Grocery shopped today. Without discounts, total bill would have been $215.00. But shopped digital coupons and bogo, and I paid $95.
That's ridiculous. And it's all a damn marketing game. I don't know how people do it without playing the games and using the apps and having to take the time just to make groceries affordable.
There are still a lot of people who don't use the apps, and they're often the most vulnerable. It's not right.
Sometimes this store even has drive-up "sales" with a $25 discount for totals of $100 or more. So with that you're utilizing extra staff to shop for you, get the same discounts as I got today, but if it was a drive-up sale week, I could have gotten another $25 off.
Make it make sense!
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I avoid stores that require me to clip to save money - safeway is notorious for this and so is fred meyer. It's just price discrimination against those willing to clip and be tech savvy at times.
I have several Aldi and Wal Marts near me. Can't stand things like coupons.
That's just it, though. A LOT of what I've bought is so much cheaper than Aldi or Walmart. Like, 18oz of blueberries for $1.50. 6 pounds of chicken legs for $7.34.
This is why I refuse to shop at Kroger. My only other option in my area is Walmart, but at least they don't play these games. I especially feel like elderly folks are the ones really getting screwed at Kroger with their BS.
Preach. They don’t even want your money- they want your data.
I agree, the digital coupons & hoops that Kroger, GE & Meijer make a customer jump thru are crazy. I now shop Walmart & use the ibotta app. Our area no longer has double coupons, rarely has BOGO free deals unless it's junk food. When I do see BOGO 50% off the price is miraculously higher than it was the week before. It's just not worth it to chase the sales.
I don't buy a lot of "processed" food (canned, frozen, mixes, instant, heat/serve, etc). Most of my grocery list is produce, meat, dairy, dry goods - ingredient type stuff. It's rarely discounted or couponed from what I've seen. Maybe if I used the apps I'd find some deals, but I hate that with a fiery passion.
Produce, for sure, has digital coupons that can make it so much cheaper. Like cherries for $1.99/lb but only with the digital discount. Otherwise, $7.99/lb. Like, how is the "full price" not arbitrary? I guess it can be a loss leader, but somehow I doubt that.
I buy the overstock items in veggies, meat, and dairy. It is certainly frustrating. I do find my digital coupon search with overstock items help. However, it is rare to find a xxx store brand fresh meat or fish discount.
Where I live, Safeway often discounts meat and cheese heavily with digital coupons. Like 1 pound of beef for $3-4 or boneless skinless chicken thighs for $1.50 or a 2 pound brick of cheddar for $6
Cleaning supplies, hygiene supplies, sometimes pet treats and food. Sometimes paper goods like TP and such.
It's mostly high profit items "processed" that are coupon driven...basic goods are never discounted.
I hate the apps so much. I’ve now gotten to the point that I refuse to download more. I’d probably save money, but I’m just tired of the games.
I am really fortunate to have a market (Winco) that is really cheap. Cheaper than Walmart. They don't do sales or ads. They consistently have the best prices on everything.
24hr Winco is one of the only things I miss about the west coast. Not even the nice grocery stores where I live have a comparable bulk section.
They're also unionized snd employee owned with great benefits
Love Winco!!!!!!!
I am 70. My father was one of the best coupon people I ever knew when I was younger. My coupon my guts out for many years. What happens is those that were comfortable and never had the coupon have trouble. That's why some areas like San Diego California have made it the law that the stores have to provide the coupons on paper as well as in the app. I haven't heard how that goes.
I’m GenX and cannot stand all of the apps and digital coupons. My town only has 2 Safeways and they stopped mailing their weekly circulars and coupons. It is so unfair to the countless people who cannot use the technology.
Was hoping to chat with you more about your original post. Instead of getting bullied into a fight w some bozo. Oh well, that’s reddit for ya! No wonder I abhor technology. Lol
You're trading your privacy for better prices, and that sucks. You can opt out, but the next best thing is to mess with their data collection by shopping around several stores, having several store cards, and generally not doing all of your shopping in one place. Not that you need to go to five stores a week, but mix it up depending on where sales are generally more useful that week, and they won't be able to develop a complete picture of you as a consumer. It's a small thing. I rarely buy processed foods so coupons rarely are useful for me - but weekly sales can be. Also shopping in season produce (supplement with frozen) keeps the bills down, and processing food at home for my freezer extends the season as well. If you don't have allergies to worry about, buying dry/pantry goods from a bulk bin store, or the bulk bin aisle is often the cheapest. Make sure there's good turnover there, and always compare unit prices. Almost everything goes on sale every 6 weeks or so, with additional sales around holidays, so you can plan your stocking up around that cycle. CBC's Marketplace has a few really interesting episodes about the psychological tricks that grocery stores play, and the data mining they do with your loyalty cards.
You don't do that without playing the game. I enjoy it though. I feel like I'm beating the system. Some people hunt wild game. I hunt bargains.
