Your regular chain supermarket may not be the best place to buy your groceries. Often, there are other stores that will yield better quality for a lower price overall or on particular items. Being able to shop around can be a good thing, and you might want to shop for your groceries at more than one store.
Visiting different stores and noting the selection and the prices can help you develop a plan for your grocery shopping. Then you know that you’ll always get the best prices on your groceries, even if you don’t happen to have coupons.
There are more places to buy groceries than you might think. Here is a quick list that you can review. Select the stores that work best for you. To prevent getting overwhelmed, plan on visiting only one or two new sources of groceries per week. Take a notebook with you, so you can jot down any real bargains or the prices on your most often-used grocery products.
- Dollar stores
- Big box stores, such as Walmart, Target, Kmart and more
- Discount grocery stores, such as Aldi’s
- Co-ops (groceries are bought in bulk and then distributed out for a low-cost total)
- Warehouse stores, such as BJs, Sam’s Club and Costco
- Overstock stores, such as Big Lots and others
- Drug stores, such as CVS, Walgreens, Rite-Aid and others
- Ethnic and Asian stores
- Farmer’s Markets
- Natural or whole food stores
- CSAs, which stands for community sponsored agriculture. Usually this is a farm or set of farms, supported by members who get a share of all that is produced.
- Dent store, in which products with missing labels, dented cans, or near their best-buy dates are sold for a deep discount
- Bulk food stores
- Convenience stores
- Beauty supply stores for health and beauty supplies