Find Stores That Match Prices To Save Money

[jeffrey]

There are many ways to save money when grocery shopping, but going from store to store searching for the best price can cost you more money than you save. While most people think that going to a number of different grocery stores and getting the best price at each will save them money, the truth is that you will often lose money by following this process. Even though you'll rarely find a single grocery store that has the best price on every item you need to buy each week, visiting a number of different grocery stores is usually not the answer.




There are a couple of problems with going to more than one grocery store for your shopping. First, most of the time the focus is so intently on the difference in the price of the food that the cost of driving from store to store isn't taken into account. AAA estimates that is costs about $0.57 a mile to drive a car. A big portion of this is for fixed costs that have to be paid whether you drive or not like insurance. AAA also estimates that it costs approximately $0.10 per mile for gasoline and a total operating cost of approximately $0.16 per mile (this includes maintenance and tires).
That means if you drive 20 extra miles to find better grocery prices at different stores, the total savings needs to be $11.40 or more to make the trip worthwhile if you use the $0.57 figure or $3.20 if you opt for the $0.16 figure.

The other major problem is that driving to two or more grocery stores takes a lot of time. When you spend your time driving from store to store, it means that you have less time to do other important things.

There is a simple solution to this problem that will allow you to save time, get the best price on the groceries and only visit one grocery store. The way to accomplish this is to shop at a grocery store which will accept competitor's advertised prices.

To keep customers, there are more and more grocery stores that will honor their competitor's advertised prices. That means you can sit down with the newspaper advertisements for all the stores in your area, choose the best overall price for the groceries you need that week and get it while visiting a single store. In order to receive the competitor's price, you usually must bring the sales advertisement to provide proof. You won't be able to switch similar items (to qualify most stores will insist it always be the exact same item), although stores will often match prices on competitor's store brand with their own store brand.

To find out if a grocery store will accept competitor's advertised prices, ask the store manager. Start at the most convenient store near you and ask if they accept competitor's advertised prices. If they do, ask exactly what you need to provide to receive the competitor's price when shopping. If they don't, move on to the next most convenient store until you find one that does. Once you have located a store that will accept competitor's advertised prices, you have instantly turned several trips into a single one while saving yourself a significant amount of both time and money.

[itsmejan]

Walmart Supercenters are great for comping prices. They will always match exact items ,but it is at managers discretion as to other items. At some supercenters you can do the buy -one-get-one specials and also you can buy the walmart brand and save even more. My D-I-L recently spent $80.00 and we added it up ,she saved $90.00 that was alot of groceries and great savings.
JAN in NC
Around here Walmart is the only grocery store that will comp .

[acezz4e_tish]

yep walmart is all that will too, but if ill go shopping in arkansas, so will kroger. the thing with walmart tho is to be prepared! if you dont want to wait another half hour cause of each thing you buy that needs to be repriced, take the flyers with you and have that page ready to show the product at the other stores. another thing you have to watch for is one store here, if its not cash i wont buy there! i bought one of those prepaid cards to see how i would do with a cc. i went and thier machine was down, so you fill out a slip. they double billed it!!! this happened twice and will not ever happen again. cash dont get broke down, one thing to remember. thats a big headache u know? i mean i pay a western union fee to load the card and then try to get the money back when they do that stuff and going thru the prove it thing. they billed it when it was up and then again next day. when it was 55+ dollars each time, i will not shop there now but for loss leaders and pay cash! the thing i love about wallace n owens shopping alone. you leave cart at the register, so i can watch as they ring it all up. they take it from cart, ring it up belt it to other end and bagger bags and even offers to take it to your car for u. i never accept, but its gr8 that someone still does this! i figure im capable and there may be someone in one of the lines whos not, i always unless its downpouring return the cart to the cart rack too. at aldis u have to too or it costs you a quarter.lol which the kids love going there cause they return the cart after helping me load it and get to link up the cart which is special to them and pull that quarter out and keep it for helping. i only take them shopping there and each time i go i only take one of them with me and then the other the next week. we also have boys day or girls day out. one a month, 20 bucks they buy thier own stuff! we spend the day out, have an ice cream, window shopping, haircut if needed, which i pay for and then necessities or mj leather for jewelry and stuff for girls,. and the consigment shops too. all afternoon, moms undivided attention. the boys and i went to a clearance day at freds. i filled my van with stuff for them for 40 dollars. stuff normally 5-10 was 1-4. one dollar videos were only 50 cents also. nathaniel picked out a leather baseball cap on clearance for 4 dollars. all these stores have locators on them too, i suggest typing in store names getting thier page up and seeing where closest one is too you, put in the farthest mile amount, so you get a good aray of whats on each side. you may find a freds, dollar tree and payless all on one side of ya and plan a day.

[leggzz66]

I think kroger is the better of the grocery chains.
savings card, no need to clip store coupons
cents off for reusing grocery bags or homemade bags
they used to have this, not sure if they still do, but 250 spent got you one kroger dollar, ten kroger dollars you got a ticket for 10dollars to spend in the store. I always used that ten dollars to buy whatever kids movie they were promoting at the time. plus bought the items for the rebates for the movies,
movie 14.99, ten dollars off
rebates, 2 at 5 each.
two stamps and envelopes
five mins of my time
10 spent in grocerys that we ate
pretty much free eh?lol

[JeanneElle]

Zellers is pretty good as well. I've never price matched with them, but I know people who have. Their slogan says it all: "The lowest price is the law".