grocery Archives - Lazy Man and Money

I hope everyone who celebrated holidays recently had their best ever. We got back from our annual vacation on the 23rd and proceeded to have 3 Christmas celebrations in a 24 hour span. I had to set my alarm to wake up at 3:30AM so that I could wrap presents.

In the end it was worth it. The kids said it was the best Christmas ever. (However, being 5 and 6, the sample size of what they remember may be limited.)

Of course their favorite gift where these Throw ‘N’ Pop Charmander and Throw ‘N’ Pop Squirtle toys that I picked up for around $8 each on ThinkGeek’s Cyber Monday sale. It’s a strong reminder that a great toy doesn’t need to be expensive.

With it being the end of the year, I thought I’d go with a lighter article and save some of the more thought-provoking ones for the fresh new year.

Yesterday, I found that ’tis the season to find tremendous deals at Aldi. Actually, you can find great deals there year round. However, it seems like their after Christmas deals are better than usual. I’ll let you be the judge.

I went to Aldi to get eggs and some sliced cheese. Here’s what I came back with:

That’s what $41 bought me.

Some of the stuff like Christmas wrapping paper, gift bags, gift tags, and Santa sacks are a deal everywhere after Christmas. My dog doesn’t mind a second stocking of dog chews. He’ll snub quite a few things, but not treats just because they aren’t shaped for the current holiday season.

The bag with the trees is a sheet set. It’s normally $17, but was $7. Maybe they are clearing out the winter stuff early. It’s probably not the best sheet set, but we’ll find $7 of use out of them.

The luggage was the priciest item on the list… $11, marked down from $25. It seems like it might be cheaply made, but the American Airlines one that I’ve had for more than 10 years has lost some wheels and is a pain.

The 2 Tier Wire Basket will save us some counter space over the couple of bowls we have now. Usually that’s $8, but it was on sale for $3.

Finally, I found a couple of good food deals. That alfredo sauce is bacon flavored. I don’t quite know what I’m going to do with it, but I’m sure it’s great. It’s a specialty item that I think typically goes for $3, but for $0.79 I’ll give it a shot. I’ve rarely seen any good deals on fish at Aldi, but I couldn’t pass up the fresh tilapia. Normally around $4.50 each (3/4 of a pound), each package was $3 off, making them about $1.50 each. The only downside is that we have so many Christmas leftovers that I had to freeze them.

If you have an Aldi’s near you, I suggest you give it a look. It seems like they are trying to clear out old inventory, so they can bring in some new stuff.

In case you are curious, here’s my receipt:

porking awesome

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote Rich Chicken, Poor Chicken (inspired by popular personal finance book). The article was a bit of a humblebrag about an amazing deal I found at Aldi on some chicken. I ended up paying around 45 cents a pound for boneless, skinless chicken breast, an all-time personal record.

The main lesson was that by being mindful with your spending, you can save money a ton of money. Getting 45 cent chicken requires a lot of luck. However, you have to be prepared to pounce when the luck is there.

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to get another great deal. Just like with the chicken, I felt like I robbed the grocery store. At least this time it was Shaw’s.

Here’s the deal. As you probably can’t see in the tiny image the promotion on the yellow sticker reads, “Buy 3, save $10.” (Underneath it says “Mix & Match.”)

This promotion was on a bunch of bulk meat purchases. At the expensive end of the spectrum there were $30 packages of Porterhouse steaks. On the cheap end of the spectrum there was the pork that I bought.

You could buy 3 Porterhouse packages for $90 and save $10 to make it $80… or you can do what I did. I looked for the 3 cheapest packages of meat I could find. It happened to be the packages of pork that were $1.89 a pound. That’s not the best price I’ve ever seen, but the promotion turns a good price into a great one.

The three packages I bought were $5.42, $4.67, and $5.88 each. The roughly 8.5 pounds of pork came to a total of $15.97. However, with the “save $10” promotion, it was $5.97… or around 70 cents a pound.

The key to the deal is realizing that a package of meat is a package of meat whether it is $5 or $30. The promotion doesn’t discriminate between the two. You get your $10 savings either way.

The Porterhouse was around 12% off. The pork, for all practical purposes, had a sign on it: “Buy 1, Get 2 Free.”

If Shaw’s had put that sign on the pork, I’m fairly sure they would have quickly sold out. Mindful math for the win.