Eating your own dog food.

— Ajaxo comes to the rescue during one of my random trips to the store.

Have you ever been shopping for something and found yourself randomly craving something else, but didn’t want to comit to buy because you wondered how much it’d be at the “other store”?

I was at Lucky’s about to poach myself some wild salmon when I got one of those random food cravings for potato chips.  There was a big sale on everything from Frito-Lay - 2 for $5.00!  I picked up two bags and then I paused.  What about Safeway?  There was a few weeks back they did a bag for $1.50!  And then I noticed the “FAMILY” size (17 oz.) was on sale for $4.00!  (The 2 for $5 deal was only 11 oz. each)

I pondered.  And for a brief moment I actually thought about doing the complicated math in my head of breaking the units down and finding the equilibrium between the two until I realized I happen to work on a search engine for groceries called Ajaxo.com and maybe - just maybe - it could answer my question.  Hahaha it was so bad.  Way to go employee of the month, right?  I know.  The HAPPY ending to the story was, once I remembered to pull out the iPhone, I found out that the same 11 oz. potato chips were on sale at Target just a 2 minutes down the street for 2 for $4.00! AND I remembered I had been meaning to buy some more cola (24-pk for $6+CRV) and detergent (150 oz. for $10.99) - both on sale at darn good prices ($0.25 a can!) at Target!!!111

Yay Ajaxo! <3

New Feature: Ajaxo Shopping List!

How to Create a Shopping List:

How to customize/edit a shopping list:

Hello everyone! We’ve told you we’ve been burning the midnight oil to bring you some great new features, and finally we can say the work has paid off.

Introducing.. The Ajaxo create your own shopping list! Now you can save the deals you find and come back anytime to see them! But wait, that’s not all, if you have a shopping list that you are truly proud of and want to share it with the general public so they can benefit from the great deals and bargains you’ve found, you can publish it!

Okay, so now that that announcement is out of the way, let’s get to how it all works.

Ajaxo Shopping List

To create a shopping list, you have to be a member.  Signing up is easy, and we don’t use your information for purposes other than identifying and verifying that you’re human and not a robot.  Usernames are determined using the beginning portion of your email address before the @ (ie. ilovefruit@email.com -> ilovefruit).

1. Sign in by entering your e-mail address and clicking submit.
2. After you click the OK button, you should see it says your username’s shopping list. (ie. “ilovefruit shopping list”) If you click on that, you’ll see your shopping list is empty, so let’s go ahead and add some items.
3. Do a search for some bargains/deals (ie. “fruit” in “95014”).
   Note: The results will vary from week to week, depending on what’s on sale, so what we have listed here will not be the same as what you may see!
4. Scroll down and find some items you like, and then click the check box to the left of each entry that you want.
   
5. Go to the end of the results page (or if you’re at a Store’s header, you can click the “Email someone|Add to shopping list” link).
6. At the bottom, you’ll see you can do one or both of either sending an email, or adding the item to the shopping list.  For our purposes, we only want to add to the shopping list.  Make sure the checkbox “Add checked entries to my shopping list” is checked, and then click “Send email / Update shopping list.”
   
7. You’ll return to the main page.  Now, scroll down and click your “username shopping list.”
8. And there you go! The items you checked are now part of your shopping list. You can repeat the search and add steps to build up your shopping list.
   
   

Removing items from my shopping list

1. While viewing your shopping list, uncheck the check box to the left of the item(s) you want to remove under the “Keep” column.
2. Click the “submit” button.
3. If you now check your shopping list again, the item(s) are gone.
   
   

Publish my shopping list

You can view published shopping lists by clicking the “view published shopping list” link at the bottom of the main page.  Each shopping list is designated by a shopping cart icon to the left and can be made either anonymous or referred to by username.

Usernames are determined using the beginning portion of your email address before the @ (ie. ilovefruit@email.com -> ilovefruit).

Published shopping lists are member’s ways of interacting with other bargain hunters in the community by showcasing the different types of deals they’ve found and bundled together.
Note: You cannot undo the publishing of a shopping list, but you can publish as many times as you like!

1. To publish your shopping list, begin by viewing your shopping list by clicking the “username shopping list” link.
2. At the bottom of the page you should see two checkboxes: “Publish shopping list” and “Publish as anonymous.”
   IMPORTANT: The default setting is “Publish as anonymous” checked, which will only result in the updating of your list (ie. Removing items).  If you want your list anonymous, make sure both check boxes are checked. BUT if you want your username published, make sure only the 1st check box that reads “Publish shopping list” is checked. only update your list.
   
