The genesis of this post began about two months ago. As I have previously mentioned, I do the majority of the grocery shopping for our family and had just returned from the store where, for the first time, we had surpassed $400 for our monthly “mega-buy” (to be explained shortly). Though I knew we were in an inflationary economy, I was shocked at just how little my dollars were worth. To top it off, Sonya had to go to Sam’s Club to pick up some salad. She had convinced me that buying the big bag at Sam’s was superior to buying lettuce, spinach, etc and combining them, even if the big bag was not completely consumed.
A couple of hours later, I saw a receipt from Sam’s on the kitchen island for $55 and change. I had a meltdown. All I could think was, “She just spent $55 on lettuce!” I could not believe it (yeah, yeah, it wasn’t all lettuce you may have guessed). My meltdown led to a long conversation during which we resolved to find a solution to this dilemma. Before moving to the decision that was born from that conversation, there are two things that you need to do to win the grocery wars.
1. Buy a freezer, either upright or chest style, but upright will probably work best. To take full advantage of this strategy that we use you need to have cold storage. You can find a freezer at moving sales, scratch and dent sales, downsizing sales, etc. It does not have to be brand new, but make sure it’s new enough to actually be efficient.
2. Do a monthly “mega-buy” at which time you purchase all your non-perishable staples for the entire month storing it in your refrigerator, freezer and pantry. Sugar, flour, cereal, pop-tarts, pasta, canned goods, etc, will last until Jesus comes back. Unless it falls behind the counter and out of sight it will not expire on you and certainly not within four weeks.
In order to do this, the primary meal preparer needs to prepare the daily menu well in advance. Because of the nature of shopping like this, you will buy more than your kitchen freezer can accommodate, hence the need for an upright freezer. Doing a “mega-buy” saves time and money as your remaining trips from weeks 2-4 of the month are only quick stops for milk, bread, eggs or when guests are invited.
Another thing that you will find is that you don’t run to the grocery store as soon as you run out of something. If you run out of pop-tarts a week from grocery buying day, you tend to just write it down and then eat an orange or something. In the long run, you don’t buy as much because you aren’t going to the store once a week. If you don’t already have a frugal mindset, you will develop one soon.
3. Unless you are just loathe to do so, do your monthly “mega-buy” at Wal-Mart, Super Target or a similar store. Wal-Mart is where I spend an hour and a half once a month and it is well worth it. Grocery stores are 30-40% higher on almost every item than Wal-Mart’s regular prices. For lunch one day recently I bought a new snack cracker at Publix and paid $2.99 thinking, “That’s not really too bad.” A week later at my mega-buy, I saw the same ones at Wal-Mart for $2.00. This is true with virtually every item. Additionally, both Wal-Mart and Super Target (and other similar stores) take coupons which helps even more. The reality is that Wal-Mart’s normal prices are cheaper that most grocery store prices with a coupon.
We buy very little at Sam’s (coffee cream, coffee, garbage bags, paper plates, etc) as some of there bulk prices actually are not cheaper once you start pricing by the ounce. The mega-buy does not work as well at warehouse stores (Costco, BJ’s, Sam’s) unless you are John and Kate Gosselin since to get as large of a variety as you need would require spending $800 dollars on an estimated two tons of food.
4. USE COUPONS! Not using coupons is like sending back your income tax refund or turning down a love offering. It’s the same as rejecting free money. Yes, it takes a little time, but you can actually make a good “part time salary” if you will get a system and be diligent about it.
Coupons can be found everywhere, but many of them are hidden. Websites such as Mommy Saves Big are link sites for manufacturers coupons. These can be printed and taken to the store. If you do not subscribe to the Sunday paper in your area, then your are likely missing a bonanza of savings. (We have a daily subscription to the Atlanta Journal Constitution and receive the Sunday paper through it. Last week I remembered that one our local papers carries the exact same coupon bundle as the AJC. I went online and subscribed to the Sunday ONLY delivery of the Gwinnett Daily Post for $12/yr. Sunday came and we got $5.00 of usable coupons from the Post. That’s about a 45% return in 24 hours. Dang! Is Wall Street hiring??)
Another place to find coupons is in the grocery store. Near us, both Publix and Kroger have coupons in the front of the store, with Publix having 4 or 5 different small coupon magazines with both manufacturers and store coupons. Also, you know those little coupon dispensers hanging off the grocery shelves? Those are manufacturer coupons and can be used at any store including Wal-Mart. And you aren’t limited to one coupon!
