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Yesterday I went to buy some groceries. Nothing special, no meat or dairy (fully stocked up on chicken & pork tenderloins, the meat of choice around Casa de Duke).  So I purchased two grocery bags worth or stuff. I fully admit to $15 worth of Swiffer products (Hardwood floors are a real drag to get clean) but other than that, there was nothing exorbitant. No laundry soap or spices, nothing crazy. Just some granola bars, pretzels, some fruits & veggies, bread for sandwiches. No lunch meat, no beef, no chicken. I did get some cheddar cheese, but other than that, no yogurt, milk or eggs. I was at the local neighborhood market. The grand total? $85 smackers. 

Eight. Five. Dollars. 

Yeah. Oil prices be damned, that is a lot of money on groceries. Combined with my email from my person over at Merrill Lynch (a/k/a Bank of America) I'm feeling this economy thing. So my poll today is about the overall lack of extra cash that many of us are feeling. 

What are you doing to help your bottom dollar?

I'm not interested in the totally unrealistic advice "wash out your ziplock bags & reuse them 19 times!!" or odd driving techniques that save you a few bucks at the pump that CNN often touts in times of economic despair.  I'm wondering what people are really doing. BISMOW and I have put a moratorium on eating out & I have started menu-planning. We ditch-out on eating-out if we have a set menu that is already purchased & often marinating at home. Boring? Yes. Practical? Yes. (Sigh. I hate being practical.) We have also started taking a list to the grocery story, which really does cut down on impulse buys, or at least "Hmm, I think maybe we need laundry soap" only come home and realize, nope, there is in fact two bottles of laundry soap type purchases.  We are also considering re-upping our Costco card, if for no other reason then to get family-sized packages of chicken & to save a few dollars on our paper towels & toothpaste....but with the lack of overall space around our two humble abodes, we are wondering if that is worth it. 

So, dear readers, what are you doing? And answering "I make plenty of money and don't really care" is perfectly acceptable...but maybe you should keep that to yourself, ok? 

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