Calling all you savvy grocery shoppers!!!!?? I need your help!?? It has been pointed out to me that if I were to appear on “Price is Right” I would walk away empty handed for certain.?? When I started looking into Coupon Sense,??I had a list of questions circling about pricing and such.?? I called my friend Belinda who has a reputation for being a savvy shopper.??
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(Belinda and baby Will pictured above)
As were talking, she began quoting perishable food item prices left and right.?? Great day in the mornin’ how in the world did she keep track of all this??? I then realized that I didn’t even know off the top of my head what the price of milk is.?? No idea.?? I got a pen and paper and started writing prices down madly!?? At this moment I can’t find my list but one thing that stood out to me was the price of chicken.?? Belinda told me never to buy chicken over $2.00 a pound and that usually I could get it on??ad for $1.77 a pound.??
This week I went to my fridge to see what I had been paying for chicken.
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I told Belinda this and she was MORTIFIED (those were her exact words in the email to me) LOL!?? So here is where you gals come in…I think many of us (please tell me it isn’t just me…) need to get a reality check on what we SHOULD be paying for groceries.?? For all of you who keep track of good deals and ads,??I need to hear from you because I wouldn’t know the difference between a steal and being price gouged right now and that makes me feel very humbled and??like a very poor steward.?? If you know off the top of your head what price ranges you keep on the look out for meat, dairy, produce, canned goods…etc….would you please comment and help educate me?
Indebted to you…??
16 responses to “Savvy Shoppers”
important chicken question – your image shows breast TENDERS more expensive than the boneless skinless breasts i bet… and i’m also guessing bone-IN breasts/thights/etc are even less. exactly what kind of chicken is belinda buying at that $1.70 price? if it’s anything less than boneless/skinless chicken breasts, i’ll never save that kind of money. 🙂 i hate dealing with the raw chic anyway – but with the bones REALLY grosses me out. the only full bird i’ll ever cook is a turkey… other than that i only buy whole (or any bone in) chicken that is already cooked.
another chicken question. 🙂 does the less expensive chicken claim 100% pure – no additives – no steroid given chickens, etc? sometimes the ‘purer’ versions are more expensive but some pay the price for the general health benefit.
Yes Heidi the $1.70 price was boneless skinless because that is all I will buy too. As for no steroids though? Very organic? No probably not. I never buy organic anyhow though so that is not an issue for me.
I buy most of my food items on sale because I hate paying full price for things. My list would probably be too long for this post so I will add my 2 cents in for the milk prices. Milk is getting close to if not at 4.00 for a gallon of milk. I will not pay 4.00 for a gallon of milk. At least one grocery store a week has milk on sale for 2.50 a gallon or less. Another trick (not really a trick) is when the stores have the half gallons at 10 for 10.00 you get a whole gallon of milk for 2.00 but you have to buy to half gallons which take up a little more room. Bashas sometimes has their brand of milk on sale for 1.79. and sometimes 2 for 4.00. I love milk and my favorites brands are Bashas’ brand, Albertsons Brand or Good Day, also at Albertsons and of course Shamrock milk. I haven’t had Frys milk in awhile and the Safeway brand Lucerne always taste really grassy to me. If you know what I mean. A lot of generic brand milks taste like the pasture the cows were eating in.
I do shop for meat and chicken when it is on sale. I love when the whole chickens are .59 a pound. Eric cooks the whole chickens and it feeds us for quite awhile.
your sanderson farms chicken showed the 100% natural that i look for… it doesnt’ have to be totally organic but i like the all natural/no additives/steroids when i buy chicken.
i’m not an organics freak, but i do some things organic if there’s a not-to-expensive option…but i’m no stickler on it by any means.
Clearly I don’t read packaging:)
I buy chicken breasts (boneless skinless) at Sam’s Club. Huge bag…has to be cheaper. BUT, I’ve never checked. Now you’ve got me thinking! I bought some at Wal-mart yesterday that were the Great Value brand. I feel sure it was 5 lbs and my receipt says 6.97. Now I’m off to find a Sam’s receipt.
I pay attention to pricing, but you know, if you were to login in to my grocery store that I shop online with you could price check to your hearts content without leaving your home: http://www.getyourgroceries.com/Coborns/signin.asp
If you are intersted in price checking what I pay for most things, email me and I will give you my login information.
I usually buy a 6 pound pack of boneless skinless chicken breasts from Sam’s for about $14.00-$15.00. It is the best deal I see. The other option when I plan ahead is when I have Minsan’s family pick me up good deals at Golden Plump where they work. Then I pay $2.00 for a bag that is probably at least 5 pounds. That is my best deal, but I rarely plan that far ahead :)!
The other way I buy chicken breasts is prefrozen in the bags. I think they are 2.5 pound bags for $6-7.00.
Milk…I buy raw milk from a farm a few miles from my home. They only charge me $3.00 a gallon. I love the good deal AND I love the fresh milk with no pasturization and no homogenization! Yum!