Still another source are manufacturers websites. On many (we’ve done Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Nestle, etc) you can receive email coupons. If you don’t want to clutter up your email, then set up a coupon only email such as “martyscoupons@email.com” to get them all.
5. The real money is to be saved with a coupon strategy that involves your local grocery stores and your local drug stores like Rite-Aid, CVS, Walgreen’s, etc. This strategy will only be effective if you have these type stores in a reasonable cluster. Suburban shoppers will benefit much more than rural shoppers. The key is coupons and store specials. This is how is works:
Look through each and every drug and grocery store flyer in the Sunday paper. Drug stores especially like to do “buy 1 get 1 free” and “two for” specials to try and get people into the store. A recent ad for Rite Aid drugstore had Kashi cereal 2/$5. They listed the normal price at $4.49 per box which is outrageous. The special, though, made it cheaper than Wal-Mart. Almost every chain has those type specials every week, you just need to learn to watch for the items that you use and then use your accumulated coupons for real savings.
Recently, Publix grocery had Kashi cereal on sale “buy 1 get 1 free” at the regular price of $3.39 (it’s actually buy two at half price and you don’t have to buy two). Hidden in an organic products advertiser at the front of the store were coupons for $1.00 off boxes of Kashi cereal. I got four of the books and tore out the coupons standing at the register. (Did you know that stores allow you to use coupons on every item of a buy 1 get 1 free sale? That’s because the sale is from the store and the coupon is from the manufacturer.) After the sale and the coupons, I walked out of the store with 4 boxes of Kashi for a TOTAL of $2.98. That’s .75 a box for an organic cereal that sells at Wal-Mart for around $2.75 a box.
Our local Kroger store has 10/$10 specials every single week and they don’t require mix and match. In addition, they have other specials tied to the use of the “Kroger Card.” A couple of weeks ago, they had Scott paper towels (the large roll) at 10/$10. Sonya also had several coupons. She went to the register with nothing but 10 rolls of Scott paper towels and paid so little (between $5-6) that it invoked a question and admiration from the shocked cashier.
6. Always, always get the “Store Card” if they have one. Not a credit card, it makes you eligible for in-store specials each week. (Of course they are tracking your spending habits; so what? They are, in essence, paying you for it.) Kroger, Ingles and CVS in our area all have this card as does PetSmart for our animal stuff. CVS is far and away worth getting because of a single thing: in store cash. I’m not exactly sure how they figure it, but with many CVS purchases in which the card is used, there are 2-4 additional coupons that print on the receipt. Weekly, they have an in store special that generates even more savings through “in store cash.”
A couple of weeks ago the CVS in our area had a special on Softsoap Body Wash. It was $4.99 per bottle. With her purchase of two bottles, Sonya received an “in store cash” receipt for $9.50. The next week they had liquid detergent on buy 1 get 1 free for $6.00 and Sonya had two coupons ($1.00 each). She was able to get two regular size liquid detergent bottles and a some other stuff for a TOTAL of .09 cents. Yes, you read that right. Nine cents.
This week Kroger has Clif Bars on sale 10/$10 (Clif Bars are organic energy bars). Left over from the organic magazine from Publix were 4 Clif bar coupons for “Save 1.00 on 3.” Since I eat a lot of Clif bars hiking I bought twelve, plus Snickers at 3/$1. When I looked at the receipt, I had saved $5.39 and spent only $5.93. Clif bars are normally $1.35-$1.45 each.
7. If you aren’t able to get a freezer to store frozen goods, create places in your house to store your stash of food. The garage, the tops of kids’ closets, under the bed (in the grocery bags), the laundry room, etc can all serve as places to store extra food and supplies.
The primary danger here is not being disciplined on the “mega-buy” after stocking up during the previous month. You can’t buy all the junk food that you usually had skipped simply because your buggy looks empty. Rejoice! That means it is working and you are saving money.
Last month, the month after my meltdown, is when we started with the strategic coupon buying. Our “mega-buy” for this month was only $225 and we’ve already saved on next month with all the special buys and buy one get ones. The total we spent on specials was $116. We saw an improvement after only one month and it will improve more as we learn how to spot more specials and locate coupons.
With enough effort and some invested time, most any family can see a real savings each and every month (or week if necessary) keeping some cash rather than sending it to the local “grocery syndicate.” Give it a go; I think you’ll find it worthwhile.
(All credit for our strategic buying goes to Sonya who did a truckload of research to figure out how to make it work. She used The Grocery Game (which is a pay service scaled to how much information you want to access) and The Coupon Mom (which is less detailed but costs nothing).
