BeCentsAble on Channel 9 News

Tomorrow morning, Kansas City locals can tune in to watch Chrissy take reporter Dion grocery shopping on Channel 9 news at 6am. If that seems a little too early then send a sympathetic thought Chrissy’s way and set your DVRs. You won’t want to miss watching Chrissy in action. If you’re coming over after watching the Channel 9 clip, welcome!

To prepare for her shopping trip, Chrissy spent twenty minutes looking over the store circulars to come up with her menu plan for the week and another ten minutes clipping coupons. She planned her menu around the items that were on sale and groceries she already had on hand. One tip for an easy way to find meal ideas based on sale items is to use the ingredient search at allrecipes.com. For example, Chrissy noticed that pineapple is on sale so she used the search to find recipes that called for pineapple.

Here’s what she plans to buy:

5 Kelloggs Frosted Mini-Wheat’s Cereal $1.58
Use $1.50 coupons 4/5 RP
Final price $0.40

10 Dannon Yogurt 6 oz. cups, 10 for $ 4
Use in-ad Hy-vee coupon for $1 off 10
Use $0.60 off 6 coupon from 3/15 SS insert
Final price $2.40

3 Glaceau VitaminWater $1.00
Use $1.00 coupon from 4/5 SS insert
Final price: FREE

2 lbs Green Beans $0.99 lb
Final price: approximately $2.00

4 Fresh Sweet Corn ears $0.25 each
Final price: $1.00

2 Green Bell Peppers $0.50 each
Final price: $1.00

1 Grimmway Farms Carrots 32 oz. bag
Final price: $0.99

1 Hy-Vee Grade A Fresh Large Eggs 18-ct
Final price: $1.28

1 Onion $0.69 lb
Final price: approximately $0.70

Mushrooms, 8 oz
Final price: $1.88

2 packages Ground Turkey, 1.2 lb $2.99
Final price: $5.98

3 Dole pineapple $0.68
Final price: $2.04

1 Skippy Peanut Butter $1.48 (*charity donation)
Use $0.40 coupon from 4/5 Unilever insert
Final price $1.08

Bananas
3 gallons milk
2 boxes corn bread
1 bag whole wheat flour
1 can of peas

1 box Smart Taste pasta

With those groceries and a few items she has on hand she plans to make the following menu of meals for the week. In parenthesis are the items purchased on this shopping trip that were used to make the meal.

Here’s her menu plan for the week:

Dinners:
Whole wheat vegetable pizza (onion, mushrooms, peppers)
Teriyaki chicken (pineapple)
Meatloaf (x2) (with ground turkey)
Spaghetti and meatballs (also with ground turkey)
Tuna casserole
Dinner out with family

Dessert:
Smoothies (yogurt)
Fruit salad (yogurt, pineapple)
Fruit parfait (yogurt, pineapple)

Lunches:
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
Lunch meat and cheese sandwiches
Leftover teriyaki chicken
Homemade macaroni and cheese
Left over spaghetti

Breakfast:
Pancakes
Oatmeal
Cereal
Eggs (eggs)
Egg white vegetable omelet (onions, mushrooms, peppers, eggs)

Snacks:
Yogurt
Fruit
Crackers

Chrissy used a few items she already had on hand to create this menu plan.

Here’s a list of those items already in her pantry, refrigerator and freezer:

Cheese- stocked up at $0.99 last week at HyVee
Ragu- stocked up at $0.99 last week at HyVee
Chicken- stocked up last month at $1.50/lb
Hunts tomato sauce- stocked up at $0.25

She also used frozen strawberries, blueberries, teriyaki sauce, lunchmeat, noodles and tuna from her freezer and pantry.

If the meals sound yummy maybe you can snag a dinner invitation! Chrissy will actually use this menu for the week and she will really be shopping for her family. In addition to buying food for the week, Chrissy is stocking up on cereal and donating the Skippy peanut butter to her local food pantry.

This is the real deal! This is how it’s done!

If you’d like to learn more about the tips and tricks Chrissy used to lower the cost of her weekly grocery trip, be sure to check out all the resources available at BeCentsAble.net including the Grocery Gathering where you can find links to your own local sales and coupon match ups for stores across the country!

If you want to learn how to cut your grocery bill in half, we’d be glad to teach you. Click here for more information about our workshops.

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