Pay the Absolute Lowest Price on Groceries Every Week

Who came up with the idea to make a grocery list and go to the store and purchase what you need for the week?  I’ve done that all my life and in turn paid whatever the going price is for groceries.  This is the old way of shopping.  The new way of shopping is to buy what I need at the lowest possible (rock bottom) price and stock up.  What makes more sense, going to the store once a week and buying cereal for $4 a box every week for six weeks and paying $24 for cereal or buying six boxes of cereal at rock bottom prices (using sales and coupons) and paying only $6 for a TOTAL of six boxes of cereal?  If you have a pantry and the food doesn’t spoil, stocking up makes more sense.  Imagine what you could save if you were able to purchase all of your consumer staples and household items consistently at rock bottom prices.  Life would be different.

Now I know why these “coupon” people seem to be so hyper and crazy when they start talking about their savings.  When I was introduced to couponing, my sister in law grabbed my hand (practically yanked it off) and pulled me down the hall to show me her pantry.  She had neat rows of household goods all stocked up – laundry soap, toilet paper, toothpaste, lotion, shower gel, razors, etc.  You name it, she had it.  She excitedly started telling me how much she spent on each item and I was shocked at how little she paid.  The whole thing was very overwhelming but I vowed to learn it.  Once I understood the concept of the sales cycle and learned to use it to my advantage, well my whole outlook changed.

Here is how it works. Basically, the prices on an item may fluctuate each week but hit rock bottom at the end of the cycle (according to coupon Queen, Jill Cataldo).  When the rock bottom prices hit, that is the time to stock up on the items your family would regularly use during that cycle.  Jill explains in her blog, Super Couponing, that once she figured this out, she started stocking up on items like pasta, toothpaste and shampoo only buying them at the lowest price.  Jill used to never think, “Pasta is on sale, I think I’ll buy twelve of them.”  She thought that was crazy behavior.

Maybe it is not so crazy. Well, buying twelve boxes of spaghetti does seem a little extreme unless you are Italian.  In my household, we don’t eat that much pasta in twelve weeks but I would buy 2 boxes of spaghetti – my family would eat it!  Instead of paying $2.50 per box because I decided I wanted to make spaghetti that night (the old way), I might pay 75 cents because I got the super sale and the pasta sits in my pantry for a few weeks (the new way).

There is more. When you then add the manufacturer’s coupons and the store coupons, you are now in the ridiculously low range.  The savings are amazing.

Consider this: Everyone loves Cheerios, young and old, so let’s use this cereal as an example.

Cheerios Cereal

Regular price:  $4 per box

Buy on sale:  The deal is “buy one, get one free” so your price is 2 boxes for $4.

Use a coupon:  You have a manufacturer’s coupon (either from the Sunday paper, an online coupon site such as Coupon Suzy, or Grocery Guide).  Sometimes you can register with your favorite brand and they will mail or email you coupons.

Use a store coupon:  You get a store coupon from the newspaper or from an instore ad or promotion to get an additional $1 off.

You now have 2 boxes for $2 or $1 each.  That is a very inexpensive way to buy groceries.  If you eat a lot of cereal, print out two coupons and get 4 boxes for $4 – stock up.

Tips for getting rock bottom prices:

Make your own buy price list. You need to know what a good price is before you make your purchases.  Jenny from Southern Savers posts her “buy price” shopping list for reference.  (Click here for a copy.)  You can also print out a blank one and add in the prices in your area.

Refer to sites that do the work for you. I personally really don’t want to spend hours on end couponing so it becomes a job instead of enjoying life.  An hour a week on the weekend is plenty.  Jill Cataldo, The Coupon Queen and Jenny from Southern Savers inform you of the sales cycles and list out what is on super sale that week.  With Jenny’s site you can actually print a list of the deals you want to take advantage of (you check them off on Southern Savers) and it prints out a very easy “how to” for your personalized items.  It doesn’t get much easier than that.

Note: Jenny talks about a 6-8 week cycle and Jill a 12 week cycle so it may be different in different parts of the country but the concept is the same.

Buy what you’ll use. This sounds obvious, but remember with a cycle, the word itself implies that it will come around again.  If you start buying 47 tubes of toothpaste, you’ll still have 43 left when they are on sale again and your friends and family may stage an intervention.  On the other hand, you don’t have to time it down to the day.  You don’t want to limit your family’s Kleenex and start a no sneeze rule because you have a week left in the cycle before you can buy at the lowest price.

Have fun. That’s my tip.  I never knew grocery shopping could add so much to life.  It’s not a job, its an adventure.  🙂

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