How do you shop and save $$ at the food store?

[gategrrl]

 Well I'll be goshdarned, but it DOES pay to scissor those coupons out of the Sunday paper and the circulars they send into your mailbox constantly.

So far I've found some coupons for aspirin, Aleve, ibuprofen, band-aids and razors (which I already have enough of, but with Mermaid growing leg hair, it's not going to be enough). There are super-coupons for various Vons snacks, including one of Little Guy's favorites. There's coupons for raw and cooked chicken. Coupons for the brand of TP I use, and paper towels (although I'm trying to move to cloth towels instead, but paper towels are still needed). And coupons for Michaels and Joannes, which I can use for Mermaid's newest passion for cake decorating. The supplies she needs for that class? Stupifyingly expensive if you're not careful.

Of course, the key is not to buy items you're never going to use, and not to let the expiration date on the coupons rush you. AND wait until the stores you frequent have sales on those items anyway. 

I'm no pro when it comes to food shopping -- I still spend WAY too much on food in our house, but that's what eChef is supposed to help with.

Comments

[lovellama.livejournal.com]

I use thegrocerycame.com. They tell you when the store you sign up for has items at their lowest sale price, and what week's circular the coupon for it is in. It cost $10 for 8 weeks, I think it's worth it. If you decide to do the trial 4 weeks, save up about 2 months worth of coupons before you join. The first year I did it I saved $2000.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Wow, really? $2000? That's a lot of money.

So, you use in conjunction with the coupons--all it does is tell you when the prices are lowest in your area?

[lovellama.livejournal.com]

When you join, you tell it what store you want to use (it doesn't have all of them unfortunately, I don't shop much at Safeway anymore), and then your zip code, and you pick the one you shop at. Late Sunday but usually Monday morning the list will go up. It will have pretty good prices in black (not the best prices, but buy them if you need them that week), items in blue (best for stock piling), and items in green (free. not that often). You use a ticky box to choose what you want to get, click the "show selected items only", then print out the list. The list will tell you the regular cost of the item, the sale price, the coupon amount and what week to find it, and then the sale+coupon price and how much you saved.

You could, on your own, start a journal of how often things go on sale and then compare each week (things usually go on rock bottom prices every 12 weeks), but that can be a pain and apparently not everything on sale is listed in the circulars.

I have to admit it's fallible, sometimes it will say a coupon is $.50 off one and my coupon is $1.00 off two, which makes for less of a deal since the coupon isn't doubled. And sometimes I can't find the coupon at all, or the item it says is on sale isn't. But all in all I think it's a good deal.

It's a little strange shopping this way, because you only buy what's on sale. And I get another 2 Sunday newspapers for extra coupons. So I will have maybe 10 different items in my cart, but 5 or 6 or 10 of them each. You create your own little store in your pantry with all the stockpiling you do each week.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

So then how do you work your menus? You stock up on what you eat, and work around it?

[lovellama.livejournal.com]

Well, after a few weeks of this you will already have what you need in your pantry. If you have a rotating number of menus that you make, then you buy what you need for those menus when it's on sale, and you don't have to go out and get the ingredients, you have them. Unless it's fresh stuff, like lettuce or green peppers, etc. If that makes sense.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh, silly question--you do buy food that you eat, right? (d'oh)

[lovellama.livejournal.com]

I don't buy everything on the list, in fact some times I might have only 3 items because what is on sale are things that we don't use. And if I'm reading the question right, yes, it does include food as well as TP and aspirin and toothpaste?