I believe my Sam’s Club boneless skinless bag is 6.5 lbs and is 14.99/ they are HUGE chicken breasts and I know the package says 6.5 I’d swear they are bigger. Sam’s club milk is 2.45/gallon, even cheap walmart milk is running close to 3 a gallon/ I am picky about veggies and fruits, most generic brands don’t get eaten around my house so I buy pay a bit more for yummy frozen veggies (Schwans in the winter) try to buy as much fresh in the summer. Have no clue how much any of them are but it doesn’t matter if no one will eat them. I started buying cheaper Shampoos and Conditioners (which I used to pay about $40/month for) and I can honestly say I can’t tell much of a difference. They are making them much better now. So there’s my 2 cents (and that’s all it costs is 2 cents 😉 ) LOL
the warehouse stores (sams, costco etc) really are cheeper – we try not to buy milk anywhere else, eggs, sliced cheeses, block cheese, butter etc all are cheaper when you buy them at Sam’s.
Their Meats are also really good quailty and if you bring it home and split it into portions you’ll use at a time it makes it worth it.
and they usually have good deals on in season fruits and vegetables.
I also watch for buy 1 get 1 sales I saved $60 on one trip just by taking advantage of the bogo deals at Harris Teeter (our more expensive grocery store – comparable to Albertsons in Phx).
I have always warehoused shopped too but Coupon Sense does not advise that. Reason being, if you shop doing your best to combine ads and coupons, it will be cheaper (much cheaper) than warehouse shopping.
warehouse shopping never turned out cheaper for me when i ended up buying more than i needed of items for the time before the next payday – not as many purchase/brand options either… i tended to buy things i didn’t need and didn’t have space for the 18 rolls of paper towels. 🙂 my instinct is to stock up – the space and lifestyle (and paychecks) tell me to hold off and just get what i need. My ‘pantry’ is a small white cabinet that a neighbor was about to trash and i revived it… there is NO built in pantry and very little closet space!
Okay, I may be repeating what you have already heard, but I don’t have time to read through what everyone else wrote, and if I don’t comment now I will forget. 🙂
I just started doing price matching at WalMart about 3 months ago. I was just like you before that. I honestly paid no attention to what I was paying for things. If it was on the list I baught it. Every now and then I got the ganeric, but that was as far as I went. In the last 3 months I have been saving about $200 a month on groceries. Plus, I have only been shopping at WalMart Neighborhood Market and I have been saving even more because I have to make a seperate trip to buy non-food items. I have noticed I “need” far fewer items than I used to think. 🙂
Anyway, I think the items you save the most on are produce, meat, poultry, and beauty products (shampoo, conditioner, body wash, etc.)
I always get boneless, skinless chicken breasts and I never pay more than $2.00/lb. The same is true for lean ground beef. I ususally get milk for around $2 a gallon. Sometimes it’s cheeper to get the 1/2 gallon. You can freeze milk (which I didn’t know), so sometime I buy a lot if it’s a good deal and freeze it. It takes a while to thaw, so as soon as it’s done freezing I take it out and put it in the fridge. By the time I am ready for it (4 or 5 days later) it is ususally ready. Produce pricing is all over the place, but if you compare ads you can tell what a really good deal is, and sinice it’s usaully a side item I only by what’s on sale and pair it with the meal that works best with it. (As a side note: produce should never be more than $1 lb no matter what it is.)
WIth other items, paper products in particular, it tends to be cheeper to buy the generic even if it’s on sale and you have a coupon, so be sure to check before you pick something up.
I did go into Costco to see if that was cheeper once I had been doing this for a little while. It turned out I was saving a lot more with price matching then I would buying in bulk at a Costco.
My friend, Sarah goes to CVS for all of her beauty products and she saves a ton of money. She will get $30 worth of stuff for less than $10. They have CVS bucks. So, if you spend money on certian items they will give you CVS bucks twards your next purchase. If you aren’t picky about the shampoo you use this and you don’t mind the extra trip you can save a bundle. I think the most she ever saved was when she spent $11 for $75 worth of stuff. She actually has so much toothpaste she is giving it away. She get’s it for free almost every week so she has toothpaste running out her ears.
Ummm…. this turned out to be rediculously long. Sorry about that. 🙂
Love you!
Laura – does Sarah use Coupon Sense? They are big on CVS bucks and my instructor gets a list of about 20 items (inluding toothpaste) free all the time. Some things she won’t pay for anymore – like cereal! 🙂 Thanks for your notes – good stuff!
I agree with Heidi on the Sam’s club stuff. I do make sure to only buy things that I can use within a months time and I don’t like to stock up on things just in case. If you looked at my pantry you would laugh. It is only corner cupboard that I store pasta, extra condiments and canned goods. I honestly only have most things that I will be using for two weeks and then plan to go back in 2 weeks. At Sam’s though I am careful only to buy things that we really eat all the time and is cheaper than even generic (things like Brenda listed). I ended up doing my grocery online only this time and really took advantage of the sales, but stocked up on things like cereals, some meats, etc. I spent 232.00 including delivery and my whole kitchen was packed with food. I love that! That also includes my paper towels, dish detergent, water softener salt, etc. Now I won’t need anything but milk for 2 weeks, wahoo!
I think my biggest savings sometimes is making a menu of food that we will eat for a week or two and use the items that are currently in your freezer or cupboard. It is an amazing way to save 100-200 some months.
i’m at a point of needing to use up the food we have in our cupboards and not stock too much anyway. with a move one month from now, i’m trying to figure out how i can empty my freezer and add very little back into it over this time. don’t want to waste too much from it.
but here in the military community you find people sharing food when they move… i might just have to give some perishables away at the last minute. 🙂