As you may remember, I used to be a Coupon Queen. I was the one who would be in front of you in the check out line with 47 coupons and a cart full of groceries. After the cashier spent ten minutes subtracting out my coupons, my receipt total would be somewhere in the $24 range for a cart full of food.
If indeed we can call it food. I wasn’t exactly using coupons to get fruits and vegetables, you know? But shucks…most of it was free! Free poptarts are great, right?
Learn to make healthier, homemade poptarts if you need a poptart fix!
Well, as you know, we’ve changed our ways a little bit entirely and now I shop completely differently. (You can read this post to learn how I grocery shop. And you can read this entire series to learn about our Healthy Eating Journey.) I now recognize that spending money on good, whole foods is a perfect investment in our overall health.
But I still love finding great deals on great groceries!
This is where the “Thank You!” part of this post comes in. Remember how I mentioned that if you sign up for Shop it to Me…I could earn free gift cards? Well…several of you signed up, which means that I earned several free gift cards. I appreciate it so much! There were several gift card choices…but of course…I chose the cards for Whole Foods!! Who can pass up free groceries at Whole Foods??!
Matt and I were able to hit a Whole Foods store while we were away for the weekend at the Weekend to Remember conference. (Yes, part of our romantic weekend was spent shopping for asparagus. You know your relationship is solid when you can lovingly gaze at organic produce together.)
Not only did I have a few Shop it to Me Whole Foods cards to use…I had been doing my homework and had put together some coupons to use during our outing. It brought back memories and I have to admit that I felt quite giddy as I actually put coupons into an envelope again. I really haven’t done that (to this extent) for a long time. (Yeah I know…I’m a geek.)
The kids were pretty happy to see us when we got home…especially when they saw we had brought home cereal and yogurt!! (Hey guys…didn’t you even miss us just a little bit?)
We stocked up on chicken wings and boneless, skinless chicken breasts because I just don’t have a great source for those nearby. We found great deals on lettuce, asparagus, apples, pears and zucchini…Larabars, yogurt, butter and cheese.
And then, because they were on sale, because I had coupons and because they are gluten free…we splurged on a few items I lovingly call “organic junk food” that we’ll save for a rainy day. Cereal and chips…woohoo! Malachi sure does look disappointed with our loot, huh? :)
I had also been sent a Brat Hans Sausages coupon so that I could try them for free! We cashed in on that and WOW, you should have seen the boys when they found those in the bag! I thought they were going to eat me when they saw them! They must feel they have a brat deficiency or something?
So thank you to all who signed up for Shop it to Me …you made our Whole Foods shopping trip very fun!! If you haven’t signed up for Shop it to Me , you certainly can and it wouldn’t hurt my feelings even a little bit. :) NOBODY has to spend any money unless you want to – that’s the beauty of it!!! AND, more importantly, after you sign up, you can tell YOUR friends and family about Shop it to Me so that YOU can receive free gift cards!!!
I did want to note: I normally do the majority of this type of shopping through Azure Standard…Whole Foods is two hours away and I’m blessed to have an Azure Standard drop point right here in my town!! Azure is much less expensive and has everything I need. This Whole Foods trip was a fun splurge, gave me a “grocery store shopping fix” and well…I had gift cards. And coupons. And needed to get Brats, apparently. :)
Do you shop at Whole Foods? Do you have one close to you, or do you have to drive pretty far like I do? What do you like to get at Whole Foods?
I would love to know where you found coupons for HEALTHY food!!! Mind sharing???
btw…The closest whole foods to me is 2.5 hrs.
Whole Foods has a section on their website with coupons (or you can grab a flyer when you walk in the door): http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/coupons/
Plus, you’ll find some coupons for groceries occasionally at Saving Naturally: http://savingnaturally.com/
You’re right though…it’s TOUGH to find organic coupons!
I am spoiled! I have a Jimbos (just like Whole Foods but much cheaper) and a Trader Joes within 5 miles of me! I buy all my produce at Jimbos and eggs, milk and cheese at TJs.
Yep, we have a Whole Foods just 30 minutes away in Omaha. We are lucky enough to have a Trader Joe’s too. I only find I only have to go there once a month or so though. the rest of our shopping is done direct with farmers or online. I’m not crazy about Whole Foods vegan agenda so we try to spend our dollars elsewhere.
