Regardless if you are a homesteader, a wishing to be homesteader, love living in the heart of the big city, rich or poor …. who doesn’t love to save a buck?!
Did you know that just like seasons in the year, sales at stores also follow an orderly(more or less) cycle?! If you’re learning this for the first time, sit a breath a second as your mind may have blown like mine was when I first made the discovery! (Half joking)
Thankfully we don’t need to wait a whole year for most of those cycles, although the very very best prices, when fruit is in season etc, may be only a couple weeks of the year …. most things run on roughly 6-12 week cycles for BEST prices! Woohoo!
So, why are sale cycles important and what do they have to do with saving a buck? Can’t I just look in the weekly flyer and just buy what it says is on sale? Yes, you can shop from the ad …. however you’re at the mercy of the stores. By knowing the cycles you can look at the ad and know if it’s a good price or if next week items you need will be 50% lower!
When you know the cycles, know how long it will be between best prices and good prices … you can plan ahead, buy more when its rock bottom, hopefully enough to get through until the next rock bottom! Saving you significant money in the long run!
For example, boneless chicken(obviously varies by area on price) I can pretty consistently for $2lb at Walmart, a bit more at a local grocery store, but another local one, Shaw’s (it’s part of Osco family and others) every 3 weeks or so will go to $1.79, every 6 weeks it will be $1.59. As you can see in my meal planning post, we use a lot of chicken! So let’s say I’m buying 20 lb. A month or 5lb a week on average. Bare with me with the numbers here:
If I buy 5 lb each week I can count on spending $10 a week (just Walmart shopping) … so $60 over the course of a 6 week period(the space of 1 boneless cycle)if I go to the other store on the sale weeks I could save $.1.05 +2.05 over the 6 week period.
NOOOWWW … instead, if I plan for doing my chicken shopping when it goes to $1.59 a pound it is $47.70, that’s a $12.30 savings just for planning ahead! Occasionally other stores will be even lower than the $1.59 but I know that that’s a constant cycle sale I can plan on 🙂 that saves my family at least $106 a year! That’s just on 1 item on the grocery list!
Most things we may buy regularly have sale cycles like this! Things like cereal, snacks, canned goods, pasta, condiments are even better sales than the simple meat example I gave too.
So for those who raise your own meat, veggies you may not get excited about some items. However items you don’t do at home, these will help! Those who are in the “working on it” phase where you raise/grow some things you may be more interested in some 🙂 Since life happens, knowing cycles is always good … freezers die, houses/barns burn or flood and you never know when you may need to buy groceries that normally you grew.
I’m going to be doing weekly posts to highlight the, sort of “best of” items in this cycle. I’ll also be working on a page to track where in cycle things are at. Hopefully this will help you all with saving money, planning meals, planning shopping and overall making life easier!
Since the cycles are very similar across the United States at least, prices will vary by store/region …. but everyone should be able to find some guidance with these 🙂
