Once folks start looking at coupon matchup sites, they might come away from the computer and think: Well, yeah, I can save on cereal and soup and frozen veggies, but what about meat, or milk, or fresh produce? I'm not going to lie to you; there are fewer coupons for these 'store perimeter' items. That doesn't mean you can't save on them, though.
First, let's look at meat.
You will find coupons for bacon, sausage, cold cuts, frozen fish, frozen chicken... anything that's processed by major manufacturers. Every once in a while, you will find printable coupons from farmers' councils for fresh meat.
You can also peruse the beer aisle for rebate forms. North Carolina is a 'no alcohol purchase required' state. You'll see that forms advertise "$5 off beef by mail when you buy a case of Duff beer" but if you read the fine print, you don't actually have to buy the beer in our state. Blue laws or some such. It's usually limited to one offer per household per promotion, but they do exist.
Another source I use for meat is Zaycon Foods. If you sign up with them, they'll tell you when they're headed to your area. Last autumn, I bought eighty pounds of fresh-never-frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts from them. We still have about half left over, after giving some to my brother-in-law and my mom. The hubbie and I simply spent an hour the day we got them dividing portions into one-gallon freezer bags, and put them in the cube freezer. The chicken breasts really are monstrously huge. Three or four of them will make at least three good meals for my family. I haven't tried their other products, but I've seen them offer salmon, smoked ham, and ground beef.
Next, milk.
You will seldom see coupons for regular milk. The store-brand milk is usually most economical. You will see coupons for soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, and nontraditional cow's milk products like Smart Balance, Simply Pure, or organic milk. You'll usually pay a dollar for a half gallon with coupons, which is better than the $3-4 for regular milk.
This is where Catalinas come in handy. Here's the deal I got this weekend:
I had a $3 Catalina from my last trip to Kroger. I clipped two 50-cent coupons for cake mix, and found a free-product Catalina for one Luna bar in the grocery cart. The Luna bar was free, the newspaper coupons doubled to take a dollar off each of the cake mixes (on sale for $1.25 each), and then the three-dollar coupon came off the subtotal. I paid $1.01 for a gallon of milk, a granola bar, and two cake mixes.
Produce.
Sometimes farmers' councils will actually issue coupons good toward the purchase of a particular kind of fruit. You can also find coupons for regular and organic salad greens, berries, carrots, and sometimes tropical fruits. If chasing down the rare produce coupon is too cumbersome, you can always locate the grocery with the best produce prices in your town. For me, that's Aldi.
Except for their chips, their mints, and their wine, I usually only buy produce there. Here's the receipt from this weekend:
I paid less than $18 for all this:
That's two pineapples, two cantaloupes, two bags of carrots, two bags of chips, two 4-pks of mints, a bag of bananas, a head of iceberg, a bag of pears, and a five-pound bag of grapefruit. They're down on the south side of town, so I'll visit about twice a month to snag fresh produce. Depending on your Aldi location, you may need to thoroughly inspect the produce before purchase. A half-priced cantaloupe is NOT a good deal if you grab the ONE melon that's bruised and goes bad in a couple of days.
Next post: How to optimize your use of a pineapple. Follow @RocksTheCoupons
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