Coupon Sharing and grocery information

Keep using your coupons, but generic instead of name brands. Most generic are just as good as the name brands. There are a few things that I do not buy generic, but for the most part, I usually buy generic. Watch the sale ads. Some places have double coupons and I know out here, there is a place that a couple of times a year will offer triple coupons. Another thing you can do, is get with someone and shop the buy one, get one free....and then just split the cost of the one that is not free. Just a few ideas here

do coupons work on generic items? I thought they were only for items listed.

Unless you get a coupon for generics, they won't work, but if you do have one for brand names, just watch the sales and also watch for when stores have double or triple coupons and use them at that time. It all comes down to really watching sales and comparing prices.

Exam. generic (store brand) canned corn..$0.50

Brand name canned corn $0.75

Sale price: Buy one get on free (2 for price of 1)

coupon ~ Buy 3 (name brand) save $0.35


On this you can buy 4 cans of name brand corn for $1.50, (4 cans of store brand would be $2).

You are already saving $0.50 before the coupon. Now use your coupon and save another $0.35, for a total savings of $0.85

Now if the store offers double coupons, you would save $1.20, meaning you got your corn for $0.30.

If the store offers triple coupons, you got your corn for free. It is just a matter of planning, comparing and checking everything out.

This is just an example of what could happen. Like I said, we have a store here that a few times a year offer triple coupons and I have known people to buy a couple of hundreds of dollars worth of groceries and paid pennies on the dollar or have left not paid anything for things they bought.

Can of name-brand canned corn [Del Monte] at our local Hannaford: $.79

Can of store-brand canned corn at our local Aldi: $.35

Here's the kicker: Both brands are canned in the exact same cannery. This was verified by the codes printed on the cans. The only differences are the label and the price.

I had forgotten about Aldis....just remember your own bags when you go there. LOL

We were need to find one in our area. Use to go there all the time when we lived in KS.

Amen to that! About 15 years ago, (oh, they have great raspberry jam) I brought home some stuff in the cardboard displays they had food in. They must have had roaches, because after that, we got roaches. We never had roaches before. Once we got rid of the roaches, we haven't seen one since.

Exactly....As with any place like Aldis, just make sure you look things over real well. 99% of the time, things are ok, but once in a while.... The items there are usually items that cannot be sold in the store due to possibly some dented cans, etc. I know some flea markets have things like this too, but just be sure to look things over well. My husband and I have gotten some pretty good stuff at both places. There are also those places that sell bread and stuff like that at a discount. We use to go to those places too and very seldom get anything that was bad. WE usually buy bread in quantity and put it in the freezer anyway, same with cookies and stuff like that.

This is a great idea!! And one we can certainly use right now. I'm wondering if we could move this to the Extra Income thread or perhaps it could stand on its own? What do you think?

[quote=2nband]I had forgotten about Aldis....just remember your own bags when you go there. LOL

We were need to find one in our area. Use to go there all the time when we lived in KS[/quote]

Store locator

We don't have Aldi's close enough to me (nearest one is over 80 miles away) to make it worth the trip, unless I was traveling there for something else.

The store I miss the most from when I lived in another state was one called Sharp Shopper. Short-dated, slightly damaged or salvage goods at incredible prices. I have no problem buying short-dated hard cheese and freezing it, or yogurt (gets eaten immediately at our house anyway), etc. You could get some incredible deals. Obviously, you wanted to stay away from items in their freezer section that were past their 'use by' date, simply because you don't know exactly when it was frozen - could have already been bad when it got frozen and you wouldn't know until you thawed it and tried to use it.

They had cereals, canned goods, etc. I never got anything that had gone bad.

Thanks for the store locator!!! I know where 2 of those stores are at and they are about 20 miles from us.

Glad I could help. :)

Aldis is known as one of the best food stores around. They have great food at great prices and are getting better at all that they do. I can go into an Aldis and spend lets say $100.00 and get 4 or 5 bags of food and go to Jewels, Domminicks, Meijers, or any other "name-brand" store and get half of that and it is almost all of the same stuff, just packaged differntly. I work at a food packaging plant, I know.

Thanks,
Luke

I love to go to Aldis! Sine it is a little ways from my house and with gas prices, i make a trip about every 2-3 weeks.

The same way with my coupon store. I save up the coupons and make a trip over there when I have enough in savings that will make the trip worthwhile.

I love Aldis too. I wonder, do they accept coupons?

Luke

Hmmm I don't know. that is a good question. Anyone know?

Thanks 2nband. I have never seen anyone do this, maybe becuase they are not needed. Anyone?

Luke, 2nband -

To the best of my knowledge, Aldi does not accept coupons. Stands to reason... Almost everything they carry is their own house brand, that's one part of their business model that allows them to maintain their price point.

