Kroger: One More Mega Event Trip

We ventured out to do a little shopping today. After snagging the free-after-rebate candy pieces at Kmart, saving 64% at CVS, stopping to order a balloon bouquet for a special 5-year-old, and having a gourmet chili dinner at Wendy's, we headed to Kroger. We had some things to buy for Emma's birthday party, and I wanted to grab a few more of the Mega Event sale items ($.24 Goldfish crackers, anyone??).

We spent: $74.11 ($30.82 regular budget, $43.29 party budget)
We saved: $82.56 (52%)

I split everything into two pictures, because I am not including items for Emma's party in our regular grocery budget. I have separate money for that. Here's what we got for her party. (Click the image to enlarge.)

There are items here for the party meal, decorating the cake, and for lunch with the out-of-towners who will arrive early. I included in the party budget everything that we would not normally purchase for our own meals.

And here's what we got as part of our regular household shopping. (Click the image to enlarge.)

I checked out with everything together, because I had Mega Event items to combine. I included the Pepsi 12-packs in our household picture, because we've been drinking some of what we bought for the party. So I'm being realistic and replacing it from our grocery budget. (No cheating here!)

If you're studying the picture of our regular household grocery trip, you might be wondering what in the world we're going to be eating this week. I promise we're not living on Goldfish crackers and Diet Mt. Dew. (Though that doesn't sound too bad at the moment.) We actually have plenty of "real food" in the house for the coming week. That allowed me to use our regular grocery budget to stock up on some snack foods, replace the pop we've been drinking, and buy natural peanut butter at full price because I love my husband and want to help him keep his cholesterol in check while enjoying peanut butter sandwiches... and I forgot to stock up when it was on sale.... oops. I'm also assuming that we might have some leftovers from the birthday party, so I didn't want to overplan and end up wasting food.

Here are some of the best deals we found:

Dove + Men shower gel - $3.00 (after Mega Event Savings)
-$1.50 off Dove + Men printable coupon
Final Price: $1.50
I know this is free after ECBs this week, but I needed a 10th Mega Event item. I thought $1.50 for shower gel wasn't too bad.

Wheat Thins, Triscuits, Wheat Thin Flatbreads - $1.99 each
Used multiple $2.00 off 2 Nabisco cracker printable coupons (Firefox link HERE)
Final Price: $.99 each
The flatbreads will be perfect with our soup at the party!

Kroger Brand White or Wheat Hoagie Buns - $1.50/8-pack

There are LOTS of wonderful deals on my complete Kroger list for this week.