Many grocery stores put out their flyers and ads mid-week for sales that run from Thursday through Wednesday. These ads can be found in the Wednesday newspaper or beginning Thursday can be found in the stores or online. I find it best to get the newspaper on Wednesday and make a grocery list immediately. This saves me from having to fight the crowds on the weekend and I get the sale items before they are sold out at the beginning of the following week.
Over the past few weeks since I have started my personal extreme coupon challenge, I have discovered different ways to check the mid-week ads, gather my coupons and make my shopping list. Last week alone I save more than 75 percent of my grocery bill by taking the following steps.
First, I went through each of the two local grocery store ads page by page, highlighting everything that was Buy 1, Get 1. Then I went through and in a different color I highlighted everything that was on sale that we either needed or would use.
Next, I went through the ad again, comparing the BOGO sales with my coupons. I have discovered that this is the key to saving the most amount of money on my grocery bill. Think about it…you are already saving 50 percent with the BOGO sale and then if you use a coupon you save even more. For example, this week there was a BOGO sale on the new Campbell’s Select Harvest at our Publix store. I had manufacturer coupons for $1 off each can of the new soup. That brought down the two cans to less than one dollar for both. (I bought 20 cans of soup for less than $10 during that shopping trip.)
Finally, go through all of the other sales and compare with your stash of coupons. Determine if you need the items and if the sale price, with coupon will fit in with your grocery budget.
Another tip is to never shop for items not on your grocery list and it is always the best practice to try and only buy items that have a coupon associated with them. (I know…sometimes there are no coupons available for dairy, meat and produce items.)
Happy savings!!