Last 2 Hauls - Prepping After the Walmart CEO tries to spook us.

Hello Everyone!

These are my last hauls from Monday and today. As most everyone knows the Walmart CEO came out over the weekend to advise that there will be substantial price raises at Walmart and all retailers and to expect severe inflation by this summer. Now mind you they've already been adding 1-2 bucks here and there the last 3 weeks. So I know those Waltons are going to put the hurt on us. Even if it may not cost them more they will still charge us more to make the cross board inflation even MORE profitable for themselves.

I read quite a few blogs, forums and watched some youtube vids of people giving accounts of how prices have gone up and walmart shelves emptied quickly over the weekend and I really had to stop myself from getting in that weekend fray and get something for our preps. I decided to take it as a challenge and see what would be left on Monday and how could i fill the gaps.

The APN chat was discussing salt. We have a lot of salt already - well what I consider a lot - we had about 5 containers of iodized, 2 containers of pickling salt, 20 containers of italian sea salt and some other gourmet good but useless salts. Well someone said, "traditionally salt has always been one of those trade items in a depression" Supposedly you are supposed to have a few grams per person per day. I always kept a little extra because I expected to salt meat and such - and more recently I added the pickling salt to go with my canning.

Since everyone went bonkers over the weekend buying sugar and flour and canned stuff - I decided I would pick up salt and chocolate type products.



Iodized salt was .39 cents for a standard canister of 1lb 10oz.
I picked up a case.



Baby corn was about .79 cents the vitamins and antibacterial wipes were about .95 cents. I also found something new - Campbells double noodle chicken soup - just add water. Each package has 2.5 servings. Those were a little over $1.



I found the stuff above at the 99cent only store. 3 pkgs black orange pekoe tea - 100 bags, we've tried the stuff and it is actually very good hot or cold. It used to be it had 120 teabags but those days are done. The nestle tollhouse mini toppers were .95 cents for some reason and I picked up another 5 of those to add to the preps. Lastly the Spanish wine vinegar was only 99 cents a liter and it IS made in Spain.




Lastly I picked up this wild alaskan salmon (exp 07/2016), at a buck a pop it's a bit spendy in my opinion. But I all it pre nuclear - which means it was canned prior to the Japanese radiation fallout after the earthquake and tsunami. The dove milk chocolate bars were 3 for 99 cents so i picked up a dozen. I know what you are saying, "Candy bars?" I often will purchase good quality plain chocolate bars because you can chop them up and put them into desserts. If you look at the collective weight of the chocolate bars versus a bag of morsels you get more bang out of your buck buying bars on sale.


Of course every chance I get I purchase a few bags of spinach so long as it is below $1 and I dehydrate it and add it to our stores since it is high nutrition and low weight. We could eat Spinach on just about anything so it's a no brainer for us. If you have a dehydrator I would definitely suggest drying bags of this stuff in between heavy dehydrating just to vary it up a bit.



Today is the crazy Wednesday Sale at a locally owned grocer - they normally put 4-6 items at a super low price to try and entice you to come in. They occasionally put limits but if you walk out and walk back in they don't care haha.

organic spinach 12 oz - $1
white onions - 3 lbs for $1
jalapenos 2lbs for $1
Green Bellpepper 5 pcs for $1
Zuchinni 2lbs for $1
Avocado's 5 for $1



Since we have a lot of folks in the house they've been eating up the corn - lol some of this is to replenish stock and the rest is for storage. It costs 20 cents more today but 60 cents a can is far better than the regular $1 a can. Just a month ago i was getting these for like .44 cents. Ridiculous. The oil was $1.50 each. The Betty Crocker things - which I rarely buy were .75 cents but for 8 portions that's ok. I also purchased 5 more canisters of salt for .39 cents each and finally the 3lb containers of bouillon (1 chicken and 1 chicken and tomato). yeah yeah I know it has additives - well that's not as crucial as flavor in a SHTF situation - well these bad boys are normally 7.99 each. Today with the sale price and a coupon I was able to purchase them at 2.99 each. Overall it was a good morning at Food City!



