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.