** Guest Post by Paul at I Heart The Mart
This is what is coming up for today as far as Thanksgiving deals. I will get the top price match items for the grocery stores up today and tomorrow. LATER today, I will have a printable list with all the staple items that you might typically buy for Thanksgiving up that you can print with coupons.
Since there is so much meat and produce involved, I have some suggestions. My prices are going to be different than yours. The printable list will be mostly ( about 90%) all the canned goods, making items, frozen and cold that you cook with, like, soups, marshmallows, French fried onions etc. Because the prices are going to be close to the same.
For your produce and meat do this:
- Grab all your store ads
- Make a list of what you need to buy ( celery, sweet potatoes, onions etc.)
- Lay all the ads out in front of you
- Compare prices at each store. I just looked at my ads today and all 3 major stores in my area have pretty much the same produce and meat listed. But I can see right away who has the cheapest sweet potatoes/yams (for example)… if you are in Houston, it looks like Randalls.
- Now, make your price match list.
This doubles as both my shopping list and my price match list. Now I just go shopping, grab everything I need in one place and get the lowest price.
When I get to the checkout, I first put all my non-price match items on first. Those get checked out and bagged. Then when I get to the price match items, I pull my list out so I can remember the prices. As the cashier is about to ring it up I just simply say, ” I would like to price match those sweet potatoes to Randalls for 6lbs for $1, or $.17 a pound.” Then the next item I say, ” I want to price match that to Kroger for $3.99 each” and so on. It is really easy!
If I can get Tiff to film it later today, I will do a video for you, and see if we can’t get permission to film checking out in the store. Just to show you how easy it is. SAVE SOME MONEY on food this Thanksgiving, try price matching!!! Come back and tell me if you tried it for the first time, O.K.?
** How to price match your meat will be tomorrow!
Kristen D says
I price matched some Kraft cheese at Walmart Monday (the cheese was $2.29 at Target and I had a $1.50/1 coupon). I was treated like a CRIMINAL. I even had the entire Target ad, had the price I wanted to match circled and the cashier went over everything with a fine tooth comb like I was trying to do some big scam. It was my first price matching attempt and it was such a huge hassle :(. Especially when the grumpy old people behind me started muttering and the cashier mis-typed a price and had to cancel the transaction and start over again.
Chickenman says
Welcome to price matching. Like couponing, you are an unfair fight. It is you versus the cashier, the machine, and the store. Unfortunate for the store, especially Walmart, there policy aka “law” is in your favor in that type of situation. Think of yourself as a teacher for the masses of uninformed employees out there that don’t know their own store policies. Carry one with you each time and “educate” them in there error. If you matched the right item, stand your ground and don’t back down. If your coupon won’t scan, just smile and ask them to figure it out. I had a cpn that was in that day’s paper that would not work. I opened the paper and said that it wasn’t a fraudulent cpn, look, here it is in today’s paper…you figure it out and make it work. And they eventually did. As for the people behind you, they are jealous that you will get things CHEAP, and they are forced to be like Joe Consumer and pay full price. Poor people.
Kristen D. says
I appreciate your post! I definitely stood there and made her re-ring it and I always carry my coupon policies with my coupons! I’m thankful for sites like this with people who understand both the frustration AND why we deal with the frustration. I mean c’mon, $.79 for Kraft shredded cheese! 😀 It would have been $2.59 otherwise! I just wish Walmart would get all their cashiers “with the program” so we couponers don’t have to train them all! :D.
Susan says
Kristen, I had the same experience at Walmart. I had a coupon from Staples and they would not match the price even though they had the same item.
Jane Loomis says
I live in the DFW area and love to follow your posts. I run a neighborhood couponing group and I help everyone out by doing a Produce Price match List. In addition to our Kroger/Albertsons/Tom Thumb ads I also use “Sprouts,Aldi and any local Mexican Grocers. I found the names of the stores in our local Walmarts CSM Binder. Since you dont have to have the ads when you come in since the CSM has all of their competitors ads. I wrote down all of the Mexican Grocery store names and found that they all had websites with the digital versions of their ads! Hope this info is helpful! Keep up the great work! Love ya!
Peggy says
Paul,
You are awesome! This is such a blessing and saves me time and money!
God Bless
Sarah says
I usually hate walmart, but I had a great experience yesterday. I was price matching some celery and onions with the aldi ad. I brought the ad with me and started to show it to the cashier. She said “Oh just tell me what they are I don’t need to see them”. Then I was buying some desitin with a coupon, but the computer rejected it. I have four kids under four and we had already been at the store for 2 hours so I just didn’t feel like going through all the bags to make sure I had gotten the right kind. I asked her just to skip that coupon, but she said “well I did see a desitin product so I’ll put it through.” !!! I have never had such a nice cashier before or such an easy time checking out. I usually always end up getting a manager called over and it takes forever but yesterday was great!
Asia says
I price matched a ton of Thanksgiving stuff this morning @ Walmart! Jenny O Turkeys for 29 cents/lb, Kraft marshmallows for 79 cents a bag, Ocean spray cranberry sauce 99 cents, boneless skinless chicken breast 99 cents/lb, Jimmy dean sausage 1.88 a roll. It was awesome! The cashier even stopped to write my deals down and so did the lady standing in line behind me!
Melanie says
That’s so cute. I love it when I feel like I am inspiring other people to be wise with their money too!
Michele in Conroe says
This is exactly how I do my shopping too! Also, I always take my ads with me (eventhough I shouldn’t have to!) and have them ready to show them the price. I use a sharpie to mark all the items I’m going to price match so it is easy to spot them during checkout. In addition, I try to small talk with the cashier so when we get to all my price matching, they tend to be a bit friendlier to me, but not always. Too bad but this is price we pay to save $$$!
gina says
my worst experience was at kroger. my first mistake was going on my lunch break. I had the 8.00 cover girl coupon and she questioned my purchase, called the manager over that dept and she gave it an ok and let the cashier know that the manufacturer was reimbursing kroger and not to worry. The register would not accept the coupon and I had to let her know it was because of the overage. She told me they dont give cash back and I said I wasnt asking for cash. It goes toward my purchase. Pretty sad when I have to tell them their own policy. In the end I saved over 24.00 and my makeup was free.