Wednesday Weekly Shopping: The Produce-ers

I invite you to link up to your best grocery deals below, to inspire others to save more!

One of the things about couponing that people often complain about is, "There never are coupons for fresh produce."

However, there can be coupons for fresh produce in a few different ways:

• A coupon directly from a manufacturer (see this coupon from Earthbound Farm),
• A coupon for a different product, giving you a certain amount of produce when you buy another product.  One Publix trip, I was able to save $9 on produce when I bought six loaves of Pepperidge Farm bread.
• A store coupon.  Target often has $1 off fruits and/or vegetables coupons on their website or in home mailers.

Or, you can avoid the coupon issue entirely, and find sources in your community for fresh produce at low prices.  Besides grocery stores, you can check specialty stores, ethnic stores, or farmer's markets.  You never know what you might find!

This is what I did this week.  I found lots of great fruit deals at ALDI, so I loaded up.  I also found a 99¢ produce store that has a 50% off sale on Fridays - so I was able to really load up on fresh produce for not a lot of money! 

I did overspend this week, but not because of the produce.  It was the kosher meat I bought in preparation for the Passover holiday that put me well over my $80 budget this week.  With more Passover shopping to be done over the next two weeks, it will be very challenging to stay on budget!

Here's what I got this week (click on the link below the picture for more details about the trip):

Walmart - Spent $9.92

Western Beef - Spent $7.43

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Kosher Marketplace - Spent $52.09

ALDI - Spent $17.70

Walgreens - Spent $11.03, saved $8.40

Just Produce Farmers Market - Spent $10.76

Overall, this week I spent $110.49 for items which retail for $117.33, or a 6% savings.  (But don't compare percentages!)  Of course, if I compared the ALDI and farmers market prices to supermarket full prices, it would show a lot more savings. 

For the year (14 weeks), I've spent $967.24 for items which retail for $1945.22, and saved $977.98, or a 50% savings. That's an average of $69.09 spent each week for a family of five (husband, wife, and daughters ages 13, 10, and almost 6).

See all my shopping here.

How did your shopping go this week? What bargains did you get? Please leave a link to your blog post about your weekly shopping. The aim is not to brag, but to inspire!  Please link up directly to your post, not to the blog itself. I'd appreciate it if you put a link to Wednesday Weekly Shopping in your post as well. If you don't have a blog, please leave a comment!



For more great shopping deals and trips, please check out the bloggers listed on the left sidebar under Shopping Deals Linkups. There are lots of great ideas on each blog and I'm sure you'll find inspiration for you to save even more!