Today’s tip falls under “paying less for food” as a way of lowering your grocery bill.
I love price matching. And combining them with coupons. Today, I’ll show you an example why. And this isn’t even a fabulous example because this shopping trip only used one coupon – this trip was all about the price matching.
Price matching is the act of taking the ads from other grocery stores and having that store match that other place’s price. I used to do this at No Frills, but lately Wal Mart’s been my place because they also match on meat and produce where No Frills is more selective on those items. Wal Mart is particularly great because they don’t make you show the ad…which saves mucho time in the checkout lane. I always have the ad with me and I’m always honest, but it saves time!
Anyway, this shopping trip, I paid about $36 for $65 worth of groceries! I saved almost as much as I spent. Awesome! (Now the $65 was calculated using Walmart’s regular prices – which might be higher or lower than other stores).
The biggest savings was on meat – I got steak that was originally $4.98 and $5.68/pound for $2.99/pound because No Frills and Fareway were having sales on them. Everything else on my trip saved me money, but not nearly as much. Examples from this trip:
- Brownie & Cake mixes for $.79 instead of $1.50 and $1.28
- Ken’s Salad Dressing for $.99 instead of $2.48 (plus I had a $1 off coupon for 2 of them, making them $.49/bottle)
- Eggs for $.99 instead of $1.29
- Cherry tomatoes for $.79 instead of $2.48 (they should’ve been $1.59 but the gal gave me even more off. I think she was mad at Wal-Mart.)
- Doritos for $1.99 instead of $3.59
- Petite Sirloin Steak – paid $8.53 for $16 worth of meat
- Chuck Pot Roast – paid $15.34 for $26 worth of meat
Because we’re a family of just 2, that meat will get us 6-8 meals easily. I don’t even do as well as some people do, but it’s definitely worth my time to go through the ads, write down the best prices on items that I need or will use eventually and get price matches!
They key isn’t too get too crazy – if I can’t use it or freeze it before it goes bad, then it isn’t worth buying – no matter how great the deal is!
I am not a coupon girl…but I LOVE price matching. I just recently learned that I did not have to actually have the add with me- which is such a relief. A couple years back one cashier asked to look at each of my price match adds and actually took time to check the dates of each add to make sue they were from the current weeks sales…
I need to work a little harder at matching meat prices like you do. The meat gets a little confusing to me because it seems to be packaged differently at each store.