I went to a whole foods for the FIRST TIME this weekend, and I didn’t even shop. My BFF and I just had lunch, real quick. The closest one to us is 3 hours away and like I said I had never been. I, however, am very, very glad I had never drug my husband during one of our vacations because he would have become VERY ill just walking into the store. He has a thing about scents, and wowsa – it was overwhelming. I would love to be able to look around though!
I don’t know if you shop walmart much, but that is where I get my organic chicken! I was so surprised to find it there but it is the ONLY grocery store that has it around here.
I am in agreement with you on the scents. The last time we went to the Whole Foods here I was over whelmed by all the different smells. I am very sensative to scents and we had to leave before I got sick. I would love to shop there, but the smell of the soaps and candles when you first walk in is just too much for me.
We have a Whole Foods 15 minutes away. I buy most of my produce (cheaper than our regular grocery store), meat that is on super sale, and my frozen veggies there. Trader Joes tends to run out of what I need so I go there sparingly.
Do you have to purchase anything from Shop it to me in order for you to get gift cards or just to sign up?
No…I’m sorry…I should have been very clear about that. You don’t have to buy anything. I’ve never bought anything from them, I just signed up under a friend so she could get the credit. That’s why I like this deal so much. Nobody has to spend any money!
Cool! I signed up under you a while ago I guess lol. I am asking my
friends and family to sign up for me so I can get a $10 Old Navy gift
card for my daughters rain boots. I just can’t bring myself to pay
$25-$30 for toddler rain boots! Thank you for the website though! =]
i have a trader joe’s nearby and a whole foods. i truly don’t like shopping at whole foods. they’re buying practices are rotten. they are like the wal-mart of natural food stores. not to mention the prices are so high.
when i can’t get what i need at joe’s – i try finding it online or at a mom & pops health food store. i just don’t like supporting whole foods.
We do have a Whole Foods here. I love it and can spend hours looking at stuff without getting bored. My dh usually ends up going to another store and coming back for me. lol
That is awesome! I am so happy for you! But, what I really NEED to know is…did you get your Gjtost cheese? I hope so! :-)
Ha! Funny that you remembered my addiction! No, I actually didn’t get any this time, mainly because I only eat it with apples and I haven’t been able to get large quantities of apples lately. (Those apples in the picture are gone already!)
We don’t have one near us at all. They are working on one about 45 mins away though. I don’t know if I will shop there or not. I’m sure I will at least go check it out once. But I am the Azure coordinator for our town, so I will probably stick with them. :)
Where can I find your homemade poptart recipe? My kids would LOVE them!
Sorry! Just found it: https://www.heavenlyhomemakers.com/homemade-healthy-poptarts
Not even remotely close to me. But I enjoy reading about your outings. :D
I love getting martinellis apple juice from whole foods, which is a good 45 minute drive. I just recently discovered it at kroger and since it was on sale I bought nearly every bottle. I was so happy to find it there too since it’s a 5 minute drive however they were completely out this week. Hoping it’s a restocking issue and not a “no longer carrying this product” issue!” Looks like you came away w some good buys!
We just PCSed (military moved) to Hawaii, and I just found out there IS one here! I’m so excited, because I’ve never, ever been to one (outside of the television’s Top Chef and whatnot)! The best part is it’s only 22.2 miles away! WOOHOO! I can’t wait to check it out! We’re just beginning our healthy foods kick (after a brief attempt before) so I can’t wait to get started. Apparently, things are different on this island and not-healthy food has to be mostly imported from CONUS (continental US) so it just.might.be that this will be the easiest place for us to get in a healthy eating pattern! (That’d so be a God-incidence, wouldn’t it? :D ). Thanks for sharing!!
We travel an hour to get to Whole Foods. We go about every other month. We generally buy staples such as ketchup, butter, cereals, soap, soda made with cane juice, etc. We buy our meat and directly from farmers. In the summer we get fruit and veggies through 3 different csa farms. I like supporting local people!
I love Whole Foods and have one about 30 minutes away. I buy their coconut oil and boneless/skinless chicken thighs. And usually that’s the cheapest place to buy organic apples too. Oh and Hemp Milk. That’s my biggest reason to go. My toddler is allergic to a gazillion foods and that’s the only place I can find Hemp Milk that doesn’t have rice syrup in it. So we buy it by the case and they have it waiting at customer service for me. So nice. I drive over there about every 3 weeks.
Oh….and for the pain of driving 30 minutes to Whole Foods, I always buy myself a cookie for 99c. Extravagant but I don’t care.
