Buy food at a super center like Wal-Mart

Without a doubt Wal-Mart offers prices on food much lower than my local grocery store. On everything from dry goods to meat and produce, Wal-Mart always beats the price of my local grocer. Smaller stores have to pay more for produce because they can’t buy in large shipments like Wal-Mart can.  Wal-Mart has over 2,000 combination discount and grocery stores so they can negotiate with suppliers in a way that smaller stores cannot.  I would estimate that $80 spent with Wal-Mart would cost me $100 if spent at the local store.

The same is true for Sam’s Club.  Sam’s is one of the best places to buy in bulk. So if you have a large family or will have soon, consider buying in bulk at Sam’s and saving. The only time I shop at the local grocer is when I only need a few items – not enough to justify spending the gas money to travel 20 miles to Wal-Mart.

Don’t buy name brands

When it comes to food there are only a few foods in which I purchase brand names. Before grabbing something off the shelf stop and look at the total selection for the item you are about to buy. Human nature will automatically lead your eyes to focus on the brand names first.  That’s a good thing.  Now just focus on what’s sitting right next to these brand name products.

Wal-Mart carries its own brand and some other ‘generics’ like Great Value, Sam’s Choice or Equate.  These are surprisingly excellent products.  For example, I love ravioli in the can for a quick snack and Chef-BoyRdee makes a very tasty bowl of ravioli.  But I tried the Great Value brand once and never switched back – it was just as good!  I have found this to be the case with nearly all products.  Instead of buying Head and Shoulders shampoo I buy the Equate brand which has the exact same percentage of pyrithione zinc (1%).  Just make sure that you start trying the cheaper brands.

**Don’t forget to use coupons.  Papers all across America are full of coupons and sales items that you should take full advantage of.

Salvage grocery stores

You may be surprised if you looked around at the salvage grocery stores in your area. Chances are you’ve been overlooking them.  There’s one about six miles from my house. They get merchandise that was rejected from larger stores for some reason.  There’s a huge market for salvage products in the world of retail.  There’s a whole industry of companies that specialize in products that can’t be sold because of a fire, flood, or some other incident that leaves millions of dollars of merchandise unspoiled.  You can often buy canned goods and other items well below market value, so check around your town for a salvage grocery.

Fruit Stands and Farmer’s Markets

In the South we have fruit and vegetable stands quite often on the side of the Highways. What’s so great about these markets is not only that the merchandise is cheap, but you can build a relationship with a local farmer that you can trust.  Having a relationship with a local farmer or cattle ranch has its benefits.  Most importantly you get to see the people that are manufacturing your food.  You can also see how this produce or livestock is raised and what types of methods are used for feed and fertilizer.  Many communities are beginning to develop these types of relationships with local farmers of organics.  This is an excellent way to help support residents in your local community.

Clothing – go for the ’sales racks’

When I go shopping for clothes the first thing I do is look for the sales racks. Usually there will be a brightly colored sign over the sales rack.  Shop there first.  You can easily get clothing for 50% to 80% off.  You just never know what you’ll find when you approach these racks, some good deals are always lurking.  Remember that retail clothing outlets have to move old merchandise to make room for the new hipper seasonal clothes that are arriving from their corporate warehouse.  That’s why they slash prices on some items to move them out quickly.

Shop at discount clothing stores

Like most people I’m picky about my clothes.  I refuse to go out in anything that another person could look at and know was cheap to purchase.  And yet I never pay full price for clothes, with the exception of socks and underwear.  In my closet of jeans, shirts, and sweaters, the average price paid on these clothes is probably 30% to 40% of the retail costs.  I really laugh these days about how cheap I got these Buckle Jeans.

TJ Max and Ross (dress for less) are a couple of local stores that have top brand clothes at sales prices.  Everything in these stores is on a permanent sales price.  I don’t know where they get these top brand name items – I just know that it’s not the same price as Dillard’s.

Shop at Salvage Clothing Stores

Ok back to the salvage stores again.  I really can’t overstate how important it is to shop at salvage clothing stores.  Most recently I purchased two button up Banana Republic shirts for ten dollars each.  The sticker price was fifty.  These shirts are spotless and in perfect condition.  Salvage doesn’t mean used.  These shirts were probably in a warehouse that had a fire or flood.  The insurance companies pay the warehouse for all the merchandise they had in stock whether or not it was damaged.? The warehouse then simply sells everything in stock for a low, low price.  Banana Republic corporate does not want to pay employees to pillage through a burned or flooded warehouse trying to separate out what is damaged and what is not.  Instead a salvage company just buys all of it and they sort it out.  Items that were not damaged are sold for 20% to 90% off the original price.  We bought some Northface pullover fleece’s at the same salvage store and sold them on ebay for a 150% profit.

If you work outdoors like I do then buying your work pants and shirts at thrift or salvage stores makes perfect sense.  If I ruin a pair of pants I paid three dollars for I’m not likely to cry about it.

***Don’t forget to shop online – often you can find deals without ever leaving the house!

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