll still order with the 15%! And love that it comes to our door! Okay, your boy and the boxes reminded me of this…have you seen the book Christina Caterina and the Box? It’s an older picture book about a little girl & a box she turns into all sorts of creations. It may be a little “young” for your boys, but my 9 year old boy creeps over to see & listen when I’m reading it to little sisters! (: I know you love books…and I’m pretty sure I snagged it from Amazon. (:
Sounds like a sweet book – I’ll have to check our library for it. :)
You and I were thinking along the same lines :) Recently, on Shark Tank, a young man was seeking funding to expand his sticker business. His stickers were used to decorate boxes to make them into vehicles of different kinds.
We are doing the same by stocking up with our next order before the discount goes down. Thanks for linking to those chips, haven’t seen those before!
We really like the taste of those chips…and the price!
I shop local sales and do stock up trips to Sam’s Club. We are empty nesters so I have to be really careful not to overbuy no matter how good the deal. I have a monthly budget and what ever is left at the end of the month goes into our savings for a motor home. This really motivates me to be wise and not
overbuy because we really want to get enough money saved up for that tenement on wheels.
In a few years once our boys are all on their own, I am going to REALLY have to figure out how to stop buying in bulk so much – and cooking so much at once. I guess it will happen gradually though, as they leave one by one. Ugh, I can’t even think about it yet. ;)
Wanna try this with your pineapple? :) http://www.kearneyhub.com/news/local/tiny-tasty-pineapple-long-time-in-growing/article_97d1d9f0-7e21-11df-951a-001cc4c03286.html?mode=jqm (I can’t see the article since I’ve read my quota for the month but hopefully you can.)
No. Way. I had no idea this was even possible!!!
Hey Laura, what coupons can you use at Amazon? How does that work? I guess I didn’t realize you could combine the coupons with the discounts and where do you get them? Are they digital coupons. More info please. :-) Thanks for this post!
The coupons I use are some Amazon offers on their site. I combine those coupons with subscribe and save discount. It’s awesome! Here’s how all this works: https://www.heavenlyhomemakers.com/why-i-dont-have-a-sams-or-costco-membership-and-how-i-get-great-bulk-deals-delivered-to-my-door
We just found a great site that automatically gets the best price on a product for your area at walmart. It is called walmart savings catcher. Here’s how it works. Shop at walmart. Enter the receipt number and date(must be within 7 days). They do a search and give you the difference on a walmart gift card. Our first receipt got us over $4 back!
Hmm, I’ll have to check into that. We use Check-Out 51 for deals with our Walmart receipt, but I hadn’t heard of that site. Thanks!
We have a set amount we can spend on food… so there is no leeway to spend more some months….the money just is not available. BUT.. I raise copious * like that word ?) amounts of veggie and fruits here in MA, so I can/freeze/dry etc,.. many things.. and while I feed 6 adults ( well, two of the 4 kids are under 18 , but eat like adults)… 2 of us are vegetarians ( me for the past 35 yrs), and the rest eat very little meat. I make pretty much whatever we eat.. and tho my husband eats tons of junk food, the rest of us do not eat any.
I had not heard about the percent change until your post. Thank you for the heads-up!
Our grocery budget fluctuates as well. Sometimes we try to eat from the freezer and just buy produce and milk. I also try to only buy when things are on sale and I never buy just ONE item anymore. If it goes in the cart, then another gets thrown in as well. That, in itself, saves me money, because I don’t have to rush back to the store and buy when it is not on sale.
I ordered 12 items for November. Especially the more costly ones, before the price goes up. We should have a few extra boxes for the kids as well! :)
I really love having Amazon prime/mom for those items I need but know I won’t be able to get to the store for in the next 2 days. But, one thing I have found is that Amazon prices even with coupons, almost always cost more than what I can find the items for at the store. We are in Minnesota and have an Aldi and Wal-Mart within a half hour. While it’s nice, I wish I could get things for a little cheaper on Amazon and delivered to the door so I wouldn’t have to go out!!
Got to lovegroceries online and UPS I keep waiting for you to post for a great sale on butter. I usually buy Willow Maid from Azure, but it has doubled in price in the last several months.
Yep, I shop the same way you do. I buy in bulk when the buying is good and the money is there. Then on the months money is tight, we live on what we have previously purchased (our income is inconsistent). It’s really hard to see a lot go out on the big months, but then when you don’t have to buy toilet paper for 6 months, you realize its worth it. I’ll be doing a big Amazon order before winter hits. Thanks for sharing your purchases with us.