HEB stinks!

My local HEB grocery store has jumped on the bandwagon and is "remodeling" their store. Here's what "remodel" really means:

1.) Make the aisles of the groceries most often bought much more narrow.
2.) Make the aisles for the new products, i.e. kitchen appliances, wider.
3.) Rearrange everything so consumers have to spend more time looking around for stuff, thus spending more time in the store and hopefully spending more money.
4.) Rearranging the whole store layout to try to get rid of the "shop the outsides" of the store mentality.

I will not let them win. Plain and simple. . .they will not win!

Quick Walmart Trip

I had a couple of coupons expiring and I had been waiting a long time to use them. I still hadn't found any deals, but I found an okay price.

3 Johnson's body lotion - $3 each - 3 $2 MQ = $3

1 Craft flowers - normally $2.97 on sale for $1.50

Total before sales and Q: $11.97

Total sales: $1.47

Total Q: $6.00

Total OOP w/ tax: $4.87

Target trip

Transaction #1
1 Keebler Fudge shop cookie - $2.54 - $1 MQ = $1.54
1 All Bran Cereal - $3.19 - $2 MQ = $1.19
1 Kellogg's Special K Vanilla Almond Cereal - $2.89 on sale for $1.88
7 Kellogg's Mini Wheats - on sale for $1.88 (from $2.84 originally) - 5 $1 MQ and 1 BOGO MQ = $6.28

Total before sales and Q = $28.50
Total sales = $7.73
Total Q = $9.88
Total OOP = $10.89

Plus, I am going to put in for the Kellogg's Fuel for School $10 rebate program. After receiving the $10 rebate, I will have paid $0.89 for all that cereal goodness.

** I could have bought all Mini-wheats and made a profit, but I know I would have gotten tired of one brand of cereal. Because of that James and I decided to break up the varieties just a little bit.



Transaction #2
4 Duncan Hines cake mixes - $0.97 - 4 $0.50 MQ = $1.88
1 Secret Deodorant - $2.34 on sale for $1.99 - $1 MQ = $1

Total before sales and Q = $6.22
Total sales = $0.35
Total Q = $3.00
Total OOP = $2.87

I'm not as proud of this transaction, but we did need cake mixes for the cookie bars I make that James likes.

**UPDATE**

Some of you may remember my rant on the Swiffer rebate program, check it out here. Good news, they changed their minds and decided to send me the $8.00 rebate check. Maybe they aren't so bad afterall?

Review: Alexia Crunchy Snacks

I have been looking for the Alexia products at stores around here for awhile and finally found them at Walmart of all places. You can read about their products here. On the ad from a magazine I read the products are described as:

"With Alexia Crunchy Snacks, we set out to provide you with a NATURALLY EXTRAORDINARY snacking experience. We start with thick-cut Russet potatoes- not pressed or formed, like chips- and use carefully selected herbs and spices so the taste comes through. With bold flavors and an irresistible crunch, it's one crunchy snack with a lot to brag about.
* 100% Natural Russet Potatoes
* No Artificial Preservatives, Flavors or Colors
* 0 g Trans Fat per serving"

Here's what I can say about them. . .they are okay. Not the greatest and not the worst. They kind of taste like waffle cut fries that were cooked until they were very crispy and then allowed to set out at room temperature for a long time. We tried the Hot - pepper flavor and it is not really that flavorful. Every now and then while chewing I caught a hint of flavor, but not much.

I think these snacks are too expensive. They were normally priced at $2.98 but were on "sale" for $2.48 at Walmart and I had a $1 coupon. I can't even really say they are worth $1.48 for 5 oz. I did fill out a BOGO free Q order from the company. Maybe James will like one of their other products. We will probably not be spending any more money on this. Hopefully someone else really likes these products.

Cookies and RAIN!!!

Let me first say . . . We are getting rain right now! It is a hard steady rain that we've had for about ten minutes. I don't know how long it will last, but I am super grateful for it.

Now on to the real reason for today's post - cookies! I made two batches of them yesterday on my day off. I have a huge stack of recipes that I want to try so I grabbed the first two recipes that I came to in which I had the ingredients. Of course I modified one of them a bit, so I'll post my modifications.

The first recipe is DOUBLE CHOCOLATE OAT COOKIES from an old Hershey cookbook. My modified version is below:

2 cup chocolate chips, divided

1/2 c butter, softened (I only use real butter in cookies)

1/2 c sugar

1 egg

1/2 t vanilla

1/2 c flour

1/4 c whole wheat flour

3/4 c quick cooking oats

1 t baking powder

1/4 t baking soda

1/8 t salt

Melt 1 cup of choc chips in microwave, being careful not to burn the choc, and set aside. Beat butter and sugar together; add melted chocolate, vanilla, and egg. In a separate bowl mix the flours, oats, baking powder and soda, and salt. Mix the two blends together and stir in the rest of the choc chips. Using a small ice cream scoop, drop dough onto ungreased cookie sheets (I used silpat sheets). Bake 8 - 10 minutes. I refrigerated the dough for a couple of hours before baking because my house was already hot when I mixed up the dough and the cookies turned out well.

Second recipe was from the Taste of Home August/Sept 2007 magazine. CHOCOLATE CHIP OATMEAL COOKIES were good. I would definitely decrease the amount of sugar by a quarter or a half. They are a little sweet, but the vanilla pudding gives them an awesome flavor. This recipe yields a ton of cookies so I froze half the cookie dough for a later time.

Small June ReCap

I didn't keep track of our grocery budget during the month of June because James is in charge of cooking during the summer. Unfortunately, he is not as big into grocery savings as I am but he is doing a good job taking over the cooking duties for the summer.

June totals:

7 books read

15 magazines read

9 freebies received including several Q for free products

1 rebate received ($1.97) (I've slacked off of rebates since I am not really deal shopping lately.)

Hopefully when the summer is FINALLY over and I am done with my summer job I'll be able to get back into the big game.