{"id":8751,"date":"2013-04-30T19:09:26","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T23:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canadianbudgetbinder.com\/?p=8751"},"modified":"2025-02-19T11:19:48","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T11:19:48","slug":"the-grocery-game-challenge-5-april-29-may-5-2013-ignore-your-grocery-flyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalskyweb.co\/canadianbudgetbinder.com\/2013\/04\/30\/the-grocery-game-challenge-5-april-29-may-5-2013-ignore-your-grocery-flyers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Grocery Game Challenge #5 April 29-May 5, 2013- Ignore Your Grocery Flyers!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The only time I would say to ignore your grocery flyers to save money is when your budget is set up for a no-shop week like ours is this week. You can do whatever you want but for our budget it’s imperative that we toss them in the bin and get on with our week. Another reason would be if you just have too much food in the house and you don’t need to shop.<\/p>\n

The weekly grocery flyers offer up a great way to plan and save money but they can also hinder our grocery budget goals at the same time. Weekly flyers are simply another marketing ploy to get consumers off the couch and into their store to spend, spend, spend money.<\/p>\n

A few weeks back I told you to “ditch your coupons and let them expire”<\/a>, especially if you find you are using coupons just because you have them. There comes a point where you have to decide whether certain products are necessary and adding value to your budget.<\/p>\n

If you have food that sits around and wastes because no one is eating it maybe you shouldn’t have purchased\u00a0it in the first place. We’ve done that before but quickly stopped it. It’s just a waste of money, with or without a coupon.<\/p>\n

Don’t let the grocery game photo fool you this week for April we can proudly say that we did not spend any money<\/strong> this week.<\/p>\n

If you follow along the grocery game challenge and I hope you do, you know that we are well over budget for the month of April. Since my wife is now on a low GI diet<\/strong> we’ve stocked up on more fruits, nuts and vegetables than we normally do. Our pantry for the most part has always been well stocked but now we will be looking to fill it with brown rice, oat bran, All-Bran and many other items that will fit into her meal plan. You know, the kind of food that gets your engine started in the morning…….<\/p>\n

Ignore Your Flyers and Save Money<\/h5>\n

Whether you are grocery shopping for 2 or more people in your family or if you are a single person who has a grocery budget that you want to stick to there may be certain situations where it’s best to toss your flyers in the garbage. I find that we sometimes struggle to stay out of the stores when we know we shouldn’t be in them in the first place.<\/p>\n

One of our biggest excuses is that we are going coupon shopping, looking to see what’s out there for deals and pink stickers. Sometimes if you don’t get them when the coupon rep puts the pads of coupons out you might be hard pressed to ever find them.<\/p>\n

When 5pm rolls around at the CBB house on Thursdays and the flyer girl shows up with our weekly grocery flyers we grab them and take to the couch to see who has the best prices on deals for the upcoming week. Some of our favourite weekly flyers are the No Frills flyers, Food Basics flyer, Sobeys\u00a0flyer even though we hardly if ever shop there we use it to price compare typical products we purchase on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n

I’m a sucker for the Canadian Tire flyer but that’s a whole other part of the budget, thank goodness or else we’d be in big trouble. I know it sounds kind of boring to do but part of the process for us in learning who has the hottest grocery deals and how we are meal planning and sorting out what we will price match for the week.<\/p>\n

Weekly Grocery Store Ads Talk to Us!<\/span><\/h5>\n

Do you immediately say to yourself, “oh we need that, it’s on sale”<\/strong>! It’s because the weekly flyers talk to us, they reel us in like nobody’s business and that is the power of print media. Best of it is the food industry is such a lucrative business they will bring these weekly flyers to you via direct mail, meaning delivered to your home for free.<\/p>\n

In-Store Grocery shop marketing is meticulous, just ask anyone who in charge of it and how important height, size, shelf space, placement etc is and they will tell you, it’s imperative to the sale and success of a product.<\/p>\n