3. Click submit, and if you now look at “view published shopping list,” your list is at the top!
   

BACK in Action :D

Creds to http://www.rosietheriveterphotos.com/

After some momentary down time due to (literally) unprecedented wave of traffic after the news broke out caught us off guard. No need to worry though, things are back to normal :) Search, compare, and save! Links to the story coming soon.

Ajaxo Shopping List Hiatus? (UPDATE)

Au contraire!

We originally planned on putting the Ajaxo Shopping List on hiatus this week in favor of a list of invidual hot deals.  But in light of playing around with some drafts - with a savings of 45% - we knew we had to bring it back for this week.

Check it out today guys!  FORTY FIVE PERCENT (45%) IN SAVINGS!

One person’s food budget for 2 weeks = $40-ish?

Wowwww. Stunning revelation here on this b-e-autiful December morning.

So I was doing some math the other day (c’est impossible, non? D:) and I realized that the Ajaxo Shopping List doesn’t address single people - well directly anyhow. (Note: Skip to CONCLUSION if you don’t want me to impress you with my sub-par math skills :P)

To briefly re-cap, it contains groceries for 7 meals for a family of four - that’s 4 (actually depending on the meal it can be a lot more) servings a meal…for a grand total of 28 servings.  So what about people feeding one?  That’s simple.  Take the total servings and divide by 2 (lunch and dinner) for 14 days (lunch and dinner covered).

In Conclusion:
That means the list right now can feed a single person for 2 weeks - lunch and dinner.  As I noted in my previous entry, the list this week’s a bit pricier than usual. The week before ‘holidays savings’ arrived was about mid $30s.

…

That’s NOT BAD!!! $30-somethin for one person for TWO whole weeks!  I wish I knew about that in college.  I remember going out to Safeway was guaranteed to be at least $10/meal.  Ridiculous. o__O

Can you do better? Check out the list today @ www.Ajaxo.com or direct link here

‘Tis the season to be savings?

Have you gone shopping lately?  Have you realized or maybe gotten the feeling that, gee… things look a little more expensive than last week.

You’re not too far off. Strange, right?

You’d think with Christmas and the ‘holiday savings’ atmosphere so thick you can taste it, that there’d be GREAT deals on groceries.  Fact of the matter is, the sales in the previous weeks leading up to the holidays have actually been even better!  Not that this changes anything, but it’s just a helpful tidbit to keep in mind.  There’s still deals to be had, savings to be found.  Even with the current sales/specials/prices, the Ajaxo Shopping List (for more information check out this post, here) still ended up giving a family of four’s weekly budget a savings of over 40%!

In other words, a family of four can still save over 40% of the total cost of buying the same groceries if they weren’t on sale.  Not too shabby.  Check out the latest list @ www.Ajaxo.com!

// KF

Ajaxo Table for Four - Pan Fried Sea Scallops with Green Onions

Hi everyone! Today’s Table for Four is Pan Fried Scallops with Green Onions.
We picked up the scallops from Safeway and the green onions from Lucky.

People think scallops and seafood are expensive, but you’ll be surprised when you look around! We got Colossal Bay Scallops fresh and never frozen for just $7.99 lb! A competitor that carried the same good had a differential of $4.00. So remember, it’s not about giving up a certain food, but knowing where and when to buy it.

We searched the key words: scallops, green onion

Ingredients:
1 lb Colossal Bay Scallops
2 Green Onions
Salt and pepper for seasoning

In a lightly oiled pan on medium heat, place the scallops in one at a time. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until bottom is lightly browned.

Flip the scallops onto the other side and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the bottom is lightly browned.

Add in some minced garlic and sprinkle some salt and pepper and move the scallops around so they do not stick to the bottom of the pan.

Add in some green onions and stir fry for an additional 2-3 minutes, then serve.

And there you have it, a delicious seafood entrée that you can pair with some garnishes on the side like tomato. Who says seafood has to be expensive?

Search, Compare, and Save with www.ajaxo.com

Search, compare, and save with Ajaxo.com.

Have any tips or comments? drop us a line using the suggestion link on the main page or add a comment to our youtube! OR if you prefer, contact me directly here: katye@ajaxo.com

- Ka-Tye