Happy Ad Wednesday!

Corn! 8/$1! I love 25c corn, and what’s even better is when it’s half that!! I’ll freeze some, and make corn pudding, and have ears of corn at both Saturday and Sunday supper. Yay corn!

Organic grapes are $1.98/lb (Sprouts)–a great price for a Dirty Dozen item. Conventional are 99c (Fiesta), though, so it’s a budget item for a lot of us.

Fiesta’s got the bone-in ribeye that I love at $6.99/lb. Yes, a splurge they’re advertising for Father’s Day (Dads like steak!), and there’s a Fiesta Limit in effect, so only two with a $10 purchase. Given the normal price is $10.29/lb, I feel it’s worth mentioning here, even though it’s not cheep.

Randalls has the big cheese pizza that feeds my three kids and one extra kid for $5 on Friday.  Yes there is tons of better pizza out there, and if your kids deserve it you might buy it for them.  At $5 this is the pizza my kids will be eating while we argue about what to rent on Amazon and how they might more effectively earn my love.

Don’t Forget: Double Ad Wednesday at Sprouts–last week’s and this week’s specials in effect!

Randalls

corn                                                                       8/$1 (C15)

Pantry Essentials milk, gallon                             $1.99/ea

sourdough bread                                                 99c/ea

$5 Friday

Safeway bacon, 12 oz.                                                 $2.50 ($3.33/lb–not bad for bacon!)

Breyer’s ice cream, 1.5 qt.                                           $2.50/ea

Bush’s baked beans, 16oz                                           $1/ea

Nature Valley crunchy or chewy granola bars, 8 ct.       $1.67/ea

Quaker Life or Captain Crunch Crunchberries               $1.67/ea

Sprouts

cherries                                                                          $1.98/lb

blueberries, 6 oz.                                                             98c/ea

organic red or green seedless grapes                          $1.98/lb (DD)

organic grape tomatoes, pint                                         $1.98/ea (DD)

organic green curly kale                                                   98c/ea (DD)

organic tortilla chips, 10oz                                                 $2/ea

baby back ribs                                                                    $2.99/lb (limit 3 pkgs)

thick cut bacon                                                                   $2.99/lb

HEB

large pineapple                                                               $1.47/ea (C15)

Gala apples                                                                      88c/lb (DD)

organic Fuji apples                                                          $2.48/lb (DD)

green pears                                                                       88c/lb

baby back ribs, half rack, in bag                                     $2.97/lb

HCF split chicken breasts                                                $1.27/lb

Fiesta

red or green seedless grapes                                            99c/lb

peaches                                                                              99c/lb

pork spare ribs                                                                   $1.99/lb (Fiesta limit)

whole cry-o-vac brisket                                                      $2.69/lb (Fiesta limit)

beef tri-tip                                                                            $3.99/lb (Fiesta limit)

long grain or parboiled canilla rice, 3 lb sack                     $1.49/ea

Tree Top apple juice, 64 oz                                                    99c/ea (limit 2)

Wheatsville

organic pluots                                                                         $1.49/lb

Weekly Ads:

Tomato, Tomahtoe

I’m giving in to the stink bugs and calling an end to tomato season. They have proven super-resilient and are giving me tomatoes that aren’t so great, so the plants will be sacrificed to make way for more pepper plants. 

This last haul is everything-plum, sun gold, early girl, and those cute bitty yellow pear shaped ones. 

  

 I’ll be roasting them and packing away I the freezer for sauces later. Love it when I stock the freezer for cheep!

Regrets? I Have a Few

This isn’t one of them though. 

Remember yesterday, when I bought chicken legs for 39 cents a pound?  Look what I didn’t buy for more than 12 times as much–

  
For my mom, who is wondering what this is, exactly: it’s the part they remove to create a steer from a young bull. So, testicles. $4.99 a pound for bull testicles. 

Which I have tried, because they are served at fairs and I, like anyone, am succeptible  to the grease-hazed air at a fair that lulls you into thinking anything that is fried is good and anything good is fried. 

It was not unlike a fried clam, but larger and chewier and with a much larger number of older gentlemen watching me with amusement. 

Chicken legs for Cheepie, no regrets! Cheep cheep!

