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Home > March Grocery Challenge 3/12, 3/13, 3/14....3rd Stimulus....Payday 3/15

March Grocery Challenge 3/12, 3/13, 3/14....3rd Stimulus....Payday 3/15

March 15th, 2021 at 02:26 pm

As expected, I needed to go to the grocery store by the end of last week to pick up a few things to round out my stocks.

Friday, 3/12 - Stop & Shop

4.49 - milk

5.99 - half & half

4.99 - chicken meatballs (didn't NEED these per se, but they were on sale for a good price, and I use them for dinner meal prep reasonably often so I grabbed a package)

5.99 - 2 lbs of strawberries

3.01 - a spaghetti squash

1.25 + tax - 2 pack of peanut butter cups lol

Total: $25.83

Saturday, 3/13 - CVS

I woke up on Saturday and realized that I should join CVS CarePass after all.  I started using a powdered fiber supplement, and have been buying either the Target brand or CVS brand.  CVS is way more expensive than Target, but also way more convenient.  I can get the price down to a crazy number by stacking coupon deals, though.  So I joined CarePass for the year, paid upfront, which was $52.02.  I will get a $10 reward every month in this program, which I will use to reduce the price of the fiber supplement, since that's about how often I need to re-stock.  Since I am only going to use the $10 reward (same as Extra Bucks) towards the fiber, I felt this belonged in the grocery category, since it's effectively reducing my grocery costs for the next year.  

Total $52.02

Later on, I went to CVS, and bought the following - 

6.42 - fiber supplement (I think  this is what the final cost was...they way they display the different savings on the receipt for this deal made it confusing.  Original price was 22.49, less $10 CarePass, less another CVS coupon I must have had loaded onto my card, less 20% health card discount)

1.22 peanut butter cups lolol (it was the weekend!!!!!)

Total:  7.74 after tax (I know the pb cups are taxable, not sure about the fiber, so I don't know which item to assign it to).  

Sunday, March 14 - CVS

2.39 + tax - you guessed it.  Some more PB cups!  I am done til next weekend haha.  I had some extra room in my calories and since I pass by CVS on the way home from my mom's house........................

Total:  2.59

Those 4 transactions came to $88.18, and bring my MTD grocery spending to $161.73 (overall category which includes household and toiletries is at $216.83).  Because of the CarePass subscription, my grocery spending will skew a little higher this month.  I do need to go to the store today to get some stuff for this week's dinners and this week's batch of green smoothies, plus I am placing an Instacart order from BJs (warehouse store) and a FreshDirect order later this week.  That may actually hold me into mid next week.

Today is payday.  It's not really an exciting one.....it's all going to scheduled debt payments and bills.  I'm ok with it, as there are other money advancements happening this week that I am excited about.  With my next paycheck (on 3/31), I will have met the 3 months of direct deposit needed for the bank bonus I'm currently working on (HSBC - $200), so I am going to open my next account today (Citizen's - $300, with potential for more based on debit card purchases).  That way the account is up and running by the 31st, and I can go ahead and schedule the direct deposit to fulfill that bonus.  This one is easy.  Requires one single DD of $500.  You can keep the account free with a single deposit every month (does not have to be DD, can just be a deposit or transfer), otherwise the fee is 99 cents.  I may decide to just pay the fee, depending on what things look like afterward.  I will need to keep a small DD going to the HSBC account to keep that account free as well.

I am expecting the 3rd stimulus to be available in my bank account on Wednesday.  I am eligible for the full amount of $1400, my AGI just barely snuck in under the $75k cutoff based on 2020 taxes.  Originally, this was going to be split across paying off a portion of a credit card balance, and two savings accounts.  I decided to rearrange it.  $315 of it is going to pay a credit card in full (been chipping away at this one all month), and the rest is going to pay another credit card in full as well.  That means that the three credit cards that I wanted to have paid off this year will be done so by mid-March.  Pretty good stuff.  This not only makes my debt balance lower, and frees up utilization hopefully helping my poor abused credit score....but it also frees up cash flow from not having to make those monthly payments anymore.  Good stuff.  The savings contributions that I had been planning to make from this have been shifted to some other snowflakes coming in at a later time.  They'll still get there, but not as quickly.  But since the interest amount of my savings account is so close to zero that it may as well be....and the interest amount on these credit cards is quite high, I think it was the right choice!

3 Responses to “March Grocery Challenge 3/12, 3/13, 3/14....3rd Stimulus....Payday 3/15”

  1. Wink Says:
    1615822109

    I am a CVS CarePass member. I shop at CVS a lot so for me it makes sense. When you stack other extra bucks, CRT's and coupons you can really get some fantastic deals.

  2. Lots of Ideas Says:
    1615826194

    I too am a big advocate for CVS and it looks like you got a good deal on your Carepass. Everything is 2% off with quarterly Extrabucks, plus the 20 person the Carepass brings to their brands, and I get a coupon for 20-30 percent off most weeks. I think you made a good decision - watch their sales and you may find other savings too. I find their eggs are often a very good price.

  3. LivingAlmostLarge Says:
    1615837292

    Wow I used to love CVS when I lived by one. but not anymore. Too far. I am not sure where the closest one is.

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