For those of us who track our expenses to keep a tighter reign on our spending, striving to save anywhere we can is often the case. One area where we can greatly affect our spending or savings is in the food budget. Coupons are a great source of savings if utilized correctly. But there are other ways to save money on your food shopping. The one I would like to talk about today is shopping at Food or Grocery Outlets.
Grocery Outlets go way back. I remember my mother, who was always kept on a tight grocery budget by my father, use to shop regularly at a place called Gronto's in Norfolk, VA back in the mid 1960's.
My mom was a SAHM and as a child of 4 or 5 I remember accompanying her to Gronto's to buy groceries. This Outlet was a big old warehouse type building with wooden planks set up on sawhorses for tables/shelves. It was dark, it was dingy and it smelled badly. But there were bargains to be had!
The grocery items were lines up in rows on the planks or filled big boxes, or sat on pallets on the floor. It was shelf stable type foods, in cans, boxes, bottles and bags. No dairy, meat or fresh produce. These were the things that didn't sell at the 'nice' grocery stores....the dented cans, the bottles that had leaked because caps were not on right, the things with torn labels or packaging that had been ripped apart & taped back up. Though I was too young to read, I can guess that some of the items were out of date as well. We never got sick or died from eating this stuff so the pennies on the dollar spent helped our family make it to the next paycheck. This was a way even back then to stretch your money a little further.
I had seen that one of these modern versions of the Grocery Discount Outlet had opened up near a small shopping center I use to like to frequent. This was about a year ago. Since I have stopped shopping recreationally a few years ago, I haven't had the opportunity to be near this new Outlet until a couple of weeks ago. So I stopped in to scout out what bargains could be had.
Like any food store, you have to go in knowing what you usually pay for items during your weekly food shopping, so you know if something is a 'deal' for you or not. These types of stores also don't stock a full range of groceries, as they are buying overruns and returned merchandise from the large chains grocery stores and suppliers as well as discontinued merchandise. So you have to be open to new brands of items. And you have to be able to take advantage of deals NOW because something may not be there next time....when the stock is gone, that's usually all they are getting of a particular thing.
Here are some things I picked up on my trip.....
Since this type of store buys from different suppliers, the prices won't always make sense. What I mean is they could have 3 different brands of pasta....same size package, same type of pasta but the price per package may be the same or it could vary widely. The price the store puts on the item depends on what the supplier charges them. See the Jumbo Shells Pasta? This store brand Stop & Shop package was $.50. The same size package/type of pasta for another store brand was $1.00. Same sell by dates, same item basically but the 2 packages came from 2 different suppliers.
They had many national name brands as well as many store brands(some store brands from stores not around here, like Meijer, Stop & Shop, etc.)
My impressions of this outlet...
First off, unlike the Outlet of my childhood, this one was modern, relatively clean and bright. This is only a good thing in my book. You want the store to be clean and inviting. While you don't need fancy(and you would pay more for the fancy surroundings), you don't want your eyes or your nose to be assaulted by filth or bad odors.
They had a WIDE selection of cold breakfast cereals, and even quite a few hot type cereals(oatmeal, cream of wheat, maypo, etc.) Prices on these were all over the board. The Train Mix Crunch(the varitey they don't carry at my local reg. grocery stores) was .99¢ as it was close to Use By Date. The McCann's Irish Steel Cut Oats Instant was .99¢. The Quaker Grits Variety Box was $1.50. Both of those were things I can't get around here at the reg. grocery store.
The canned products(veggies, etc.)were rather limited. House or off-brands with close to Name Brand prices. The only good buys were Restaurant or Instituitional sizes. The huge can of soup(Heinz brand, not the usually known name brands for grocery store consumer-sized soups around here)was $1.39. A great deal if you can use that much soup.lol I plan on cooking with it, so I'll use about half of it and freeze the rest for later or I'll make a double batch of the dish it's going into and freeze the extra meal.
The bagged spaghetti sauce was a decent buy for .79¢(retails for $2.39 around here). A good deal compared to the regular retail and good to have on hand when daughter wants to make a pasta meal for herself when she doesn't want what I am making. You can find this brand of convenience sauce on sale and combined with coupons you could do as well or better at the reg. grocery store.