Grocery store competition is cut-throat so you can bet they make sure that everything has it’s place and that a keen eye and focus groups are in place to learn about our shopping habits, “the customers”.\u00a0You know all the smells and the food samples \u00a0and beverages they offer you, it’s not because they think you look hungry or parched they want you to buy these products.<\/p>\n

Coupons on the shelf, printable coupons, mail order coupons, insert coupons or coupons in the front entrance of a store are only a small part of getting us through the door. Many of us fail to see the signs because we tend to get in and get out and likely why we have to trek to the back to get the dairy and bread that we need.<\/p>\n

They aren’t idiots that’s for sure and they know that if a coupon is there we will come running after all it’s no secret that the coupon industry has exploded.\u00a0These companies know that if they want to move product all they have to do is attach a coupon and boom… they are well on their way to making profits.<\/p>\n

We created this, they created this, we’re all responsible for what the industry has done in order to get us in the door and to the cash register. These companies are in business to make money after all.\u00a0Our minds are on overload with the coupon\u00a0phenomenon even bigger than when our grannies used to use them for the small savings they used to get. It’s a bigger deal as is the weekly flyer and in-store marketing ploys but almost every business is the same, they are no different.<\/p>\n

Don’t be surprised if product packaging has shrunk and the coupon is just another way to have us think we are saving money when we are not. Pay attention to what you are paying for and you will know when a deal is a deal and when a dud of a deal is not worth your time and money.<\/p>\n

The signs are marketing subtle just like the sample cheese and meats on a toothpick or the air\u00a0freshener\u00a0that smells like coffee that I was exposed to at one shop just to entice me to buy an in-store coffee. We can’t blame them, like any other business they are in the business to make money, it’s their job after all, no fault in that.<\/p>\n

Sure you can view the grocery weekly flyers online if you like but that’s up to you to say, no we need to eat what we already have. It’s a great way to get creative with leftover food that sitting around. You can create the “kitchen sink”<\/strong> recipe meaning using all the bits and bobs in your refrigerator that your family might end up requesting as a weekly meal because it tastes so good.<\/p>\n

This month since we are so far over budget we felt we were left with no other option this week than to take the weekly store ads and recycle them without even looking at them. If you don’t have any more money to spend and you start reading the flyers the temptation might be there to start writing up a shopping list, which you want to avoid. I know it may be the lowest price of the season but a budget is a budget and although it may be a tough decision to make, we need to close our eyes and \u00a0move on.<\/p>\n

Forget About Savings<\/span><\/h5>\n

I know that if we were not in the position we are in now, meaning not having spare cash we certainly would be motivating ourselves even more. It’s not the best way to look at our budget and that’s why we are here so we don’t always think that it’s\u00a0OK\u00a0to fall back on our savings to fund our overspend at the grocery store. It’s easy to say, “we’ll just add more money to the grocery budget”<\/strong> if we are spending more but that is the trap.<\/p>\n

Once we think we need more funds or are spending more \u00a0money for a couple of months we believe that, but it may not be true. \u00a0I’d evaluate what I was purchasing first (why the grocery game is so great so we can look back on our purchases to review them<\/strong>) and then make decisions based on needs and trends based on the previous 3-6 months of shops.<\/p>\n

If we only had $50 to spend than that’s all we should be spending although that’s easier said than done. No, we don’t want to carry cash as it’s a huge inconvenience for us especially with the rewards that credit cards offer us. It’s a mindset that has to change and that begins with us so we are proud to say we ignored our grocery flyers this week and will cook from our freezer, refrigerator and pantry as we have more than enough food to get us by until next week.<\/p>\n

Question: What do you do if you have no more money in the budget to spend but know you have savings or a credit card that you could easily use to fund the purchase?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Grocery Game Weeks for April<\/h5>\n

This is the last shop for April 2013. Next week I will post the April Grocery Game Challenge WINNER so posts your shops today! You have until this Sunday at Midnight EST to post for April to get your ballots!<\/p>\n

April<\/b><\/p>\n