stocking up to save $ - where do you buy?

wwmom

Mon, Jul 25 2011, 11:38 am

I really want to stock up on items to save money and to cut my weekly grocery bills. I want to buy paper goods, and non-perishable food items. Where do you find you get the best deals? Do you find that certain stores have specific things that they run specials on that are good deals? Please specify item and store. Any other tips would be appreciated. I live in Brooklyn.
TIA

Fabulous

Mon, Jul 25 2011, 3:11 pm

The way I do it saves money in the long term but not necessarily in the short term. It's not a one time thing because you will never find everything you need to stock up on in one place or even at one time in multiple places. My best tool is watsonsale.com

The three main stores to check out are Appetizing Plus, KRM, and Moishes. I stock up from there and also from Shoprite when stuff is on sale. Do a google search for shoprite circular. This means that almost every week I am stocking up on something, so in short term, grocery bill still seems high but in long term I am saving a lot of money. For example I may be spending $100 a week, which would average about $2500 in 6 months but if I wouldn't do this, it would be $3000 in that same period.

seeker

Mon, Jul 25 2011, 3:23 pm

Maybe you can get better deals in bulk somewhere, but I generally stock up on Shoprite sales. I do this because I don't have that much time and energy to go all over looking for the best deals on everything, and I don't have the space to store an infinite amount either. But Shoprite tends to run the same sales periodically so I know I can get a couple of months' worth of something and still go back for more if I run out. For example, they quite frequently have some kind of pasta for $.70, and a couple of times a year they have a "can can" sale of, well, canned goods. Every month or so they have some kind of sale on toilet paper/paper towels, and approximately one in three of those is a real metziah - I try to go from one metziah to the next. Staples like oil and flour also go on sale periodically. Since I keep yoshon and have limited storage space, I prioritize stocking up on macaroni and cereal in late summer.

Blueberry Muffin

Mon, Jul 25 2011, 3:52 pm

I shop at the two major supermarkets near me and stock up on the items that r buy 1 get 1 free - like marinara sauce or cereal or macaroni....
when target has tissues and cleaing items on sale I would stock up there -
I have my regulars at costco
and papergoods I get from amazing savings or papergoodsdirect.com
I ALWAYS stock up on good deals.....
cant do so on perishables
when school supplies r on clearance I usually get a whole bunch of staples - like markers and pencils and tape and highlighters and folders and whatnot that I know we will be using during the yr or will be on my kids school supply list the following yr....

obagys

Mon, Jul 25 2011, 4:03 pm

I go back and forth about stocking up when items are on sale. On the one hand, you save money on an item you would otherwise buy at full price, so that is definitely long-term savings. But on the other hand, I'm still spending the same amount of money - if not more- every week due to all this stocking up, so in the short term, there is the same or MORE cash flow going OUT on a weekly basis. Of course, you can go the 1st of every month to a particular store or stores and stock up; then, just stick to the regular groceries for the other weeks in the month so that you are only having that major expenditure of stocking up 1x per month and then cheaper weekly bills for the remainder of the month. BUT, you may not be stocking up on those items at the lowest price if you set a fixed schedule to stock up so you aren't getting the best deal, and that always bothers me.

I know I've said nothing useful, so I'm done rambling LOL

peppermint

Mon, Jul 25 2011, 4:44 pm

You wanna know how I keep my food bill to about $200 a month for 2 adults? Very Happy

Sales and coupons! Very Happy

I almost never pay full price for anything. I mostly shop in Pathmark and Shoprite. I sometimes go to Mountain Fruit when they have a good sale. (You dont need a min purchase to get the sale price.) I avoid the other Jewish stores bec even if they have a good sale I cant find anything to make the minimum needed to get the sale price.

Rosner's in boro park has a few things that are really good regular priced. ex: chrain is always $2 (elsewhere its on sale for $3.69)

When they have a good sale I go to Paperific. They have the best prices for tin pans and plastic containers so I have no problem making the minimum.

On Wednesday or Thursday we get the circulars and Marketeers. If the marketeers comes with good coupons I get extra from the apartment building down the block. My DH prints coupons from on-line and he downloads coupons directly to his pathmark card. when we see a really good sale we buy in bulk. examples: normally ketchup is on sale for $1. one week pathmark had it for $0.78 no limit. So I bought 20 bottles and we got a raincheck for another 20 bottles! I normally pay $1 for a 2 liter bottle of soda. CVS had it on sale for $.69 each limit 5. So I did 4 separate orders. plus I got 2 rainchecks! I got 13 coupons for $1 off a box of noodles. Shoprite had it on sale for $0.77 a box so I got 13 free boxes of pasta!

And I sometimes stock up on perishables depending on the expiration date. My favorite cheese was a really good price and it could stay in the fridge unopened till October so I stocked up. Cream cheese was recently $0.65 instead of $1.25 and it expires in November so I bought a lot

wwmom

Mon, Jul 25 2011, 7:46 pm

peppermint wrote:

You wanna know how I keep my food bill to about $200 a month for 2 adults? Very Happy

Sales and coupons! Very Happy

wow, I'm impressed. Do all your coupons come from the Marketeer? Where else can you get these great coupons (like the noodles)?

seeker

Mon, Jul 25 2011, 8:01 pm

What is marketeers?

Coupon question: Shoprite has an offer now if you spend $75 of certain brands (a lot are included) you get a $25 gas card. I'd like to see if I can make it, we are just a couple with baby so that's a lot of groceries but willing to do a stockup if it'll be worth it. So, does anyone know where online I can find coupons to stack with this? The $75 is before coupons. I'm trying to figure out if it'd be worth it or if I could just get most of the stuff that much cheaper elsewhere that it would cancel out the $25...

peppermint

Mon, Jul 25 2011, 8:29 pm

seeker wrote:

Also, peppermint, aren't most of those coupons limit one per customer? Do you actually go through checkout ten times?!

very few coupons are one per customer. some coupons are 4 per costumer. most coupons are unlimited.

If I need to, I do a few orders, but I dont wait on line more then once. I just do multiple orders one after another.

the marketeer is the fliers that get delivered door to door on Wednesday or Thursday each week. It includes coupons and all the store circulars for the following week

anon for this

Mon, Jul 25 2011, 8:44 pm

seeker wrote:

Sometimes when Shoprite runs these deals it's the shelf price that counts toward the $75 threshold and not the sale price. Also according to the fine print on the ad, the $75 threshold is before the face value of the coupon (as you said) but after the doubled value, if your store doubles.

Since these deals do not require you to buy it all in one transaction I will probably do multiple transactions if I do this deal. I have to see what's on sale, won't have a chance to check it out till later this week.

If I do this one, I will probably get the Shoprite gift card instead of the gas card.

peppermint

Tue, Jul 26 2011, 12:01 am

wwmom wrote:

Does anyone know of any stores in Brooklyn that double coupons? How does doubling work? do you have to request it, or do they only do it at certain times?

Stop & Shop automatically doubles coupons up to $0.99 Some pathmarks also double till 99 cents but the pathmarks in brooklyn dont. Sad

A few times pathmark had a special promotion where they were doubling coupons up to $2. Before coupons my order was about $50 for mostly non-food taxable items. And after double coupons I paid under $2, including tax! Smile