It's Not Hard to Save

by Virginia
(Florida)

I once worked in an office for a group who were salespeople for the manufacturers' of canned foods, like ketchups, vegetables, tomatoes, etc.

These salespeople would visit various supermarket chains and other grocery stores and take orders for, for instance, canned tomatoes. Then they would come back to the office and place these orders with the factories that processed and canned or bottled the goods.

To my surprise, an order would be placed with the same factory as ten cases of canned tomatoes with the "so and so" label and ten cases of canned tomatoes with the "grocery store's own" label.

In other words, the tomatoes in the cans with the grocery store's label were exactly the same as the tomatoes in the higher-priced brand name cans. They simply glued a different label on the cans!!

That was my first revelation that I could save money by buying a store's brand and I would be getting the same quality as a higher-priced name brand.

Remember, too, that when a store advertises "two for ten dollars", you do not have to purchase two if you do not need two. You can buy one and pay five dollars. This psychological trick works for them, but it will not work for your food budget.

In the latest type of meat sales these days when stores are advertising "buy one get one free", make sure to check the per pound price on the label.

I have found that sometimes the regular sale price on individual chicken breasts, for instance, may be much lower than the price per pound found on the "buy one, get one free" sales. So check before you take advantage of those "buy one, get one free" sales or you may wind up paying the same thing anyway or even more.

Be sure to compare prices when using coupons worth less than one dollar. Many times they are for higher-priced names and, even with the twenty-five cents or fifty-cents off, you will be paying more for it than if you get another brand of the same thing.