$18.63 at Fiesta

This is what $18.63 will get you at Fiesta today and tomorrow.  

 

That’s 5 lbs of potatoes back there, along with over 10lbs of chicken legs and 2.63 lbs of keilbasa. Not a bad hauls for less than $20. 

I know, you’re thinking, “Cheepie, what is with the Wonder Bread?” My answer is: I saw a clown on the way in and the rack of Wonder Bread on sale was right there, like a colorful childhood comfort.  

You would have bought it, too. 

Math is Hard

I know math isn’t everyone’s thing. But if you’re a store, and you’ve got a box on the price tag for ‘unit price’, you should know what it means. At least make an effort at some type of calculation. Just putting the price of the item over there again makes it seem like you aren’t even trying. 


I know I’ve ranted on this topic before, but it’s a pervasive, persistent problem. I find examples of this every time I’m in a grocery store. 

Part of stretching a grocery budget is comparison shopping, and without unit prices (or with deceptive unit prices, or changes in ‘unit’ choices) that becomes more difficult. I have no problem pulling a calculator out to figure out what I need to know, but not everyone has my brand of commitment to knowing the answer to this particular problem. 

Maybe I should start writing the correct unit prices on tags? Guerrilla Grocery Correction–coming to a store near you! 

Happy Ad Wednesday!

This week is thin on the ground.  I’m not sure if stores are saving their deals for a big July 4th bbq push, or if we’re in a spring turning summer lull, but there aren’t a lot of deals to report. I’m not gonna sneeze at 25c avocados, though!

A few readers that pointed out that 3.99/lb for pork tenderloin wasn’t really a great price when I listed it a few weeks back have been proven correct.– This week it’s at $2.97/lb at HEB.  I’ll adjust the goalposts for this one.

Grapes hit a new low for the year at 77c/lb.  I can’t remember them getting this cheap last year.  This is the price point where I buy some to let the kids put them on trays out in the yard to become raisins. It’s nutritious! It’s science! It’s cooking! It’s seriously cheap snacks!

Fiesta is the big leader this week, with potatoes (17.6c/lb) and chicken drums (39c/lb) on Friday and Saturday, watermelon for $1.99, and a decent set of sales for the week.

Fiesta

avocados                                                                                     25c/ea

pineapples                                                                                   $1.49/ea

yellow onions, 3lb sack                                                                 99c/ea

Skinner pasta, 12oz                                                                      50c/ea

Challenge butter, 1lb                                                                   $2.49/ea

Sat/Sun ONLY:

seedless watermelons                                                 $1.99/ea  

Come on! You know this is summer in a green package!

Come on! You know this is summer in a green package!

Gala apples, 3lb sack                                                  $1.50/ea

russet potatoes, 5lb sack                                               88c/ea

Key limes, 2lb sack                                                          99c/ea

Fiesta brand canola oil, gallon                                       $4.99/ea

jumbo bag chicken drums                                                 39c/lb  (Fiesta limit)

Eckrich brand smoked sausage, 39.5-42oz                  $3.99/ea (Fiesta limit)

Randalls

red seedless grapes                                                               77c/lb

$5 Friday:

Cinnamon Toast Crunch/Cheerios/Cocoa Puffs              $1.67/ea

raspberries, 6 oz.                                                                      $1.67/ea

Pop Tarts or Nature Valley chewy granola bars                $1.67/ea

Sprouts

whole seedless watermelon                                          $1.98/ea

bscb or boneless thighs                                               $1.88/ea

organic nectarines, peaches and green grapes         $2.50/lb

HEB

cherries                                                                               $1.87/lb

County Post bscb                                                            $1.99/lb

pork tenderloin                                                                $2.97/lb

Happy Shopping!  And as always, let me know if you spot a deal, and follow me on twitter and Facebook to keep up with on-the-spot deals that I find.

Cheep Cheep!

Weekly Ads:

Cheep Happy Hour Date!

A great happy hour deal, except it’s all dang day on Monday! $5 Smoked Chicken Nachos. Plenty of food to make a meal out of, and tasty!  

DH already ate half of that one before I could even snap a photo!  Granted, he didn’t know I was going to take a photo. 

