The Cost of Cheese, and Other Skyrocketing Groceries

Last Friday, as I was doing my Publix Grocery Shopping, I happened upon the dairy case. I noticed that they had big SALE signs for Kraft Shredded Cheese, 8 oz packages. They were on "sale" for $3.00 each. WHAT?!?!?!? Rarely, do I ever pay a fraction of a penny more than .25/oz and they were asking for .375/oz.?!?!?!?!? On sale? You've got to be kidding me! Usually, when I can't find a good deal at Publix, I just pick up cheese at Aldi, but even their prices have gone up lately from .18/oz to .254/oz. I was also almost out of coffee creamer and had no coupons, and alas, no sales this week, and those prices had gone up to $2.39 for 16 oz. Yikes!


So what's a penny pinching girl to do?

I was tickled when perusing the Walgreen's ad yesterday morning, I noticed a coupon for 8 oz. shredded cheese for $1.50 each. That comes in at .1875/oz. So, while out running my errands, I pulled into Walgreen's, took my little coupon with me and came home with 4 bags of cheese (the coupon was limit 4 per purchase). Cheese tends to have a nice shelf life in the fridge, so I will probably do it at least once more this week. That total was $6.60 with tax. --- At Publix, I would have gotten 2 bags for what I spent on 4 at Walgreen's -- and it was totally NOT out of my way!

I also made a run by Aldi and picked up:

3 boxes of Shells & Cheese - ($1.29 each -- Publix brand is $1.89 and $2.89 for Kraft)
1 Vanilla Coffee Creamer (32 oz for $2.19)
Spaghetti Sauce (no huge savings here because Pasta Sauce is BOGO at Publix this week, but Princess really loves this brand)
Dog Treats --- $1.29

Spent $9.31 with Tax.

I'm seeing that I may be needing to adjust my grocery budget --- but for now, I'm going to TRY and keep to it. We'll see how that goes!