Sunday, November 20, 2011

Thanksgiving Day Grocery Shopping List... Over $100 in savings!


This is the last weekend for grocery shopping before Thanksgiving Day. The grocery stores were crazy busy today and throughout the entire weekend. They have been packed with wall to wall people from morning to night grabbing all of their food for the holiday meal.

Everywhere you look within the stores you'll find huge end caps stocked high with all sorts of products and various ingredients. There's cardboard racks and stands with vendor products covering every possible inch of floor space not being occupied by a shopper. This is a grocery stores 'main event' and they're making every effort to grab as much of your money as possible while your in their store.

So how can you get everything you need this holiday without spending more than you planned?
The best way is to make a list, and the most important part of making a list is of course... sticking to the list. Did you know that 82% of grocery shoppers make 'impulse' buys while they're in the stores? Well the grocery store knows that, which is why their sales floor is covered in stand-ups, racks, side stacks, hangers, coupon books and anything else they can think of to get you to grab 'just one more' item.
Ever wonder why the milk is in the back of the store? Think about how many items you pass on the way to get your gallon of milk... that's no accident.

Back to the point...

Making a list. Try to make a list for your holiday meal this year. Write down everything you plan to eat and everything you need to make the item. Include all of the ingredients and also anything you and your guests plan to drink with your meal.
Next, go through your kitchen and eliminate any items that you already have at home. If you've run out of a specific spice or minor ingredient, maybe one of your guests have some extra that you can use.

Once you know everything you need to buy at the store take a few minutes and jump online. Look at the stores ads and shop for the best deals on your items. Next, head over to digital coupon sites such as coupons.com or shortcuts.com and see what kind of coupons you can print before you go to the store. If you clip coupons, grab only the ones you need for the items on your list. Taking all of your coupons to the store increases the chances that you will buy items not on your list when you recognize something you have a coupon for. Whether you're using a coupon or not, you're not saving any money by buying items you don't really need no matter how great the coupon.

You've got your list and your coupons and you're ready to battle the crowds and get your groceries. Buy ONLY the items on your list and get in and out of there before all of the marketing starts to take effect and you buy other things.

Sounds simple enough, but there has to be a better way!
This is what the Peanut Butter List is all about. We are the easiest way to save the MOST money on your groceries. We are dedicated to making the art of 'making a list' easy and simple, but to make the chore of grocery shopping a rewarding one by saving you money every time you go to the store.
That's the good news! The bad news is... we're not officially launched yet. We have been trying our best to get our site up and running before these holiday meals and in-laws that wont leave. I apologize to you now that we were not able to get everything up and running by the holiday season. However, we are looking to launch our site come this January of 2012 so keep checking back here or on our Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ pages for any announcements.

Just because we don't have the full website up for you yet doesn't mean we can't save you some money on your holiday meals this year! We've put together a list of over 140 common Thanksgiving Day meal items and price compared them at King Soopers, Safeway and Albertsons. I'll put a page or 2 from the PDF version on the bottom this blog so you can see what it looks like but you can check the full list our on our Facebook Page here. There's also an Excel version of the same list for those of you who have and know a little about that program. Sorry this is being released so close to the actual holiday, this is actually our Facebook friends exclusive list but we've decided to release it everywhere for all of the last minute shoppers.

There's a a few cents short of $102 in savings on this list by buying the items at their lowest possible prices. That's a good chunk of change to save for just one Thanksgiving meal and left overs for 8 weeks.

We're also going to put up a Christmas list in a week or so and compare those prices every week until Christmas. So be sure to look for that on Facebook, Twitter and/or Google+ in the coming weeks.

Thanks you for checking us out and from all of us here at Peanut Butter List...
Have a very happy Thanksgiving!!

Here's the couple pages... grab the rest of those over at our Facebook page.