Each week, I will report my biggest success in saving at the grocery store. Last night I went to Albertsons. Here is how my shopping trip went.

1 lb. Roma tomatoes at $.50/lb
3 pork roasts or a total of 13.5 pounds(buy 1 get 2 FREE)
3 Kellogs Special K boxes of cereal ($2.00 each, plus $1.00 coupon for purchasing 2=$1.67 each)
2 Kellogs Special K bars ($2.00 each, plus $1.00 coupon for purchasing 2=$1.50 each)
10 cartons of Yoplait yogurt (10/$4, plus a $0.40 coupon=10/$3.60)

Total Spent=$34.83
Total Saved=$59.79

What I could have done better: Albertsons was not doubling coupons this week, so I didn't save as much money on the yogurt as I wanted. I also wish that I had another coupon for the Special K products. Oh well.

Ever heard of Swagbucks? Swagbucks is a search engine powered by Google and Ask.com that rewards you "Swagbucks" for some of your searches. You can earn up to 3-4 Swagbucks a day just by searching the internet. Yes, I was skeptical at first, but I have already earned 47 Swagbucks! I now have enough Swagbucks to buy a $5 Amazon gift card. There are several different gift cards available to purchase with your Swagbucks, including Target, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes. You can also spend your Swagbucks by entering sweepstakes to win bigger and better prizes. To me, this is like gambling. I'd rather use my Swagbucks towards something I am guaranteed to get.

What is the catch you ask? Well, you do have to download the Swagbucks toolbar. Then, use the Swagbucks search engine for your internet searches. I have found that Swagbucks search results are heavily populated with sponsored results. This is fine if you are shopping or casually surfing the internet. However, if you want meatier search results, use the real thing-Google.

There are other ways that you can earn Swagbucks, such as typing in codes, signing up for promotional offers, shopping through the Swagbucks site, promoting Swagbucks through your social networking site, etc.

Bottom line: get paid to do something you already do anyway-search the internet. Free money never hurts!

Hot Prints is giving away 1 free photo book each month this year! Shipping and Handling is free as well. This is a great gift idea or keepsake. I made a photo book (from Snapfish though) for the great grandparents this year. They loved it!

Thanks Deal Seeking Mom!

NOW is the time to stock up on Christmas wrapping paper, bows, tags, and Christmas cards. Most stores have these items marked down 50-75% off. Hurry, because they won't last long.

Winter does a number on my skin, especially my hands and feet. I love using sugar scrubs to exfoliate, but they can be really expensive. I found a simple recipe from Care2 Make a Difference for a sugar scrub you can make with the ingredients in your pantry. The recipe makes quite a bit, so you can either store it in an airtight container for a few weeks or make a smaller batch.

Here it is:

1/2 cup sugar
Enough cold-pressed oil (olive, wheat germ, peanut, corn, or sunflower) to dampen the mixture

Gently massage this exfoliating scrub all over your body and face before you shower with a light soaping and rinse. Repeat once or twice a month.

That's it! Simple, huh? Care2 Make a Difference also has recipes for 4 other sugar scrubs. You can get as fancy as you want by adding essential oils, spices, and different varieties of sugars and oils.

My favorite store for produce, organic items, and specialty items is the Sunflower Market. For those of you fortunate enough to have one in your area, I hope that you frequent it. If not, repent now!

The Sunflower Market currently has locations in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah with four new stores (including one in Longmont, CO) scheduled to open this year!

Each week, the Sunflower Market has outstanding deals on produce. A couple of weeks ago, they had pints of blackberries on sale for $0.67!!!! They are normally $3.99. Some of the amazing deals in Colorado this week (through January 6th) include:

Hass Avocados 33¢ each

Tropical Mangos 33¢ each

Red “A” Potatoes 29¢/lb (these rarely go below $0.50/lb)

Roma Tomatoes 77¢/lb

Eggplant 88¢ each

Broccoli 88¢/lb

Bosc, Anjou, Bartlett, Red, and Comice Pears 88¢/lb

Italian, Yellow, and Mexican Gray Sqaush 88¢/lb

Assorted Pork Loin Chops $1.27/lb

Center Cut Pork Loin Chops $1.99/lb

Ground Turkey $1.99/lb

Thanks Carrie from SpringsBargains for posting these deals!

If you go to the Sunflower Market:

1. Bring your own canvas bags. The store offers a $0.10 credit for each bag you bring from home. If you don't have any, they will bag your groceries in their plastic bags at no charge.

2. Shop on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are double ad days. That means that all of the sales from the previous week and the upcoming week are on at the same time!

3. Remember to compare the Sunflower Market's prices with other store sales. Although the ads will most often reflect the cheapest prices on produce available, there are some exceptions. For example, this week Roma tomatoes are less expensive at Albertsons than at Sunflower Market (at least in Colorado).

Saving money on groceries is the easiest way to start saving money. Here are 5 simple things that you can do to cut your grocery bill immediately!

1. Sign up for a store loyalty card. These cards offer additional markdowns on items throughout the store. If you don't use them, you are throwing money down the drain.

2. Read the ads and compare prices at different stores. This sounds simple, but many people do not take the time to do this.

3. Clip coupons. Coupons can be found on the internet, in store fliers, and in the Sunday newspaper. If you do not subscribe to your local newspaper, you might consider doing so. I subscribe to the local newspaper, but I only have the Saturday and Sunday editions delivered. This way, I am not paying for the days when there aren't any coupon inserts. Discounted Newspapers offer discounts to new subscribers of up to 50%. I pay about $2.50/month for my weekend subscription. If I use only five $0.50 coupons during the whole month (which I always do), my subscription has paid for itself.

4. Consider buying store brands instead of name brands. I am a big fan of Kroger and Great Value products.

5. At the grocery store, compare cost per ounce (or pound or whatever unit of measurement the product uses). The red arrow below this tag indicates the location of the unit price-in this case it is 9.80 cents per ounce. Buy the item with the lowest unit price. Generally, if there are two different sizes of the same item, the larger of the two items will have a lower unit price (but not always, so be careful).