Grocery Stores cheaper than walmart?

[jc3900]

I must confess, I am a walmar fanatic. I love to shop there and i feel that they offer very competitive prices on a lot of items. My question is are there any other chains that are better than walmart all around in terms of price competitiveness. I don't really know about to many other discount stores. What I do know is that on Sunday, I bought a 12 ounce steak for 2.00$.

[rob62521]

I'm not a big Wal-Mart fan, but in all fairness, Wal-Mart does have some things cheaper. But, some grocery stores beat Wal-Mart for other items. For example, a 5 lb bag of flour (Wal-Mart brand) is a dollar more than the store brand at the grocery store I frequent. So, I think you have to price things out. I wanted to stock up on flour because wheat prices are going to go up and I'm doing a big baking project with my students at school. At $1 difference, it does make a big dent. I think the grocery stores are more reasonable on some things and Wal-mart is on others.

[TigerFan61]

What you have to take into consideration when pricing any products is the amount of volume that store sells of that item and when the last time they had to place an order to replace the item. It really doesn't matter if it is food, gas or whatever. In a rising market, such as when wheat is at high prices causing flour and baked goods to increase, Wal-Mart may have to place orders and replace the flour many times in a week. Each time they purchase there may be a slight increase in price, where a grocery store with less volume may order and replace that product once a week.
Same thing applies to gas, when gas prices is on the rise, the high volume gas stations pumping 10,000 gallons a day will be getting a delivery every day and will be paying the current price with all of the daily increases.
Go down the street and find a station that does less volume and purchases once a week and price may be slightly lower. Example: About a year ago I wanted to purchase some electrical wire and copper had recently jumped up in price. I went to the local big chain box store and found the wire close to $2.00 per foot. I drove down the street about 1/2 mile to a small hardware store that carried the same size and brand name wire. Purchased it there for $1.30 per foot. They did not sell the volume of wire that the big box store sells and had not ordered in a while, so I was purchasing it at an old price. Later when they had to reorder the wire the price was up.

[SnoopyCool]

I hear Aldi's is cheap, but they aren't here so I can't verify that.

[rob62521]

We have two Aldi's in our town and you can get some good bargains. It's like most places -- some things are more reasonable than others.

[LuxLiving]

jc3900, Save-A-Lot and Aldi's are two chains that are generally much cheaper than Walmart. They also have a more limited selection.

As the other posters have mentioned prices vary widely. That's why keeping a price-book on the items you buy regularly is a good idea.

[Aleta]

I used to keep a price book and am thinking about doing it again. I never knew of anyone who did it and I can remember people telling me that I was fanatic about shopping. I used to think that maybe they were right until I joined here and have found out how many of you think as I do.

I personally shop at different stores and get their loss leaders and buy them in bulk. Probably Walmart has lower everyday prices. Ours is too far away to make it worth it to me.

[cicy33]

as a huge coupon user and frequent grocery shopper, there are many grocery items that are cheaper at walmart than say at kroger. I say kroger cuz that is who we have here. 15 million bars and one main grocery store, go figure! I do shop a lot at kroger due to the double coupon and the sales. But I do shop frequently at walmart for items that either I don't have coupons for or can get a better deal. We have an aldi's and it has so went down hill lately. Couple of examples of prices:
hamburger helper: Kroger 1.89 (on sale) 2.29 regular
Walmart 1.29 (on sale) 1.69 regular
Pepperridge farm frozen bread Kroger 2 - 2.50 , walmart 1.60.
but then you have figure in coupons. Now in the bread situation I had $1 off so the cost was a lot cheaper at walmart. but if it was .50 would have been closer due to the fact that kroger doubles. This week they have had such a great sale that I have shopped at kroger exclusively. However, I don't like the meat at walmart. I have bought it and it just doesn't compare. I also bought bagels once there and I mean the good ones that are like $3 a bag, got them home and pulled one to find on the bottom it was GROWING! ick. took it back of course. But I can say I haven't found that at kroger. possibly higher turn around. or I just got lucky.