You go girl! :)
There is a Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s about 30 minutes from me but we only shop there once a month. I buy mostly meat, chicken breasts and grassfed beef. We also love the grassfed choco milk there, it’s a real treat!
Our nearest Whole Foods is 45 mins. away. Well worth the drive. We have been trying to eat a healthier diet and get rid of “white” junk food. It’s hard finding a great wheat flour. I just recently received Azure Standard’s book in the mail. I live in VA and azure standard doesn’t have a drop here, but I can get UPS to deliver it. Have any suggestions on the best wheat flour from azure standard?
I’d say to get their flour made from hard white wheat – it’s the best in my opinion!
We have Whole Foods and Trader Joes about an hour away. I combine that with Costco once per month. At Whole Foods, I generally only buy grass fed hotdogs, the occasional healthy sausage, sometimes meat, and sometimes local milk. They are very expensive. I like Trader Joes more for my produce and frozen foods. TJ’s just now has my favorite hot dogs, so I may get to skip Whole Foods entirely most months. I just wish we had Azure Std on the east coast.
I agree!!! We live in PA… and I love one! The nearest WF is 2 hrs away. :-(
I have a Whole Foods about 20 minutes away but rarely go. There is only really one thing I can only get there: red lentils. I make a delicious daal that I rarely make because it’s so inconvenient to make an out-of-the-way trip for one item. Of course, when I finally decide to go and stock up on red lentils this past weekend, they’re out! That was very frustrating haha.
There are almost 5 (one is coming soon) Whole Food stores in Houston, but on a “good” day, that’s 30-45 minutes away, and we don’t have a Trader Joe’s within a couple of states…on the rare occassion, when we venture that far, we usually go to Central Market instead…wonderful chicken, spinach and feta sausages…they have a good produce selection as well…oh, and can’t forget the bulk bins!! I also haven’t tried the Rice Epicurean market down the street from CM, maybe when my four rambunctious children get a bit older… :)
Our Whole Foods is 35 minutes away, and we go there a couple times a month. We generally buy yogurt, milk, meat, chocolate and coffee there. I used to buy almost everything there. Switching to Azure for most of our other products has really helped us get more organic food for our dollar.
We do not have a Whole Foods, but we do have a Co-op. I love the selection, the prices, and the people. Also? My kids absolutely ADORE Gorilla Munch! :) Enjoy.
I’ve just recently started goingto Whole Food. We are blessed to have about 3 in a 30 mile radius here in KC. At first, I was scared. I don’t know why, but all the organic food intiminated me. MoneySavingMom.com post the deals for Whole Food’s each week!
We have some friends that work there, so we are allowed to give them our coupons and use there discount on top of everything! :)
WF is about a half-hour to 45 minutes from us, but my husband just got moved to a different location for work and now he drives right by one every day! I am very happy because they have a local, low temp pasteurized, non-homogenized milk that we really like. It is almost the same price I am paying for ultra-pasteurized, homogenized organic milk at my regular store, so I’m thrilled to be able to drink really nice milk again! I wish raw milk were legal in our state.
We get what we can from local farmers. Then most of what we can’t get from farmers, we get from Whole Foods. We also get some things from Costco. Whole Foods CAN be pricey, but I try to use their coupons when I can, buy their label when I can, and just find ways to stretch what I DO get. Recently, they had a one-day sale on organic whole chickens at 1.69/pound – limit 10. I bought 10. Our local farmer sells whole chickens for 3.99/pound. (I can usually get at least 2-3 meals out of one whole chicken for our family of 6.)
We have it all, and close. But I seriously can not afford to shop there regularly. I try to feed my family as wholesome as possible, but with coupons and sales I can keep it under $50/wk. I realize the economy of scale when it comes to buying things like wheat and such, but we have been having a seriously difficult time financially, and the money just is not there.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this site. I stumbled on it “accidentally” when looking for a recipe for cinnamon rolls. My family has been trying to eat better. We are a family of seven that homeschools and on one income. Saving money is essential when I shop. I’m always telling others about how much I saved and where. I’ve already passed on this site to a loved one. I’m so excited to see what is next! Thank you so much.
I dislike that all the coupons I come across are for junky food we don’t get or crazy chemicals we don’t use to clean the house and ourselves. Just this weekend, Hubby asked why I don’t coupon more to save money and I had to re-explain that most coupons are for products we just don’t need or want. Occasionally we get coupons for cassadian farms organics, etc. but that’s rare.
