Katie's Rules for Smart Shopping at the Grocery Store

Heres a list of a dozen rules/tips I try to follow, for those of you who are interested.

1. Plan your meals ahead of time and make a list. Stick to the list. Before you go through the checkout do a scan of your cart and identify anything that isn’t on the list. Then take a minute to consider whether or not you really need those items – chances are, they were impulse buys anyway.

2. Plan your meals around what is on sale at the grocery store and what you have already available in your cupboards, fridge and freezer.

3. Know your loss leaders (generally things on the front page of the weekly circular). There are the items that are on sale for ridiculously cheap. The store typically takes a loss on the sale or makes a very little profit, but it is worth it because the average consumer will go to the store for the loss leader, but also purchase lots of other groceries, which more than makes up for it. So, go for the loss leaders and NOTHING else. So if boneless skinless chicken breasts are on sale for $1.59/lbs I’ll go there and buy 20 pounds of it, and nothing else.

3. Know the sale cycle. Grocery stores have a sale rotation that is typically six to eight weeks. So, your favorite cereal might go on sale this week, and won’t go on sale again for one or two months. Buy enough while it is on sale to last you until the next sale. Maybe you eat one box a week – instead of buying one or two boxes, put six or seven in your cart.

4. Know what a good sale is, and what isn’t. On average I would say that 75% of the things ‘on sale’ in the weekly circulars aren’t sales at all. This only comes from paying attention to the stores you frequent and the items you regularly purchase. For instance, I know that a Lean Cuisine is $2.50 and W@lmart. But I also know that every six to eight weeks Cub has a half off sale. Cubs normal price is about $2.99, so that makes the sale price $1.50 each. Frequently I’ll see Lean Cuisines ‘on sale’ for 4 for $10. Do the math – it’s not a deal. Maybe I look crazy, but every other month I go to Cubs during the sale and literally buy an entire cart full of Lean Cuisines –because I know that Josh and I each eat one for lunch at work five times a week. So for 2 lunches a day x 5 days a week x 8 weeks = 80 lunches x $1 savings each = $80. Multiply that out over a year and you've saved $500.

5. Consider how much of your weekly ‘grocery bill’ isn’t actually groceries…its shampoo, soap, toothpaste, deodorant, shaving cream, razors, and on and on. I’ve talked before about stocking up on these things by using coupons coupled with the loss leader sales at stores like W@lgreens, Rite@id, CV$, etc to get them for free or nearly free. You’ll be shocked by how much money you can save at the checkout when you don’t have these items in your cart. The same thing goes for cleaning supplies, toilet paper, paper towel. Recently bounty paper towel went on sale at W@lgreens for $.79/roll. P&G had coupons for $1.00 off two rolls. This made the paper towel only $.29/roll plus tax. I bought about 100 rolls. Sure, I spend $35 on paper towel that day, but compared to the $1.44/roll I was paying at S@ms and considering I now don’t have to buy paper towel for like, a year, its worth it. At a savings of $1.15/roll, over 100 rolls I saved $115 dollars.

6. Sometimes, coupons don’t add vale. What I mean by this is that you have to weight the price and value difference of the band name coupled with the coupon vs just buying the store brand. For instance, D@isy brand sour cream puts coupons out constantly for $.25 or $.50 off a tub of sour cream. It retails at W@lmart for about $1.99. W@lmart’s store brand retails for $.99. Even with the coupon, then, D@isy is more expensive. Personally, I don’t see a difference for this particular product, so the coupon doesn’t add any value and we buy the store brand.

7. Know when to hold your coupons. You’ll get better at this as you begin to recognize the sale cycles, discussed in section 3. Your best deals come from coupling sales with coupons. If you have a store near you that doubles or triples coupons, that’s even better. When we see a great coupon and you know there is a sale on that item, go online and purchase multiples of that coupon and stock up.

8. Only stock up on things you actually eat/use. If you never eat spaghetti sauce, don’t buy it, even if it’s an incredible deal….because if you don’t eat it, it wasn’t ever really a deal at all. Also, pay attention to expiration dates.

9. Leftovers are your friend. Simply put - don’t waste. I can’t think of a single thing that we make that doesn’t last us at least two nights. We love it, because we plan out our week ahead of time, making sure that on busy nights when we don’t really have time to cook, we’re eating the leftovers.

10. Bigger doesn’t always mean better, in terms of price. Be careful at places like C0stco or S@m’s. While many of their products are great values, some are not. Pay attention of the price per ounce, serving, whatever and compare that to what you’d pay at your regular grocery store normally, and when it is on sale. These stores are getting tricky though, and don’t compare like products with like measurements. You’ll see Brand A of coffee listed as $.34/ounce and right next to it, Brand be is listed as $.47/cup. Huh? Take a calculator and do the math yourself to figure out which is the better value.

11. End caps on isles do not equal sales. Just because it is ‘featured’ on the end cap of an isle does not mean it is a deal. You’ll start to notice this more as you become familiar with what the ‘normal’ price is at the stores you frequent.

12. Don’t be afraid to look like ‘the crazy lady’ or stand your ground when it comes to stores accepting coupons. It doesn’t bother me anymore that people look in my cart and think I’m some kind of weird hoarder when I’m buying a cart full of pasta, or chicken, or whatever. I also no longer care if people get annoyed that I have 100 items and 100 coupons. It’s too bad for them that they got in line behind me…if you don’t like it, change lanes. Lastly, educate yourself on what the terms on the coupon mean as well as stores coupon redemption policy – do they take internet coupons, do they have a coupon limit, etc. I’ve realized that most stores do a poor job of training their employees on what constitutes acceptable coupon use, or even how to properly ring them up (especially for things like B1G1 Free). Don’t be afraid to ask for a manager. And if you don’t like the manager’s answer, stand your ground. (S)he ‘doesn’t like’ to accept coupons? If the store has a policy in place that says otherwise, too bad.