The Secret Grocery Stores Don't Want You to Know

Yes.  There is a secret.  No, I’m not going to tell you just yet.

Let’s talk about grocery stores in general first.  How are they set up?  Well, they are set up to make you think of things you forgot/”remember”.  But, just like the stock market and any other business out there, trends in the industry can affect the way they are set up and their prices on different food items.

If you are really interested in the grocery industry and feel the need to do a lot more research, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has so many different resources for you online, it’s more than a little bit ridiculous.  If you want to know when the price of peas or barbecue sauce is going to be the cheapest, you can analyze that information and find out when.  But, I only recommend that for people who love to deal with numbers.

Well, after all that ado, we’ve finally come down to it.  The secret.  Are you ready?  Got a pen and a piece of paper or some form of Word document open?

Grocery stores are on a sale cycle.  That means that the same things will be on sale over and over again in the same order.  Yeah, this may seem kind of “whoop-dee-doo,” but there’s more!

The cycle is almost exactly 3 months long.  That means that when you see something is on sale, buy enough to last you 3 months!  For example, let’s say that you use a ton of ketchup at home.  When it goes on sale, buy in bulk.  That way, when you run out, voila!  It is on sale again.  Money saving without any clipping!

If you want to start your cycle now, you can check out the Grocery Store list to see what’s on sale at your store right now.  It doesn’t have all of them because there are a lot of local grocery stores that follow the same general idea.

Speaking of local grocery stores, there’s one more thing to keep in mind when it comes to this awesome tidbit of information.  Compare prices between the different grocery stores in your area.  They do not always follow the same sale cycle.  It’s very likely that Store A will have cheaper ketchup and Store B, but Store B has cheaper mustard.  If you’re willing to go to both, you could save some cash.

And yes, most of the time, the savings in food overshadows the loss in gas from driving from store to store.
This article is from a woman that gives some super easy and useful advice about shopping around for groceries.  She gives you some URLs and other ideas to make the comparison easier than actually putting on shoes, going outside, bending down to grab the paper, walking back in, opening it up, and shuffling through all that paper.  If you’re interested in this idea, I would start there.