Wednesday Weekly Shopping: Drugstore blindness

I invite you to link up to your best grocery deals below, to inspire others to save more! 
 
I think I have a disease called drugstore blindness.

You see, I'm so used to having tiny out-of-pocket expenses at the drug stores by combining sales with coupon and using store rewards to pay for the remainder.  So I assume that anything I buy there will cost almost nothing.  So I don't see the expenditure at all.  Hence, drugstore blindness.

I really thought I hadn't spent much at the drugstore and that I'd be under budget this week.  Instead, after totaling up my shopping spreadsheet, I found that this week I spent around $10 at CVS and a whopping $21 at Walgreens, which drove me over budget.  I spent about $88, well over my budget of $80 per week.

So that helps me learn a lesson - make sure to keep those drug store bills low!  And just because I buy items there does not mean that they are free!

On a good note, I did earn some drugstore rewards this week, so hopefully next week my bill there will be quite small.

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

Produce store: Spent $2.58

ALDI: Trip 1 - Spent $16.77

Trip 2 (not pictured) Spent $7.46 on two gallons of milk and two containers of spices

Publix: Trip 1 - Spent $12.21, saved $39.77

Trip 2 - Spent $21.02, saved $40.78

CVS: Trip 1 - Spent $1.47, saved $10.58

Trip 2 - Spent $8.28, saved $9.88

Walgreens: Spent $21.05, saved $23.33

Overall, this week I spent $88.44 for items which retail for $199.03, or a 56% savings based on the retail value of the products at the stores where they were purchased.  (But don't compare percentages!)  My real savings (how much more I'd spend if I bought those items at the lowest possible regular price in my area) was approximately $35.09.

For the year (28 weeks), I've spent $2112.67 for items which retail for $4130.70, and saved $2018.03, or a 49% savings. That's an average of $75.45 spent each week for a family of five (husband, wife, and daughters ages 13, 10, and 6), including lots of fresh produce, dairy items, and kosher meat.

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!