this little life of mine

Soon after it opened a year or so ago, my mom and I wondered if we might be able to do all our grocery shopping at the .99 Only store to save some money. Even the first time we ventured into this store, we noticed not only did they have cleaning supplies and various toiletries, canned and boxed foods, as well as bread and produce, but they also have a section - albeit a very small one - of refrigerated and frozen items. Granted they don't have fresh chicken, beef or pork, but they do carry canned tuna, meat, and beans, and periodically have a single-serve vacuum-packed piece of fish in the frozen section. They also carry milk and sometimes eggs, although these items are NOT .99, for obvious reasons! We usually just stop in here to pick up some things we need, but don't want to spend a lot of money on like Hamburger Helpers, boxed rice or pasta mixes, and some canned goods, and if we're lucky we'll get some good produce as well, then go to Vons's to get the rest of the stuff we need. Still, we wondered ...

This past weekend, we had to pick up some items that we could only get at Rite Aid, and figured while we were there, we'd just do all our shopping at the Von's center, stopping at the .99 Store for whatever we could get there, and then Von's for everything else. Well, as we were going through the .99 Only store, we realized our list for Von's was rapidly shrinking, and actually, we could get everything we needed right there! So, we decided to go for it! Keeping in mind I already had a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground turkey in the freezer that I really should use up, as well as a can of chicken in the pantry, we quickly grabbed everything we needed for the weekend and upcoming week. Below is the haul from the .99 Only store after we got home:

We got tons of great stuff, including some wonderfully fresh produce: strawberries, peaches, cherries, broccoli, a bag of mixed veggies, and two salads. I also picked up a Hamburger and a Tuna helper for the ground meats I already had, some instant oatmeal cups, cup-o-soups, and some Special K bars for lunches and snacks for work. Mom picked up some yogurt, canned soup, and hot dogs for her lunches, and we got some frozen breakfast sandwiches for Sunday morning, as well as mini frozen pizzas for lunch, as well as some other miscellaneous items.

Everything you see came to just a little over $36.00! I'm pretty sure this would've been closer to $100.00 at Von's. It was actually pretty exciting! But, while it was fun to try this little experiment, I'm not sure we'll be making a habit of it, despite how much money we saved. There's just a lot that store doesn't carry that we usually buy (meat, fish, wine), and I imagine next weekend we'll be back at the Grocery Outlet across town.

Any other frugal shoppers out there? What are your favourite bargain stores?