BTW, Aldi's house brand products are at least as good as any national brand item. I've tried virtually everything they sell, from diapers to meat to canned goods. I've only found two products that I don't like:

Belmont coffee: It's actually very good Arabica coffee. It's just not to my taste. I drink Columbian. If you happen across Belmont Columbian Coffee, that is to my taste, and is very tasty, indeed.

Their house brand John Wayne toilet paper. 'nuff said.

I like everything there just about except their produce, but it is getting better.

I have an Aldis, in my area, too. ALSO have a place, called Sharp Shopper. It's just like Aldis. Not 'name brand' stuff...but, I'm not 'into' 'name brand' stuff anyway. Seems like I buy alot of items from them and hardly pay anything!!

Thank God there is stores like that sdchargers63. Where I grew up there was a sav a lot...seems like the whole town went there instead of Krogers ( a big super store).

We use Save A Lot here in MI for staples - frozen veggies, canned fruits (their canned veggies are cheap enough, but the quality isn't that great - last batch I got tasted funky), milk, eggs and such. It's always cheaper.

I don't know if anyone newer here has looked at my blog - my last post (about a year ago, I know, gotta get back to it) was about how to save money at the grocery store...hope it helps!

I have to check that out suebee, you are a rock of wisdom.

If you use coupons regularly, this is a great site: couponmom(dot)com. It's free to join and you can get lists of the best deals at the stores in your area (most areas). The lists show the current sale prices of items along with the coupon to use to maximize your savings. There are also a couple of great ebooks (free) on the site that give very good advice about how to do your shopping to always find the best deals.

Another site that I use is thegrocerygame(dot)com. This site does charge a fee for membership. The fee varies depending on how many stores you want to get lists for. The first store is $10 every 8 weeks, and each additional store is $5 every 8 weeks. But you can get a 4 week trial to as many stores as you want (depending on your area's availability) for only $1. This site also has lots of hints about how to maximize your savings. Even though the membership costs money, I have found this site to be the most helpful. The lists are color coded and easier to read. I have saved a lot more money using the lists than I have spent for my membership.

Hope this helps someone!

I've been using the grocery game website. I am 2 weeks into the trial and I think the site is very useful. Basically the way it works is you are paying people to study the general grocery price trend for a particular store in your area and then match coupons with sales prices to give you the rock bottom deals of the week. The list saves the end user a ton of time by doing all the research for you. You then go out and stock up on those items. After a few months you will have a solid stockpile of bargain priced items in reserve so you won't need to pay a premium for those items weekly.

If you decide to try it you will need to get 2-4 weeks worth of coupons first. I would also recomend getting 2-4 sets of those coupons so you can get multiples of the really cheap and free items. Quite often you will find an item on the list that is on sale and matched with a coupon that came out over a month ago. This occurs because the stores operate on a sales cycle. First they run a wave of coupons for a month. Then they run a wave of sales the next month. The gorcery game is all about maximizing those sales mixed with a great coupon.

I'll chime in and ring the "All Hail Aldi's!" bell as well. I do all my main shopping at Aldi's which is in the town that I work in Monday-Friday. I only run into other stores when I am short on time or back at home in my small town that doesn't have an Aldi's, or obviously on the weekends when I am not in my "work" town. Shopping there has cut down SO much on my impulse buys, I used to wander around WalMart, Gerbes/Kroger, Hyvee etc for ages just chucking things into my cart. Now it is a quick spin around the four aisles filling up with exactly what I need. I usually don't even look in the first aisle where all the crap junk food is, cookies, chips, wine etc. On top of my health and weight being so much better now, it has saved on my bottom line at the register as well. I have learned to always bring my own bags, I was terrible about that for a while.

Trader Joes is a couple hour drive from us now, where I lived before was one of the original stores and I used to do almost all of my shopping there. BUT there is a lot of useless, crap junkfood there too, so it takes a strong will not to fill up on that stuff. But there prices for natural peanut butter, nuts, dried fruit and all sorts of frozen meats are really good. The BEST thing they sell there are the dried bing cherries ... I could eat a whole bag but I force myself to ration them out to a few a day and a bag will last me a few weeks.

Unfortunately I don't have an Aldi's anywhere near me anymore. I use to shop there some when I was living in another city. I would recommend that people check out couponmom and thegrocerygame websites still though if they don't mind messing with coupons and want to save a ton of dough. Couponmom is free and thegrocerygame cost a little bit of money. Even if you just keep tabs on the couponmom website it can save you some cash.

Here are a couple great deals I found by using thegrocerygame:

Meijer had pasta on sale last week at a price of two boxes for $1. Normally they are about $1 per box so you are already saving 50% but meijer also had a printable coupon on their website for $0.50 off each box and you could print and use as many as you wanted. This meant you would get each box free. I picked up 20 boxes which would have cost me $20 full price but I paid nothing. The sale is still on this week but the price changed slightly to where each box cost 17 cents now.

