Product Downsizing

Have you noticed the downsizing of a familiar grocery product? How do you feel when their are fewer sheets in the roll? Fewer ounces in the container? And the price actually goes up!

This forum is a good place to post your downsizing news.

Smart Balance Milk

I love finding a coupon someone has left on the shelf so another shopper can have the savings. I call this "Johnny Coupon-seed."

It was a customer or it might have been the driver who delivered the milk, who left a $1 coupon in the case next to Smart Balance milk. Attached to the milk carton I found a coupon good for 55-cents off Smart Balance Butter Blends, another nice surprise. It pays to keep your eyes open!!!

P&G's Room By Room Savings Booklet

I just found the P&G Room By Room savings booklet in a floor display at Publix. More than $17 worth of coupons including Tide, Downy, Charmin and Swifter. They are not on sale this week, but I am confident they will be next week or the week after.

Look for the displays in your supermarket and let me know when you find the sales that turn these coupons into Double Plays.

Stocking Up - Buy A Case

This week I found Special K and Northland Cranberry Pomegranate on sale, "Buy 1 - Get 1 Free." My BW consumes "mass quantities" of Special K and the Northland is a favorite dinner beverage. So, I ordered two cases of each. 14 boxes of cereal to the case, and 8 bottles of juice to the case. And I had some coupons as well. I have been doing this every 3 or 4 months.

Do you stock up? Let me know. --- Martin

Your Questions

Hi! Do you have a question concerning shopping at the supermarket or the use of coupons and other manufacture promotion offers? I will try to answer them --- Martin

Finding More Good Coupons

I call it the "Johnny Appleseed" method: Each week put unwanted coupons in an envelope. Whenever you leave home, wherever you go, take the envelope with you. Surprise your friends and neighbors (the ones who are not already saving coupons for you), by offering them the envelope with a simple: "take out any coupons you can use."

When they have removed from the envelope several coupons they
can use and you see the smile spread across their faces, ask them to put their unwanted coupons in envelopes and keep them handy just the way you are doing. You just planted the seed for a simple way to exchange coupons. With a little luck, the next time you meet that person, she will have an envelope full of coupons for you to go through.

Why be bashful? You have nothing to lose. Carrying around
that envelope of coupons is no big deal. Pleasantly surprise a
few people you know and they may turn out to be excellent
sources for the coupons you can use.

Food or Gasoline?

If you are tight for money, do you cut back on driving and gasoline so you can put food on the table? Or do you economize on food so you can fill up the tank? For many people today, it is a difficult choice.

Food Prices, Up Up Up! What Are You Doing About It?

As food prices go up, so does the interest in saving money. In the past year, the supermarket price of milk has risen almost 20 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationally, grocery prices in general are up almost 5 percent from December 2007; in the West, they're up more than 7 percent, the biggest jump in the country. Are you a Smart Shopper? What are you doing about it?

Waiting in the Checkout Line

Do you shop at the supermarket very early in the morning or in the evening to avoid the crowds and long checkout lines? Does this cut down on the shopping time?