Grocery Shopping – What is a Loss Leader and How Can it Help You?
If you have decided to start living more frugally then you might of heard of something called a loss-leader. You may even be wondering what it is and how it helps you.
Loss-leaders are items that stores, usually grocery stores, place on sale at or below their cost. This is so they can advertise cheap prices to get you to come in and then spend more money on other items.
These items are great for people who are trying to live frugally as long as you don’t fall into the trap the store is setting. If you are ready to start living better on less then here are some great ways to take advantage of these items.
-Keep grocery ads handy while planning your menu. Plan meals that will use these cheaper items, for instance, chicken is cheaper then normal, so you may want to eat, chicken/potatoes, chicken salad, chicken casserole and chicken rice that week.
-If a store has an ad with a lot of loss leads then go but make sure you only buy items that are cheaper then your normal grocery store, otherwise you really won’t be saving any money.
-If there is a limit to how many you can get then why not let your kids or husband go through the line to get some. Also if you drive by the store, not making a special trip where you’ll use gas, then run in for some more.
-Stock up on these deals for future weeks. You don’t want to stock up an unrealistic amount, but getting 2-3 months of an item can be good and for some items 6-12 months might even be acceptable, especially if it’s a good deal. For instance, during the holidays certain things go really cheap, so we save throughout the year so we can take advantage and really stock up. Soups are usually much cheaper so we will buy a couple cases of tomato and cream of chicken, usually 6 cases of each is enough for 6-7 months. Also turkey is really cheap so we’ll usually get 4-5, also olives, cream cheese and many other food items are really good prices.