Walgreens has Powerade drink on sale this week at $0.89 limit 6. Normally they are $1.69 so the savings is already 40% but Sundays paper had $1 off coupons per each. I had 6 sets of coupons so I got 6 bottles of powerade and Walgreens paid me $0.66 to take them home. I bought other stuff too so that 66 cents actually subtracted from my total but I walked out getting around $40 worth of stuff for $4 which is 90% savings.

I don't think we have Aldi's in Southern California, so I've never been in one. Too bad, it sounds like a good way to save some money! :(

I do use couponmom and the grocery game, as I stated in a previous post, and they are great for saving money. I like the grocerygame better since it's easier to read though. But Ralphs recently changed their policy to only doubling coupons with a 50 cent or less value instead of $1, so I'm finding that I'm not getting quite as great of deals anymore with the grocerygame site.

Yeah I like the grocerygame better than couponmom also. The format is much easier to read and manipulate at thegrocerygame but it does cost a minimum of $10 every 2 months for 1 store. If you want extra stores then its $5 additional every 2 months.

This is the first time I've taken the time to read this post! WOW what great information. We have been trying SO hard to reduce our food cost, we have shopped at Aldi's, but I've been afraid to try things like the can goods, but from what you guys are saying they are good. I have also been trying to figure out coupons, I've never much for that, (might be part of why we never have any extra money), I normally shop every 2 weeks at Wal-Mart, but I think it would be better to shop weekly and watch ads and specials at a variety of places, at least that's what it looks like your all saying. Please chime in and let me know your thoughts about Wal-Mart vs other chains and weekly special, I hoping this can become a new hobby, rather than worrying about my bills!! Reny

Reny, we don't have a super Wal-Mart here (just a regular one with not a lot of grocery items), so I can't really advise on that. But what I did was to sign up with the grocery game for the $1 four-week trial. During that time you can have access to all of the lists that are available in your area. I checked each store's list every week and used the suggested coupons (so much easier than trying to keep track of all of the coupons on your own!). By the end of the four week trial, I had a pretty good idea which stores it was worth continuing and having to pay for the lists, and I kept the subscription to only those stores, knowing that I would save much more than the lists would cost.

The other thing that I do is to keep a spreadsheet of my "usual" stores and "usual" purchases. I keep track of the normal prices for the items I use regularly and I keep track of the lowest sales prices for those items also. It's similar to what you are paying for with the grocery game list, which tracks sales trends. However, I have found that on some items, the list shows things as being good deals when I can really buy them for less someplace else (Wal-Mart, for example).

I have saved a lot of money though and been able to stock up on things when they are on sale. There are a couple of free ebooks on the coupon mom site, and lots of instructions about how to use "the list" at the grocery game site. Read them! It will probably change the way you think about grocery shopping! And, yes, it can become a rewarding hobby! I feel great when I'm able to come home with several bags full of great deals!

My husband thought I was nuts with my spreadsheets, but when I was finally able to show him the savings trend, he finally stopped teasing me about it!

Wal-mart is generally not a list store for thegrocerygame since it is considered a bargain store although some areas have it as a list. I live in Louisville KY and we have a ton of Wal-marts but it is not a list store. You can get pretty good bargains there and apply the same principles that TGG follows but the cool thing about the grocery game is it organizes everything for you pretty much. All you have to do is buy a few newspapers to get the coupons.

The strategy I follow is I buy 1-6 newspapers depending on the coupons for the week. For example, last week had some great coupons and included both smart source and red plum so I bought 6 papers. It was a great week for new coupons. Then I review my lists as they come out and buy the best deals that I think I will use in multiples to stock up. I have only been at it 3 weeks but I have a ton of shampoo, soap and cleaners that I got free or very very cheap. After I get that stuff then I do my regular shopping at my needs store which is either Wal-mart, Kroger or Meijer.

The list has a lot of deals on it including normal stuff like meat, bread, fruit and so on. Most of the time the normal stuff is around 50% off so I jump around between stores getting the best bargain I can on meat, bread, milk and whatever I consume week to week.

You can follow this same strat using Couponmom but that site isn't as organized although it is free. You can also follow the same strat doing it yourself but it takes way more time since you would have to reveiw each weekly add plus visit each store to find the instore sales. On top of that you would have to start making a price book to keep track of the average price of everyitem in the store. The lists do all that for you though and they will tell you when there is a great deal on many things that you would not even think about buying.

does anyone who regularly shops at Aldi know how the grocerygame/couponmom forums stack up as far as savings go? I am all for trying something new, but I also don't want to spend 2 hours preparing for a shopping trip or checking every single store every week ...