My whole foods is a half hour drive, so it’s more like a field trip than grocery shopping when we go there. my kids LOVE ‘gorilla kix’ as they call them! They ask for them every time we go shopping! :-)
I have a WF about 15 min from me. I mainly get produce, wellshire turkey hot dogs (nitrite and nitrate and preservative free), eggs, keffir, refill my 5 gal jug with reverse osmosis water (no chlorine, flouride, etc), flouride free tooth paste, and organic key lime soda (no high fructose corn syrup) are my main staples but I don’t get these things each time. There are only 3 of us so doing bulk on a lot of things is hard and I don’t have a huge amount of freezer or storage space. I also believe it is important to be willing to spend money on good, whole food as much as possible. I have used some coupons at WF and have also found great coupons and free stuff at Earth Fare, which is similar to WF but smaller and not a great variety with dairy, cold cuts, eggs, etc.
I can just about see a Whole Foods and a Trader Joes from my house. Then again, I live in Rhode Island and can see just about the whole state from my house. :) I like to buy my chicken from WF, and some produce. Nuts and detergent from Joes. I buy other food from the co-op, and much of my summer produce comes from my garden and the local farmer’s markets, which, thankfully, are in abundance around here. So very blessed!!!
I have been shopping at Whole Foods for about six years now. We used to get just about everything there, but now my husband just stops for produce, chicken and maybe toothpaste or a supplement we need on his way home from work. For the past few years I’ve been concerned with some of the food products they carry from China and now the whole GMO thing. I try to go to a family owned natural food store more and get the bulk of our food from co-ops and straight from the farms!!!
Whole Foods does totally spoil you for beautiful, organic produce. Their produce section is the best compared to any store I’ve been to! I just wish they wouldn’t be getting so “Wal Mart”.
A number of years ago I was at a training in another state and some of the other attendees were talking about going to the Trader Joe’s in the area. I had never heard of it and wasn’t into healthy eating at that time so I did not stop. Now I wish I would have! There was a FB page dedicated to getting them to come to a city about an hour from me but, they did not choose our area. Apparently we aren’t the right demographic! :(
I’ve never been to a Whole Foods. We have one about 45 min. away and I guess I better make the trip. We do have a Trader Joe’s in town. I am very thankful for their small stores…makes it very easy to get what you need and get out. They also don’t move their merchandise around much so I can find things easily.
We are blessed to have a good health food store in town. I often go there, but their prices are high. Their staff is incredibly knowledgeable, which makes up for the prices. I’ll plan a Whole Foods trip soon!
I love that you and your husband can shop together! So romantic! (I have a shopping/cooking husband too–they are the best!!)
Super far away and we live in a city, so we would never drive the 3 hours to the next city (DC) to the WHole foods, I wish they’d come to our city!
We’re pretty lucky. I only have to drive about 20 minutes to get to our nearest Whole Foods… and there are two others within another 10 minutes. :O) I LOVE WHOLE FOODS!!! If only Azure could accept food stamps… now that would be perfect! Maybe someday. At least our local farmer’s market accepts food stamps, so I can get good local, organic produce during the summer and fall.
Our whole foods is 45 min away in another state. I usally buy ritz like crackers (I vote for trying that recipie next, good luck!) pop and syrup. We have a natural grocers which is good and has great only organic produce. My king soopers also has a lot of organic.
There is a site organicdeals.Com that has a link to coupon sites. Also you can go to the manifcuters site and they sometimes have coupons.
Living Naturally Organic grocery food printable coupons.
Organic Valley Organic Valley Soy, Milk and other printable coupons.
Mambo Sprouts Organic and Healthy grocery food printable coupons.
We have Whole Foods downtown and I think that’s the reason I don’t shop there! I hate driving those busy streets! My hubby and I have been there on dates, though! :)
We also have 4 other “health food” stores that are closer to us: Sprouts, Sun Harvest, Newflower, and Central Market. They are certainly smaller stores(our Whole Foods is huge!), but the prices are better- and they’re all less than 10 min. away. We are spoiled living in a big city. But sometimes I feel that life would be simpler if I didn’t have so many choices!
I start my grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s and get most of what I need. Then I hop across the street to Whole Foods to get some organic produce and maybe a couple other items. I also order from Azure. I am very blessed to live in Long Beach, CA which has everything – sometimes TWO of everything! :)
My favorite site to save money on organic products is
http://healthylifedeals.com
She has a long list of Organic Printable Coupon
She coupon deals for Whole Foods
She does coupon deals for Trader Joes