I do 90% of my food shopping at Winco - the prices are pretty similar to Costco except you can get normal amounts of things. They don't do the "sale" thing - except when they get a great price on something they pass it on. I save so much shopping there that I don't even bother with the other supermarkets that jack up their prices so high so that you have to take advantage of coupons and such just to get normal prices. Even so, I just don't see how I could possibly get our food bill below $450.
I shop at ALDI and Dillon's. I'm a valuable customer with a plus card at Dillons so they mail me produce, cheese, meat, and general $x off $xx coupons. I use these and I always make sure whenever I need something I would buy at a dollar store anyway, I buy it from Dillons to build up points for better coupons in the future. It adds up. I even get organic produce coupons. When shopping the 10's sales, I'm very careful to make sure I have multiples of ten because that's the only way the sales will work. If I don't have coupons for the 10's, I don't buy the items at all. We eat a lot of beans ($6 for 10 pound bag at Sam's club), rice (bulk at Sams'), and we use dry milk for all dairy ingredients in our recipes (buttermilk, milk, evaporated, sweetened condensed milk, etc).
Oh and one more thing. I've figured out a trick at CVS using SNAP. When purchasing items and then using coupons and ECB's and earning ECBS back, when purchasing, I select EBT and it will swipe for the total and I end up with change in cash plus the ECB's that I earned and I have more cash to use with the ECB's towards household items or more food items. I stick to sale items only because CVS overprices their nonsale food items. I'm not sure how it works, but it ends up helping me stretch $5 SNAP into $5 SNAP, $3 cash, plus $5 ECB so that when I lose $5 off the card, I gain $8 to use again.When I keep this system going, it goes a ways.
Extra Care Bucks and Supplmental Nutrition Assistance Program Yep... SNAP = foodstamps It's not much, but we make it work.
Thanks. You'd be surprised how much flak I get for admitting we have SNAP. :? I stretch it the best we can.
I didn't realize that is what it was called now. When we were using food stamps Illinois called it Link. Are ECBs part of that program, too?.....and if we weren't right over the line, we'd be using food stamps again, too.
Oh gosh - I thought we spoke English on this board! You've totally lost me on this post. Please tell me weren't trying to speak English or Spanish.
Ok.... CVS is a store. SNAP is the benefits card. ECB is the "cash" that prints out on receipts that you can use on anything in the store. Two weeks ago, there was a sale on chex cereal- 2/$5 and get $2 ECB back, which makes it like 2/$3. I had coupons for $1 off two Chex cereals. I buy four and it rings up to $10 and then I give them 2 coupons to have it now totaling $6. I pay with $5 ECB I had earned the previous week and it now rings up $1 plus tax, I swipe my SNAP card and because of the tax forgiven and 'credit' from the ECB's, it ends up deducting $3 off my SNAP card and I get $4 ECB back plus $3ish change because the coupons somehow make it like cash on a SNAP transcation. So I am out $3 food stamps and gained two boxes of cereal plus $4 "cash" to use in CVSand $3 actual cash. I go back and find another food item that I happen to have coupon for, for example, Welch's juice at 2/$6 and I have coupons for 75 cents off one. I purchase two, then give them the coupons and the total comes out to $4.50 and I use the $4 ECB and then swipe my SNAP to "pay" the taxes, but the SNAP overrides the coupon because the .75 cent coupons registered as cash credit towards my total and forgives the tax, taking $4.50 off the SNAP card and I end up with change from the ECB overage ($4 cash). It only works out like this when using SNAP and ECB's together while redeeming coupons. I'm still learning the system. I'm sorry that I was misunderstood.
I followed it just fine. But enjoy it while you can since that is the kind of thing that they tend to figure out since it gives cash "accidentally", kwim.
That's quite amazing. It's the reverse of paying tax on taxes: You're receiving ECB-cash because of spending ECB-cash. Plus, they are not taking into account coupons - which has to be an oversight.
It doesn't work at other stores, though. At Walgreens, for instance, when I use coupons, RR (Register Rewards), and SNAP together, their computer will apply the coupons first, then the RR and if the RR covers it all, the SNAP simply overrides the tax needed, I.E. food at $5, coupon at $1, and RR at $4 leaving subtotal of a few cents for tax and when I swipe the card, it goes down to zero, but I get no change back either. The CVS manager said their computer recognizes coupons from the newspaper as the same thing as me handing them actual 75 cents or whatever the amount is. Brooke, I know what you mean. I keep waiting for that to end, but so far, it's been working out. Like Steve pointed out, it's the reverse of paying tax since ECB and SNAP are tax-free. That first time they handed me cash from a transaction last year, I thought it was a mistake and tried to give it back. That was a nice surprise and one that I'm learning to take advantage of whenever there is a good food sale, which seems to be about every 4 months.