It tickles me to see someone else who considers bargain grocery shopping a game. I too enjoy the puzzle of stacking discounts to shave as much off the grocery tab as possible. Heck, it's the best financial return for about 30 minutes of mild effort, while sitting on the couch drinking coffee and trying to keep Fatty Walrus Jr. (cat) from flopping on the keyboard.
Most grocery store have a sale section on meat, usually a few days from expiration. I always find great protein there if I’m cooking all the meat and meal prep. Perfectly fine meat
people have been using coupons and discounts and cards for years. it's nothing new. yeah you have to play the game but that's unfortunately life. like anything you have to work a little bit at it and find the best option that works for you. the rich people the best option that works for them is they don't have to worry about it. the rest of us have to put in labor instead of money
r/budgetfood poster complains about getting great deals on food, see it here first!
Well, it's not that so much as getting more than 50% off my groceries today isn't available to more budget restricted people who don't have access. It's not right. And no idea how to fix that because almighty marketing and data mining drive the machine.
I have always couponed. We also keep a running list of what we have on hand at home. Plus I will keep my eyes peeled for clearance/markdowns too. When I find amazing produce markdowns, I buy and preserve either canning, dehydration or freezing so we have it later. I sometimes have to adjust on the fly what will be fixed that week for food if a deal is super good. I stock up on loss leaders when it's stuff we will actually use too. It's almost a part time job in and of itself tbh.
Aldi and LIDL with some Trader Joe
Just no. Aldi an Lidl are only really cheap in the marketing literature. 3 to 4 day shelf life on produce is not the norm. Trader Joe's is also marketing driven. They are by no means cheap.
I had better look into these digital coupons
I save so much with them and get many items free if I also have another deal. Last week I got the family size General Mills cereal for .79. Nets after stacking coupons and they are normally $6.99 a box
Honestly, digital coupons AND rebate apps together are such a cheat code.
How many people are you buying for? Post your receipt to see if anyone has suggestions
Thank you! It's just me. I'm not pinching for a budget, just paying attention. I got 2 weeks of food today. It struck me when looking at how much was digital, app-only discounts, that it shouldn't be that way. There are too many people for whom that's not an option.
We are an ingredient household. We don’t buy anything pre-mixed, pre-cut, pre-whatever. We only shop at Aldi and the international grocery that has good sales on fruits and vegetables . We only buy things unless absolutely necessary unless they’re on sale. We have a robust buy nothing group and we get most of our food from there. There are many food banks here and so people often give away what they don’t like. Every other meal we make is vegetarian - either beans or tofu. We also don’t do “breakfast” foods. We eat any kind of food at any time. That’s how we spend almost no money on food.
See, I don’t mind the data mining and all that. If a company discovers that I consistently buy a certain brand of cat litter and then sends me coupons (digital) for that, that’s great. And I know the marketing psychological strategies already so I try to work around them. But here’s where I’m confused: Kroger (Ralph’s in my area) says you can use one coupon for up to 5 items? So I can buy 5 packs of bacon with just one coupon in one transaction?
Yep. I think it's a way to give digital coupons an advantage because they can be used multiple times. Which gets people to use the app. But to keep people from buying a case of something, they still have to limit the number.
It doesn’t make sense. I work at a Kroger affiliate and they will have giant sales on the weekends where they sell something for$.99 like Doritos and toilet paper for $3.99 but they’re betting you’ll spend more money on the overpriced stuff while you’re there. I mean, the price of toilet paper right now is ridiculous and beef is priced like it’s going extinct. If you don’t plan out your weekly shopping for BOGOs and specials you’re spending too much.
Agreed!
If youre low on funds and not taking the time to coupon, theres something wrong with you. I dont use many coupons, unless theyre right in front of my face. I dont really need to. But I was layed off decades ago, I coupon so hard I used overage to buy Christmas gifts. It took a lot of time to find coupons and find sales. Ppl ruined couponing over the years with fraud
Extreme couponing was wild back in the day. I was working at Walmart a decade ago, and I remember I checked out a lady who bought about $300 worth of food, and she had so many coupons, the total came out to about $12. Never seen that level of couponing before or ever since.
People with less patience are subsidizing my food. I guess I'm ok with that.
I almost exclusively buy things that I have a coupon for or that are on sale. This is the only way I can afford to shop.
I feel like our less tech savvy seniors are at such a disadvantage.
Exactly!
Sorry, no. I'm a late boomer. My generation invented all this underlying technology. Not everyone kept up. That's on you. None of it is hard. If you're old enough (AARP lets you join at 18 although their focus is on 50 and up) there are all sorts of resources available in person (better in urban and suburban areas) and online to catch up. Call your local grocery and make an appointment for them to show you how to use the apps and websites (I use websites for shopping for the bigger screen and apps for pickup and shopping). I see as much whining from Gen Z as from seniors.