He didn’t know because I didn’t know. Based on a suggestion from a reader, though, I think I’ll start collecting the best accessible happy hour deals and posting them. DH and I often use Happy Hour dinner as an inexpensive date night, and my guess is we aren’t the only ones. So if you have a cheap date night happy hour, let me know!

Blue Bell, How We Love You

This has finally come to pass.


The loss of three Southern Blackberry Cobbler was the hardest hit, felt by DH who thought he had laid in a six month supply. His reasoning here is much like the Kettle Thai chip logic: he’s the only one that likes it, so he knows he won’t have to worry about sharing.

I’d held off tossing them because at first it wasn’t clear that I needed to. Then, we went with, ‘it’s half eaten, so this one is fine’. After that I tried to rationalize keeping it all:

  • Only members of the immediate family would eat it, just in case.
  • We aren’t infants, elderly, or immunocomprimised, so we’ll be fine.
  • The risk is really low of anything happening.
  • The factory was a mess for a long time and we hadn’t gotten sick.
  • It is a horrible waste to throw this much food away.

Eventually possible death overcame all of the objections and we tossed it. I think it was the right choice, but there is a small part of me that thinks I threw out a bunch of perfectly good ice cream.

On the upside, it made room for the pork loin on sale this week.

Fiesta Radio Ads

Did anyone else hear the radio ad this afternoon for pork butt at only 87c/lb at Fiesta until 7pm?

That’s the second time I’ve heard an ad like that–the previous one was for pineapples last month.

Hope some of you got to take advantage of that great deal!

Cheep cheep!

Happy Ad Wednesday!

I know, I’m a bit late, but what great news I have for you!  Pork loins are on sale again!  I love this sale–$1.97/lb is definitely a stock the freezer price.  Portion them out and freeze them and they’re a super handy item to have for an easy weeknight supper.

Spare ribs are also on sale at Fiesta, along with something called ‘beef back finger ribs’.  If you get these, let me know what you did with them, because I suspect Fiesta of making up food again.

Happy shopping Cheepsters!

HEB

corn                                              20c/ea (C15)Screen shot 2015-06-03 at 1.25.10 PM

hot house cucumbers                  77c/ea (DD)

red bell peppers                           77c/ea (DD)

Pink Lady apples                          77c/lb (DD)

peaches                                        77c/lb (DD)

kale greens, bunch                         77c/ea (DD)

organic nectarines                            $2.98/ea (DD)

boneless pork loin, whole in bag      $1.97/lb 

HCF chicken drums or thighs           $1/lb (grackle only)

Fiesta 

yellow onions, 3lb sack                         99c/ea (C15)

red or black plums                                $1.29/lb 

red bell peppers                                  79c/ea (DD)

green bell peppers                              33c/ea (DD)

cluster tomatoes                                   99c/lb 

pork loin chops, family pack             $1.99/lb (Fiesta Limit)

Fiesta bacon, 24 oz                           $3.99/ea (Fiesta limit)

pork spare ribs                                 $1.99/lb (Fiesta limit)

beef back finger ribs                         $1.69/lb

Fiesta long grain rice, 4 lb                 $1.50/ea

Randalls

cherries                                                              $1.88/lb

strawberries, 1 lb                                                 99c/ea (DD)

mini watermelon                                                  $1.50/ea

Pantry Essentials milk, gallon                             $1.99/ea (limit 2)

bscb                                                                   $1.88/lb

Lucerne chunk or shredded cheese, 32oz          $4.99/lb

General Mills cereals, selected varieties             $1.99/ea

$5 Friday only:

raspberries, 6 oz                                                $1.67/ea

mini rose bouquet                                                  $5/ea

Sprouts

red or green seedless grapes             88c/lb (DD)Screen shot 2015-06-03 at 12.24.32 PM

organic red or green grapes              $2.98/lb (DD)

nectarines                                          $1.98/lb (DD)

organic peaches or nectarines                $2.98/lb (DD)

pineapple                                                   $1.98/ea (C15)

Beefsteak or Roma tomatoes                        88c/lb

red D’Anjou pears                                        48c/lb

pork tenderloin                                            $2.99/lb

Store Flyers:

Fiesta

Randalls:   weekly ad     $5 Friday

Sprouts

HEB:      more grackle  less grackle