More Bargain Hunting - Safeway

If you live anywhere with one of the Safeway chain stores (Safeway, Carrs, Vons, Dominick's, Genuardi's, Randalls, Tom Thumb, or Pavilions) keep your eye peeled for a sweet coupon book in those stores now.  There's the requisite recipes utilizing the products they're pushing, of course, but there's $26 in coupons for the dairy department.  From Toll House cookies to cottage cheese, these are coupons for stuff I actually buy, which is unusual for me with these promotions.

I'm a bit late on this one, but for Earth Day Safeway (the whole chain) teamed up with Cheerios.  I'm still seeing a box here and there with a coupon on the back for a free reusable grocery bag, no strings attached.  The bags are only $1.49, but they're very high quality and a good size.  If you're buying Cheerios anyway, see if you can find the Earth Day box.  (Note: don't try and print and use this picture, because the bar code is on the back!)  A side note - you can go to the Cheerios web site and request $4 in Cheerios coupons right now.

While Safeway is no longer giving big gas discounts for purchases with their Club Card, it is still quite worth joining their Club.  They've gone on a rollback-style campaign and prices have dropped on just about all the staples.  They're being quite good about putting every day items like eggs, bread, cheese, and baking stuff on sale regularly, making it easy to stock up.  They've also gone digital, and there are several sites you can use to pre-load your shopping card with coupons, which are automatically used at checkout when the requirements are filled. 

I've also discovered the magic day and time when "my" Safeway does markdowns.  They take stuff that's close to the "sell by" date and mark it cheap to they don't have to dispose of it.  If you have a freezer, take advantage!  The deli meats, dairy, and meat areas are where you'll usually find these extreme deals.  At "my" Safeway the magic time is 9am on Fridays.  The lovely lady who works the deli meats tells me that she marks them lower that day because she doesn't want them sitting there over the weekend.  And it works!  Just remember when you thaw whatever it is that it only had a couple days left before the sell-by date hits.  Not so important with preserved meats, but some stuff you'll want to eat as soon as it's thawed.

Update:
I went to Safeway today to check the markdowns:  I got pork chops, some London Boil tips, and four packages of high-quality lunch meat for $14.53.  That's $15.32 or 51% savings off the full price!  And here's a tip if you're freezing mark-down meat:  Find the "sell by" date and use a permanent marker to write how many days it had left when you froze it!  Then when you thaw it you know exactly how quick it needs to be eaten.

Note:  This was not a solicited or sponsored blog.