Understanding Grocery Store Promotions- Pick 4 Meats

One of the first steps in reducing your grocery bill, is to understand store sales! They sometimes read like morse code. Shaw's is part of the Super Valu national chain stores. You can check if your local grocery store is part of the Super Valu family HERE.

The pic above is taken from the current Shaw's sales circular. If your store is part of the Super Valu family it may also be running this same sale give or take a week. This type of promotion comes around every 4-6 weeks. 

From reading the ad, it seems pretty straightforward. If you pick any marked meat with the "Pick 4" sticker attached you will pay $20 for 4 packages of meat after redeeming the above coupon, regardless of what the individual prices say on the meat. For example, if you buy 4 packs of steak with the "Pick 4" sticker and each pack costs $7, after the coupon is scanned your total will go from $28 to $19.99. Right? Wrong!

While the sales ad says the price will be $20, the above is a coupon and has a total value worth of $5.17. How do I know? I've done this deal a couple times and the amount that gets deducted is $5.17, regardless of what meat you pick!

Using our previous example, if I were to buy $28 of steak and then used the sales circular coupon, I will end up paying $22.83, a $2.84 price difference. So is this false advertising? No, not really. Shaw's is taking an average amount that customers will probably pay and putting an average $5 deduction for the coupon. What does this mean for you? Check your receipts! If you see that you paid more then the advertised $19.99, simply turn around, head to customer service and they will refund you the price difference.

How do I take advantage of this type of promotion? I look for the cheapest meats available, usually beef stew. Since I know that regardless of what I buy, the coupon will still take off $5.17, I will go for packs that are not more then $2-$3 each.

If you buy 4 packages of beef stew at $2 a pack, it comes out to $8, and minus the $5.17 coupon equals $2.83 for 4 packs of beef stew! If you find this deal at a local grocery store, I'd be interested to know what the value of your coupon deducts. Let me know in the comments!

Ikea Not Just For Furniture

When you think of Ikea, probably two words come to mind: cheap and furniture. I went to this mega store yesterday and was surprised by the deals on their lesser known departments, like kitchenware (my weakness).

They sell bakeware and cool kitchen gadgets for as low as .99! I found loaf pans and garlic presses for .99, and springform pans were only $2.99. These are unadvertised deals; the price is not featured on their website.

I loved this discovery as I'm a bakeware nut and love to buy new pans. On the other hand, it's also horrible because I have no room in my city apartment for all these cool gadgets. Next time you visit Ikea take a slow walk through their kitchen department and look closely at the prices. If you see a yellow tag hanging the price has probably been reduced on that product.

Happy shopping!



Smaller Stores Offer Reduced Produce

I'm always trying to find a way to reduce our produce budget, and I may have found it! I went to Shaw's, a big chain grocery store, but I went to a smaller sized one. At the beginning of their produce section, I found this interesting shelf..and check out all those beautiful colors!

It was filled with produce that was ripe or almost ripe and what a deal. Each package in this shelf was only $.99! I bought 3 avocados for $.99..that is an unheard of price around here. I also picked up 2 lbs. of potatoes, and 2 lbs of zucchini.

The guy filling up this shelf said the smaller sized grocery stores usually have some sort of reduced produce section as the selling rate is not as high as the bigger stores. It might be worth checking out in your local grocery store or at least asking if they have something like it.

Guess who ate guacamole tonight!

Catalina Promotions Equal Big Savings

 profit: $1.34

When you check out, have you noticed that little machine next to the cash register, it's called a Catalina Machine. Sometimes it spits out random, annoying ads, like getting an oil maintenance on your car, or an offer for a reduced newspaper subscription...really great stuff, right? In Day 5 I posted a picture of one of my Catalinas, or CATs.

Well, occasionally there is great stuff, like this week. 

This week there are 43 different CAT promotions happening at Shaw's (gasp). Since Catalina deals are national, there's a good chance you have some or all of the same promotions happening at your local big chain grocery store. If you are not familiar with Catalina promotions, I urge you to become familiar...NOW! Here is what I did:

4 single Viva paper towels $1.99 each
2 Bailey's Coffee Creamers (it's an amazing, delicious, non-alcoholic, coffe-house style creamer, can you tell I love it?) $1.50 (regular, 2.50)

=$10.96 total
- 4 $.85/1 viva coupons (shaws doubles, so these become  $1.70...EACH)
-2 $1/1 bailey's creamer coupons
=$2.16 (this is how much I paid)
now it gets interesting...stick with me folks...

There is a CAT promo on the Viva.

When you buy 4 rolls, that cute little CAT machine will spit out, no not a car check-up..but $2.50! Yes, it gives money, people! It will look like a coupon, but it is actually $2.50 to use on your next purchase, on ANYTHING you want in the store!

But, wait, there's more (I feel so late night infomercial), there is also a CAT promo on the Bailey's creamer. When you buy 2 Bailey's, the machine will print out $1!..Yes, it prints money, kind of..it's in the form of a coupon, but basically you're getting your money back!

So, let's recap...I spent $2.16, and I got back $3.50, so I made a profit of $1.34. They paid me to take home my favorite Irish Cream creamer. I love CATs! Can you say meow...

So, what are you waiting for...find your grocery store circular and get shopping!

Earth's Best Baby Food on Clearance at Target

When I can't make homemade baby food, I love Earth's Best organic! I found them on clearance at Target, not all were marked. The smaller 4 oz. size was $.68 from $.82, and the larger, stage 3, 6 oz. size was $.88 from $1.04. There are coupons on Earth's Best site for $1 off 7 jars HERE. If you bought 7 of the small size, you could get them for as low as $.53 a jar! Great price!

These are the varieties I found on sale, if you find anymore let me know in the comments section!

$.68:

• Winter Squash
• Pears & Mangos
• Harvest Squash Turkey
• Peas & Brown Rice

$.88:

• Tender Chicken & Stars
• Vegetable Beef Pilaf

I also found Earth's Best teething biscuits on clearance, keep your coupons handy!

FREE Lunch Tote with Any Backpack Purchase at Toys R Us

I noticed when the kids have lunch totes that they picked out, they are eager to fill them up with snacks and water, which cuts down on the temptation to stop at fast food when we are out and about, and of course for school lunches!

Toys R Us just started a promotion, 7/24-8/27, buy any backpack $12.99 or more and get ANY lunch tote FREE (value up to $9.99). Toys R Us ran a similar promotion a couple weeks back, but this one is better because you can pick which lunch tote you want, in the previous promotion you could only pick the matching lunch tote with the backpack.

My son picked a Cars backpack (big surprise), and my daughter picked a Hello Kitty backpack (bigger surprise), and I picked arctic critter lunch totes, retail $9.99, worth more then the matching tote for the backpacks.

If you do the promotion, go early as the favorite characters sell out fast, also look inside the lunch totes for coupons. The ones we got had two coupon booklets in them. One with coupons up to $6 in savings on food and drinks and another by Scotch with coupons up to $10.50  in savings, including a rare coupon for $5 off Scotch Thermal Laminator.

If you get one, come back and let me know what you got!