January 16, 2009

Mr. Right joins the frugal fun!

Mr. Right picked up the bargain of the century yesterday!

Okay well maybe the bargain of the year, but still...

A co-worker and I had discussed the $1 a pound ground turkey that Kroger has on sale this week. I was excited because ground meat is difficult to find that cheap. When I am able to get it at that price, its typically the 70/30 ground beef in a tube (Kroger calls it “flavor-seal” a nice sounding name for something that means “whatever’s leftover”.)

My co-worker assured me that ground turkey wasn’t all that different from ground beef, especially when you use it for things like chili and spaghetti. She said that she actually liked it better than ground beef. Lower price, better quality – that’s a deal tough to beat.

Since neither Mr. Right or myself have ever had ground turkey, we took a calculated risk and purchased 15 lbs. We use at least 1 pound of ground meat every week, so we didn’t even bother to vacuum seal it before it went into the deep freezer.

Side note: A big thank you to the Right parents for getting us the freezer for Christmas, your generosity has made this all possible.

The day after I purchased all that turkey, the same co-worker came to me telling me about ground beef on sale for around $1 a pound – but not the kind that comes in the tube. Honest to goodness ground beef, packaged on Styrofoam and wrapped in cling wrap. So I made plans to go after work and pick some up. Thankfully I didn’t.

I had purchased a couple of TV antennas for our house, and one was missing some parts. I bagged it up and ask him to return it one day while he was out and about on business related errands. Thankfully he had procrastinated on it, and didn’t get around to taking it back till yesterday.

He called, wanting to know if he needed to buy a new antenna, or if we just wanted the money back on a gift card (the antenna had been purchased with a wedding gift card). I had purchased it for the TV in the man room/office, but we haven’t been up there in over a month to watch TV. “Your room, your call.”

He ended up just going for the refund. And then heading to the meat section to find the sale of the century…okay of the year. He circled around for a few moments and couldn’t find it. When all of a sudden but who should appear…but the Wal-mart meat guy. Turns out, what my co-worker had seen was meat that was going to expire the next day and what she had seen had been long gone with another deal seeking patron long before Mr. Right ever stepped foot into the store.

The ground beef was in 5.5 lb packages and the angel…erm…Wal-Mart employee was marking them down to $4.20 a package. That’s right – Mr. Right purchased ground beef yesterday for $0.76 a pound!! He got all they had, which was two of the 5.5 packages. Then the sweet thing called to ask if he needed to vacuum seal them right away, or if they would save if he put them in the fridge for us to seal together that night.

The temperature that we keep our house, they’d have probably kept on the kitchen counter. But moving right along.

When I got home, I got out our vacuum sealer and bags (thanks also to the Right parents) and wrote the date/product on there, so in a month or so, we wouldn’t have to rely on our memories to know how long they had been in there.

I pulled the beef out of the fridge. “Um…baby, this isn’t ground beef.”

“What?”

“Its ground chuck.”

“That’s good right?”

“That’s very good.”

Ground chuck for $0.76 a pound. Maybe I should let him do the shopping from now on!

For more frugalness – check out Frugal Friday.

9 comments:

  1. I love a good deal! I wish my husband were that shopping savvy...before we got married, I once sent him to the grocery on his own because I wasn't feeling well. He came back with almost everything on the list, except for a box of Clementines that was on the receipt but mysteriously never made it home with him. I still tease him about it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. WOW! That's ridiculous!!

    As for eating out with envelopes vs. credit card, so a comparison for a few months and see if it makes a difference in how you think about your eating out. We like the cash back on the credit card, too, but found we were spending more when we didn't have a concrete idea of how much was left for the month.

    ReplyDelete
  3. thats great!!! what a great deal!! maybe he should do all the grocery shopping lol.. thank you for stopping by my blog!! it is greatly appreciated!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That is a fantastic deal and good for him shopping. My husband would probably just pick out the first thing to get out of the store quicker. Sounds like you keep the house at the same temperature here - chilly.

    LOL - my word verification is "fecker" It's cracking me up...

    ReplyDelete
  5. That is an amazing price. Good for you! Thanks for visiting my site.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Go Mr. Right! And if it makes you feel any better, we keep our house ridiculously cold too. But it doesn't matter because with the recent cold snap (it was a toasty -15 out this morning), our furnance still runs about every 15 minutes. ARGH!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great deal!! Thanks for stopping my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for stopping by my blog. I'm so amazed by that deal. You did so good, and now you;re stocked on meat for awhile!

    ReplyDelete

what up yo?