Finally, I stopped at the Walmart before I had to run home. First of all it was only around 830am. Secondly I wanted to see if they were still cleaned out , they were NOT. Finally, I was feeling lucky after my last haul and my earlier purchase and wanted to see if I was really in luck. Well first of all this lady cut me off on the street in front of walmart - THEN she cut me off IN the walmart parking lot. I already knew this lady was going to do some panic shopping. So I found the first available spot - got out, hit the alarm and did a half jog into the store. I found 100lbs of sugar, 25 lbs of hard white wheat, 25 lbs of hard red wheat both organic. So there I was tickled with myself and I pushed 150lbs of preps down the aisle and just as I reached the end here came the lady who cut me off twice. Bwawahahahahah- I grinned and said "see you later."

That was awesome

So overall we're talking about 219lbs of food over 2 days and we spent about $150.09 bucks. Today's haul was about .48 cents a lb and Mondays was about .85 cents a lb. Not bad and not as bad as i expected.

I just feel an incredible pressure to continue on because inflation is definitely here and it's only going to balloon even further. I know lot of my friends will make it and not miss any meals or even their little treats. Unfortunately I also know this...there is much potential for people to grow hungry and people who do not understand hunger through experience or exposure are in for a RUDE awakening. As it is in many European countries eating less if you eat at all will be the norm and even the poorest most destitute American still has "standards of living". This type of arrogance is exactly the type of bullshit that will kill you.

My Walgreens Hustle...

Okay so basically we have a Walgreens down the street and we go there to pick up meds and snacks or whatever en route to school or work. A couple months ago - I looked through their ads and thought hey I could use some of this stuff. Well around the same time I went to purchase some feminine products from another store b/c I had a raincheck and the girl said oh if you buy this Colgate today you get 100% back to use towards something else.

Well this is nothing new - I've heard people talk about this in various prepper blogs and never really thought about it until the girl mentioned the toothpaste. This is the other thing - it is not applicable towards alcohol or cigarettes but if the cashier knows you she usually lets you slide. I know of 3 people at my store who will let me slide and that is the time I adjust my purchases to include Beer.

I was discussing this with Trunz and it seems a bit confusing how I get my deals. So I stopped by the Walgreens after my 7am class since I had spied some Salmon I wanted to buy.

First step is scan the ads for the phrase below REGISTER REWARDS...sometimes they are not very good - but generally i look for the cost to be 99cents to 0 cents. Today I happen to find something (hand soap) that we don't really keep in storage but would never hurt to have a couple.



The second step is to find something that is a real STEAL. I found these large cans of Salmon on sale for $1.49 with coupon. At Walgreens the regular on these is like 3.79 and at other stores the average price for these is 2.99. Of course it is limit 3 but the expiration is JULY 2015 yay.




The 3rd step is to check any other little coupons that you might want/need to store. I spied gloves at 2/$1. I have used these before - don't buy a ton if you haven't used them before. They work really well for the price and do not tear when you wash dishes or scrub. So I add a couple of these to the list since I already have like 6 at home.

So you say - what if there are no coupons that you like - what will you do with the rebate?
Well Walgreens has peroxide regular price 2 for $1 and Epsom salt 4lbs for $2...or you can browse the store and find something at a low price to add to your preps - even if it's just candy bars. Whatever the case you can spend it or use it within 2 weeks.



So below is my total take. 10 items = $12.81 , average price per item is $1.28. Which doesn't seem very inexpensive until you take into account that it's 6 cans of salmon.




So I bring my little basket to the register and tell the girl,"I'm going to have these rung up separately..." She said okay no problem.

The first purchase was actually the soap with rebate and gloves with coupon.
First receipt is $4.37 (our tax is 9,8% in our neighborhood), and it loads me with a $2 coupon.




My second purchase is 3 cans of salmon with coupon and $2 rebate.
Total paid is $2.58



My 3rd purchase is soap with rebate $3.28 which again gives me a $2 coupon.



My last purchase is salmon with another coupon and paid with rebate - $2.58



Now...this seems like a LOT of work - but it isn't - all you have to do is pay attention. If I would have bought all of this it should have been $31.50 including tax. But what I paid was $12.81. I normally get a much better deal as my things average about .45-.60 cents a piece, but today the item was Salmon and I have no regret at all because we needed a bit of it in our stores.

The other thing is that some weeks they have a special INSERT in their weekly ad (by the front registers when you enter) and it usually has 6-8 items with Register rewards - always look for that hee hee.

Happy Shopping and Keep Prepping.