Obviously, we have 3 growing kids. Christopher wears a size 9 shoe right now and is well over 3 feet tall. And to grow healthy and strong, they all need to eat…and eat, and eat. And eat they do!

In order to keep up with their pace (is that even possible?), we have to be deal conscious, so from a high level here is how we do that:

Target

Target has a few things that are highly attractive to the Cave Family. For starters, they have the Red Card, which is linked to my debit card and results in 5% off each purchase automatically, no matter what is purchased. But we mainly go there to purchase these handy pouches you see in the picture. Instant snack. Every time I go and dump these on the belt, I get some crazy reaction from either a patron or the poor soul that has to ring me up. The most common questions are:

• Is there a sale? (No, I have triplets)
• That’s a lot of pouches for one baby (No, I have triplets)
• Didn’t I just see you here (Yes, I have to come a couple of times a month
• You must have your hands full (Yep…)
• You know you can buy this stuff in bulk at Costco (actually not every Costco, and our kids like variety, not the same flavor over and over and over…LOL)

The pouches randomly have $5 gift card specials where if you buy 15 of the same brand you get a $5 gift card. Yesterday I got 3 $5 gift cards…woot! Target also has a Cartwheel app that has e-Coupons. That usually generates an additional 5-10% off specific products. I’m trying to get better at perusing that before I shop, but it’s been a challenge because I usually hit up Target before I come home some evenings and I’m tired and just want to go home. Still, I’ve saved a lot of money shopping at Target. Plus, the one in Roseville is very clean and drama free.

Costco

We shop A LOT at Costco. The main purchase 3-4 times a month is lots of milk and eggs. They sell organic milk in boxes that contain 2 gallon jugs. Organic eggs they sell by the 4 dozen. I usually buy 3-4 boxes of milk in one trip and that lasts 1.5 weeks. Eggs I usually buy 2  of the 4 dozen crates at a time. They love eggs. Obviously Costco is good for bulk items so I’ve shifted (when I remember) specific purchases to this shopping run, including:

• baby wipes – we go through a box of 900 a month
• coffee
• miscellaneous flavors of ravioli
• organic juice boxes
• yogurt
• tissue

I hate Costco lines, but it’s a necessary evil because of the savings. I’m sure as they get older we will buy more and more from Costco, and eventually we’ll be able to take them with us. I worry they’d pull stuff off the shelves or get lost in the crowds.

WalMart

Walmart has a great app that has WalMart Pay and Savings Catcher. Savings catcher is cool because all receipts are submitted through it and if they find a better deal with a competitor you get the savings back in the form of a gift card. I’ve gotten several gift cards to date. I’m at Walmart 3-4 times a week. We get the diapers from WalMart currently. They have a brand that works for all our kids. Huggies and Pampers and the Honest Company are all epic fails – otherwise we’d probably do the Amazon deal.

I do all of the shopping currently, and have for the past 2 years. Once we get them in some form of pre-school I’m handing this back to Angelique as she’ll have more time on her hands 🙂

We live in Granite Bay, but all of these stores are conveniently located in Roseville, so it’s one easy shopping loop.

We get Bed Bath and Beyond coupons and occasionally something we need we get from Buy Buy Baby. We’re always trying new sippy cups and snack cups.

Oh, and California’s new bag law is a non-issue. We’ve been bringing our own bags for years 🙂