Well its been quite some time since I went to an Aldi's since the closest one is an hour away but the way I remember it all they had was food. There was no health and beauty items, no cleaners, no medicines and so on to speak of. The thing about those websites is you will find a lot of those type of items on the list as well and they are priced at 80% off to free. For example, in 3 weeks I have already picked up 20 bottles of shampoo and conditioner free and some of those were what I would consider very high end designer bottles like $10 a bottle or more. They weren't bargain brand specials. I also picked up a bunch of sauces for free or very cheap like A-1 and Miracle Whip. I think they cost me about $0.25 a bottle instead of $4 a bottle. Another item I got really cheap was Electrosol Dishwasher detergent. It was the big box with powder and I got one box for 0.25 and another box for 0.75. Normally they are $3/box. I don't know if Aldi's has anything similar.

It is very random as to what is on the list though. Some weeks might have sauces at a good deal and others it might be cleaners. The key is you stockpile a bunch of whatever is free or very cheap. The downside is it does take extra time to prepare but you will thank yourself because you save a ton of money. I don't think I spend 2 hours preparing but I would say I spend 2 hours for the entire process which includes reviewing my lists, clipping a few coupons and hitting the 5 stores I have lists for. I am going to drop CVS because it is not convenient for me though.

Using the lists is very easy. It tells you exactly where to get the coupon. What I do is file by insert date and then review the list. Whatever items is on the list I want I just clip those few coupons. I generally end up getting 5-10 things per store for really cheap or free. Some people clip every coupon but that is way to much work for me. Those people save a lot more money than I do though because they get bargains at every store and not just list stores plus they have coupons for extra items that might be a need item to them but not make the list.

If you read the information at the GG site about using the lists, you'll see that part of the reason for the "randomness" of what's on the list week to week is that sales (and coupons) tend to run in a twelve week cycle. Things go on sale and then they're not on sale again during that twelve week cycle. That's where the stockpiling comes in, the theory being that you stock up on things that you use while they are on sale so that you don't have to run out of them and pay full price for them before they go on sale again.

I would say that if you are worried about the amount of time involved, try the $1 four-week trial at the GG and see how much time it takes. If you are worried about the time involvement, I would definitely go with the GG rather than coupon mom because the GG lists are color coded and much easier to read. But the coupon mom lists are free.

is it easy to cancel if I decide not to continue with it, or is it a nightmare like some other things?

It's easy. You just access your account online and there's an option to cancel or downgrade (reduce the number of lists). I haven't canceled mine, but I did reduce the number of lists. During the trial period I used all of the lists for my area. Then before the end of the trial period, I went in and downgraded my membership. After that, every time I logged in my account showed the date that the downgrade would take effect (the date that my trial period was due to end), and, sure enough, it worked fine. So I would imagine that cancellation would work the same way.

I think you can just uncheck all the lists as well and you would not be charged but I haven't tried it. I am still in my trial period as well. I have 1 week left but I think I am going to stick with it using 4 lists for the next few months until I have a pretty decent stockpile of non perishable goods and freezer stock.

Also you can sign up for couponmom and its all free. You do not need to fill in any real information when signing up for them.

I love this....I'm so excited to get started doing this!!

Lmale, it actually is kind of fun. And, as you say, it gives you something to worry about besides bills. At least you feel like you are doing something proactive to save money.

I've had so much going on the past few weeks with kids out of school and summer activities that I've kind of let my couponing slide, but I'm looking forward to getting back to it next month once the kids are back in school and I have a more normal schedule again.

Does anyone know where to find a good coupon organizer?

I cannot believe i never paid much attention to this thread! it has awesome info, thanks everyone!

I made a coupon organizer out of a photo album originally but I don't use it at all. I found it easer to sort by the date of the booklets that you get each sunday. It really depends on how much effort you want to put into this. Some people organize every coupon and carry their albums with them every time they shop which gives them the ablity to use coupons even if they don't make the list. That takes more time than I want to invest though. I just look at the date given on the list and go to the corresponding newspaper insert and clip the coupon.

do coupons save you alot of money? i saw a lady on the news who went to acme, where apparently they double coupons and she got $200 for a few cents. i did not believe it but she actually did, though a lot of stuff she had she sent away for. i do not expect any of that but does it make a remarkable difference for savings?
also i am interested in signing up for the trail at the coupon game. do i need to get coupons ahead of time? where exactly do i get them from? does the website tell me or do i have to find them? sorry if that sounds dumb.
thanks :)

I still say Aldi's is an awesome store, without the effort!

i really do not like my local aldi's though :( i know of one a bit further out, maybe i should give that one a chance but the closest one to me is really nasty.

ours are newer and kept up well, maybe you should call or email the Aldi's corporation and ask them if they are planning on updating your local one? I mean, are the floors clean, is it organized, or is it a gross mess?

it's a gross mess :) i know there is one a little further away, i will check that one out when i need to go shopping, i think :)