I loathe digital coupons. No, I don't want your app on my phone, and I don't want yet another step to getting reasonable prices. I *already* signed up for your dumb discount card, what other data are you trying to get out of my phone with your app? Fuck you, give me my groceries at a reasonable price without having to do 10 additional steps to get it. It's just another way to scalp the customers who are too tired / busy / not tech-savvy enough to navigate yet another god damn app. /end rant.
Don’t forget: get harassed for a survey
I love a manager special on meat and throw that baby in my freezer.
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A grocery store near me (a mom and pop) often has much better deals than our two chain stores near by. The best part is you don't need an app or a rewards card to get the sale price. If he's going to offer a deal, it's automatic no need for tech(which our elderly population loves) Also, if something is like two for $4 then a single of the item is $2. This store is well loved in my area.
Most seniors are not tech savvy, so they can’t even take advantage of these digital coupons! And most are living on a limited income. Pisses me off to no end.
Exactly
You have to be careful about sales and assumptions. I had this discussion with my SIL until she gave up. My SIL shops at Safeway and is diligent about sales and marketing. She proudly trumpets "look how much I saved." Once in a while she goes to Aldi and same statements about saving. BTW - Aldi is always cheapest, and with historically short produce shelf life, if you have to throw half away after a few days it isn't so cheap. I shop hard across all the sources in my market. Online shopping for curbside pickup is the silver lining of COVID. SIL gets very upset that she buys something at Safeway with coupons and sales and I but the same thing at Giant Food with a manufacturer coupon or at Sam's Club and spend less. Regular prices at Safeway in my market average 20% higher than alternatives. For curbside aka drive-up, many stores imposed fees in 2022 to try to drive people back into the store for more impulse shopping. They learned (well, most of them learned) fees drive people away, not in-store. Since then, stores have learned that curbside customers don't shoplift. Thus incentives for curbside. The numbers show that the staff impact is near zero as you don't have to have people on the floor to answer customer questions. I follow curbside and have good relationships with curbside people. They recognize me. Giant Food is among the best where the same people stock shelves, shop, and deliver curbside. It's good for the company because everyone knows where everything is. It's good for the people because it mixes up their day and makes life more interesting. Target does an excellent job. Sam's Club is first rate. So is WalMart. PetSmart does well. Amazon, Chewy, and Grainger have raised delivery to a fine art. Ace Hardware is pretty bad but workable if you call. Publix, Wegmans, and Piggly Wiggly outsourced to Instacart and still charge fees. They're awful.
I don't use coupons because they are generally for things I don't buy, but I do use the store app and shop every week to take advantage of weekly sales. This has helped me cut food purchases by 1/3.
I think they do this to have an illusion of fair prices. Tons of people just see the sign and then just pay at the end and don't check how much they actually paid, so they think they get a discount when they didn't. I don't have many apps on my phone. I just hate having apps for businesses which track you. So I sit down at my computer like a granny every week and make my shopping list based on what's on sale, then I clip my coupons. It keeps me loyal to Kroger even though I don't like any of my local Kroger stores. Because it's easy to just stick with 1 store when it's such a pain and it has to be planned out well in advance to get the deals. I do also go to Aldi and Walmart sometimes and I don't need to plan for that. But I just hate Walmart, and Aldi has limited selection and forces you to buy bigger quantities for produce than I often want. In the end it's a pick your poison situation. They all have major draw backs.
Not a grocery store but my favorite insane example of this is places like Great Wolf Lodge. If you go right to the website and put in dates for a stay, it's $300+/night. But if you just know to go to their deals section or find an offer code online, the price can drop as low as like $100/night, which is an amazing price for a family trip. But how many people even think to look for those codes?
The store nearest me doesn't usually offer coupons or deals on the things I actually want when I'm keeping to a strict budget. Or if they do, it's not as good a deal as I can get by just going cheaper. For example, right now they're offering $1 off a dozen eggs that are $5.23 full price. That's $4.23. But I can get a dozen eggs at that some store for as little as $1.53. They're offering one of their more expensive pastas with a cheap in-house sauce thrown in for free, but the cheap pasta and cheap sauce are a better deal overall. There's $2 off sausage, but I'm mostly vegetarian, and beans always cost less than meat.
I also only need food for me since my husband died. Deals on big packages of anything aren't deals for me because I won't go through them before before they go bad. My freezer can only hold so much. I eat so little meat that a chest freezer would never pay for itself, and I don't have room for one, anyway. I rarely eat processed food, so a deal on a big bag of chips or box of cookies isn't budget-friendly either. A bargain on something I don't like isn't a bargain.
But we each have our needs and likes, and indulging likes is good for morale, so no judgment here. If you can get a deal on foods you like and will eat, you're doing great. As to how it makes sense though, my theories are:
I've been double-dipping using the Upside app lately. Usually gets me close to 10% cash back, and I'll combo with coupons/sales and customer rewards programs.
Thanks, I'll check it out
I plan my meals around BOGOs and whatever deals I find because foods too expensive.
No place near me has an app discount that takes cherries from $7.99 to $1.99. I suspect the store is jacking up the regular price to make you think you’re getting a better deal.
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