Making Good Use of Markdowns
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Honestly.
A “manager’s special” is not stale or bad food. Not if you shop at a reputable store. It is actually a store’s way of making good use of resources. If it hits the “sell by” date before it is sold, the store takes a loss on it. If they mark down the price a few days prior, they get something and the customer gets a great deal. It’s a win-win. If you’ve got coupons for those items, the deal can be even sweeter.
I recently found sausages and gourmet cheeses marked super low at my local Ralphs. Many of these items would be ones that I wouldn’t pay full price for, but would be happy to pick them up “on markdown.” Â And since I love my freezer, I brought most of these items home to store for a later date. The best of both worlds…. great price + convenience when I want it.
We very VERY rarely have manager’s specials or markdowns in my three-grocery-store-town, but recently I hit the jackpot with some Minute Maid juice cartons marked down to $1.50 w/ $2 off peelies on them! It was a good 10 days before the sell-by date, so needless to say, I got quite a few & ended up w/ enough overage to pay for some of my other groceries. ☺ Our marked-down meat is always brown around the edges…I wonder who actually buys the stuff.
Doing a happy dance FOR you! Wow!
@Sara, Actually the brown around the edges meat, I usually pass up, but there are some good deals in our grocery meat sections, sometimes…
I don’t buy the brown ones, either. But, the butcher has said it was fine, that it had to do with the preservative spray they put on it to keep the color. Ask your butcher. A good butcher is like gold.
We don’t get much for mark downs here where I shop – the only things that get marked down are the nonperishables and HBA, and that’s infrequently at best. I’ve inquired about produce, meat, and dairy markdowns only to find out that they never mark them down (store policy). When I asked what they did with the items, the butcher just frowned and said, “We have to throw them out.”
Heck yeah! For items like meat and cheese, as long as you freeze them, they’ll be just fine. And I usually freeze the meat I buy as soon as I get home anyway, so why not pay less for the marked down items?
I’ve noticed that some of the items on my store’s clearance display (they have a large wall of clearance shelves off to the side when you first enter the store – most people walk right by them!) seem to there simply because the manufacturer has changed its packaging or the item has been discontinued so the store just wants it off the main shelves. A few items are there because the packaging has been damaged, but often, I don’t see anything wrong with the item whatsoever. I’m able to pick up some really high-end products at a deep discount!
My dad grew up military and his dad would always get the marked down cans at the Commissary, but then, they would even sell ones without labels, so my poor grandma would just have a surprise every time they opened a can as she had no idea whether it was canned potatoes, peaches or green beans. I love markdowns, but I love having the labels on even more. =)
That is hilarious! I remember those days. My gramma would buy those, too.
I LOVE manager’s special stickers. Our local grocery store (Community Markets – Fulmer) let’s me have their old produce for my chickens which I pick up a couple time a week. On Fridays I always head to the meat section and see what manager’s specials I can find. This week they had Beef roasts. 2 lb roast for $3!! One time I found 10 1lb packages of ground chuck all for $.50 each. I grabbed them all! Very thankful for my big freezer so I can make good on these deals!
I always scan all the meat for the markdown stickers. It goes home and straight in the freezer, so why not pay a little less?
My favorite markdowns are all the single bananas that they package up into a bundle and then sell for half price. I guess no one wants to buy the singles? I’ll gladly pay half price for the same bananas–they’re usually still green too.
I don’t see as many meat markdowns–rarely if ever. And our markdown bins for canned/boxed items are usually trash, often opened packages, etc. I’m still hesitant to buy a dented can. It could be a simple dent but it could be botulism and I’m afraid enough of the risk.
I don’t know this for positive and I’m not sure who we should ask. But, my understanding was that it is the bulging cans that are botulism, not the dented ones. Anybody know?
@Jessica Fisher,
Check out this link: http://bacteriology.suite101.com/article.cfm/what_is_botulism, specifically the part under the heading, “How to Avoid Getting Botulism” – hope that helps! And for what it’s worth – I buy dented cans. 🙂
Yesterday, I was just picking up a couple things at the store and walked the aisles seeing for any fun surprises. I found a big 6 roll (same as 18 rolls) Scott Paper Towel on sale for 50 percent. It was only $7.50. Normally I find that for a 6 pack of double or barely double rolls. Boy, I wish I had had a coupon, too.
I get almost giddy when I see the green “Manager’s Special” stickers on stuff at my local grocery store. The biggest issue I’ve had is that my store doesn’t allow me to use coupons on the marked down items (very unlike Target and other stores). I’ve gone around and around with them about this (very nicely of course!), but they won’t budge. I’m not sure why they would care if the money comes from my pocket or from a coupon, but there you have it. I have noticed that when it rings up it doesn’t ring up as the item, just a misc. grocery item. Perhaps that’s the issue – they wouldn’t be able to prove to the coupon people that the actual item was purchased. Anyway!! I still LOVE marked-down grocery items!! 😀
Sometimes I think the grocers are just being stinkers. Honestly. Or they don’t fully understand how their own coupon redemption works.
I love markdowns! Truth be told, my “new” stompin’ grounds here in CT do not seem to offer much in the way of manager’s specials and such. Doesn’t keep me from looking. But I definitely rocked those deals when I had a Kroger… and my old Meijer had the best meat markdowns ever.