Comparing Grocery Circulars Online for the Best Bargains

Compare grocery ads and find the best bargains!

One of the cardinal practices of saving money is comparing grocery ads for prices on similar items at different stores. In the past, this could be a tedious process, involving a lot of time and scribbling down prices in a notebook. But now, the Internet makes it easy for consumers to compare grocery ads and prices at different stores without getting off the couch.

Grocery shopping has become a streamlined enterprise for Cheapos who know how to use the web to compare grocery ads and sale prices.

Urban neighborhoods often have two or three supermarkets within walking or biking distance, a fact that further simplifies comparison shopping: shoppers can easily log on to the sites of the nearest two or three markets. Most supermarket chains feature downloadable PDFs of their grocery ads. Even better, these sites often include a search function with which one can compare prices of specific items.

I’ve discovered, through years of browsing grocery ads, that stores in the same neighborhood tend to put similar items on sale at the same time, to compete with one another. That translates to a benefit for Cheapos, who can use the stores’ online circulars to compare prices on many of the same products.

A few rules for tightwad shopping (by comparing different grocery ads) will apply here:

• First, make a list of items you know you need prior to cruising the circulars. That way, you won’t be tempted to buy a bunch of products simply because they’re on sale. (The exception is when you’re trying to stock up on pantry basics. In that situation, use the grocery ads to locate deals on kitchen staples. More on that in a future post).

• Second, if you’re perusing grocery ads and discover a fantastic once-in-a-lifetime sale on something not on your list, it’s OK to buy it.

• Third, banish all pretenses of brand loyalty! The cheapest product might not appear in the grocery ads. You’ll get the best deal and save the most money if you shop by price and value, not by the brand or the fancy product packaging.

Here’s a real-world grocery ads example. This week I ran out of long-grain white rice, a pantry staple, and added it to my shopping list. I perused two different grocery ads of nearby supermarkets. Each offered a sale on 20-pound bags of rice of different brands. At Store A, the price was $7.99; at Store B the price was $5.99 but required an additional $25.00 purchase to get the sale price.

Though the Store B bag was a cheaper deal, I didn’t have enough on my shopping list to justify an additional $25.00 expenditure, so I went with the $7.99 bag at Store A. Even with the slightly increased unit price, I still saved about $10 over the regular price.

Not only does comparing grocery ads online save you money, it also saves you time, and it’s hard to put a unit price on that.

P.S. Be sure to get out your grocery store coupons when comparing supermarket circulars to save more money!