The fruit chillers were .50¢. A discontinued flavor thus the great price. The salsa was .99¢ and the fancy-pants gourmet mushroom bruschetta spread was also .99¢. Both coming up on Sell By Dates.
Boxes dry pastas, rice and things like taco shells were a very good buy. The Jumbo Pasta Shells were .50¢ a box....and they weren't all broken inside the box. This kind of specialty dried pasta goes for almost $2 a box at the grocery store. The Old El Paso Taco shells were also .50¢ a box. Again, much cheaper than retail and they weren't even close to their Use By Date.
Bottled/canned juices were not much reduced from normal grocery store prices. The ones that were a good buy were full of HFCS and added things(the juice "cocktails"). Be sure to read labels before you buy. I did pick up the Aqua Juice for .99¢. I believe at least around here, these blends of 100% juice and water just didn't go over very well in stores so they are disappearing from the grocery store shelves. These kind of discontinued items are a good buy but they won't be around long.
Some of the cleaning supplies and toiletries were pretty decent buys, unless you are use to getting these kinds of items for free or pennies at the drugstores like CVS, Rite-Aid and Walgreens.
Fresh bread products were scarce on this day. What there was was out of date and marked low. Unless you have room to freeze or refrigerate these until you need them I would be cautious about buying.
There was very little fresh produce. It looked sad and was not a better price than you would find at the regular grocery store. The 3lb. bag of apples was an exception at $1.99 and they were local.
The best deal had to be the dairy and frozen food sections. The closer it was to an "Use by" date, the cheaper it was with the dairy products.
The OJ was $1.50 and the Limeade was .50¢, both about half of retail. The pumpkin pie filling was .99¢, the puddings were .79¢ & .99¢..nothing to write home about but varieties/flavors I wanted to try. The Cooper Sharp Deli cheese(not pictured) was less than $4lb., whereas the regular grocery stores here sell it for $6.99lb. Ocassionally it goes on sale for $4.99. We "heart" Cooper Sharp in our house....lol
The Super Shots yogurt was .99¢. That was the deal of the day. Those things retail for $5 or $6 a pack! These were not at the Sell By Date yet, but I have found that with yogurt, you can go waaaay past those dates and still have edible product. I've eaten 4 month past date yogurt and lived to tell the tale.lol
Now I only bought 1 frozen food item, the pie in the brown cardboard box. There is a Pillsbury plant in this region. Mostly they produce restaurant/institutional type goods there, like these pies. This outlet chain gets their overruns to sell. They charge $1.50 for the pies and you never know what flavors they will have. I think the pies are on the smallish side but it's only $1.50 so I don't complain. Not bad if you are too lazy to make it yourself from scratch. ;-)
This outlet also gets in overruns from Tyson & a 'well-known' vegetable purveyor, mostly restaurant/institutional sized packages without the fancy packaging and labels. I'll trade lower prices on chicken and broccoli any day for pretty wrappers! I don't recall the exact prices/sizes but I do remember that it was a good deal and when/if I ever reclaim any space in my freezer, I'll be going back to take advantage of the deals on those items.
All in all it was a fruitful trip. And on the way out I learned that this outlet DOES take some kinds of coupons! There are some manufacturer's that will NOT let them take coupons however for certain brands. That is the deal they make with the outlet....we give you our products to sell for cheap but we won't accept coupons from you for said items, thus the outlet doesn't accept coupons from the customers. Mostly it was Tyson, Pillsbury and most of the cold cereal manufacturer's. But it would be worth taking your coupon binder in as you may find something at a good deal and have a coupon for it that the store will accept. Don't count on it, but it would be a happy surprise if it happens.
I spent $32.32 on this trip. A couple of things were duds(the pumpkin pie filling and the mushroom bruschetta spread) but all in all I figure I saved about 50% over reg. grocery store retail on what I bought.
If you have a Grocery Outlet near you, it would be worth your while to check it out. You might be able to keep a few more dollars in your own pocket using this resource.
Sluggy
