Part One: My First Couponing Grocery Store Adventure

Introduction:

Pinching Your Pennies (PYP) is a website that goes through the deals, ads and specials for your grocery stores and matches them up with coupons (both online and Sunday inserts).  You can search by store and see how to get the biggest savings from couponing by using them on SALE items.  They have links to printable coupons and specify what date the newspaper coupons came out (Red Plum, SmartShopper and Procter & Gamble are the inserts referenced).  They also have forums, price lists, and YouTube instructional videos on the hows and whys of couponing.  The site is based in Utah, but they are also set up in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Kansas and Virginia.

I went through their lists for Macey’s, Smith’s, Albertson’s, Reams and Walmart, looking for the best prices, deals that had coupons I could obtain and, most importantly, items that I actually need and can plan meals around.

Part One: Why I Will Not Go Back To Reams

I’ve never been in love with Reams.  They are sort of disco and I’ve heard a number of sketchy things about them (adding a % to your total after everything is run up, etc).  However, after seeing that they had *great* prices on pork roast, chicken drumsticks and a few produce items (medium hass avocados for $0.59? I must be dreaming!) I decided that it would be worth it to add a stop in my Grocery Store Adventure.

First, let me tell you that there is a possibility that the prices for my particular store are just different than ALL of the other stores in Utah.  At least, I’ve got that idea in my head for some reason…

Okay.  So I went in on Saturday, March 14th, armed with my shopping list and relevant coupons, excited to get some awesome groceries (that I have planned meals around).  I headed over to the produce section and picked up a 15-pound bag of potatoes for $1.99.  Score!  I had potatoes on my “no specific store” list, so this was an awesome find.  Then I started looking for the produce items I’d seen on PYP.  I found many of them, but the prices were often NOT what was listed online.  They had large avocados and small hass avocados (for $0.89 each), but no medium–and *definitely* none for $0.59!  The picnic pork roast was supposed to be $1.29 per pound, but they didn’t have ANY in their meat department.  I found another pork roast that wasn’t *that* much more expensive, but it was still very frustrating to be looking for things that weren’t there.  The chicken thighs and drumsticks for $0.99 per pound?  Also a no-go.  Lemons for $0.20 each were actually 3/$1.00.  Meadow Gold pints of milk were $0.69 NOT $0.39.  Bacon was $0.30 more than stated.  In fact, the only two items that a) I could find and b) were actually being sold for the amount stated on PYP were Roma tomatoes and celery.

I left without purchasing everything on my list–the only things I was really happy about were the potatoes and a case of beans at $0.59 a can (I got black, red, kidney, and garbanzo).  I wandered around the store struggling to find what I wanted; I was frustrated, to say the least.

So, unless I can confirm with the store ahead of time that they do, in fact have a specific item and yes, it is being sold for x dollars, I don’t think I’ll be going back.  I’d rather spend my time (nearly an hour) and money (about $28.00 for food items) somewhere that doesn’t make life more difficult than it has to be.

Coming soon: Part Two: Why I Am So In Love With Smith’s, I Just Might Marry It

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