RVA Deals
It’s that time again! Get your weekly money-saving tip and find out the best buys for meat, veggies, fruits, dairy, staples, sweets & snacks, beverages, and more available at your favorite grocery haunts around Richmond.
With chicken breasts on sale this week at Kroger, it’s an opportune time to tackle the topic of…
Stockpiling
I’m not referring to the Y2K/world’s-end/hunker-in-a-bunker kind of hoarding, but stockpiling as a technique for cutting your grocery bill. The general idea is to take advantage of grocery store sale cycles by buying enough of food items when they are on sale to last until they go on sale again.
Chicken breasts are a prime example of a product it pays to stockpile. Kroger periodically sells the Tyson boneless, skinless variety for $1.99 a pound, or less. But in between sales, the price almost triples to $5.49 a pound!
My goal is to store enough $1.99 chicken to avoid ever paying full price. I haven’t tracked Kroger’s sale schedule carefully, but it seems that the Tyson sale shows up every three to five weeks. Since fresh chicken breasts don’t last that long, I put one or two pieces at a time into a zip-top sandwich bag, and place multiple sandwich bags together in a gallon freezer bag. That goes into the freezer with a date recorded on it. When I need chicken breasts next, I just a move a baggie to the fridge, pour in a little marinade, and it’s ready for dinner the next day.
I’ll continue this subject next week, discussing “Should YOU stockpile?”
My favorite deals this week
Meat Top Pick:
Have I mentioned Tyson boneless skinless chicken breasts are $1.99/lb at Kroger? A good deal gets even better if you use the $1 off Tyson coupon found on the back page of last Sunday’s Times-Dispatch Metro section.
Veggies Top Pick:
(I’m splitting the fruit & veggies category, at least for the summer while produce is plentiful and cheap) Organic zucchini and summer squash are on sale for $1.29/lb this week at Whole Foods.
Fruit Top Pick:
This time of year, I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend delicious, seasonal berries. Ukrop’s is offering organic raspberries, blackberries, or blueberries for $3, a savings of up to $3.98 off regular price.
Dairy Top Pick:
Kroger brand singles, shredded or bar cheese are $1.50. If you can’t bring yourself to buy generic, Sargento shredded cheese is on sale for $2.
Staples Top Pick:
Ken’s Salad Dressings are only $1.49 at Kroger, regularly $3.69. The vinaigrette styles make great marinades for the chicken breasts you’re buying! (There are coupons from the May 3 SmartSource insert for $1 off the lite spray variety, or for $1 off any 2.)
Sweets & Snacks Top Pick:
Ukrop’s has Pepperidge Farms Goldfish crackers for $1. Now that I’m feeding a fish-munching tot, I’ve rediscovered how yummy these guys are. I highly recommend the chocolate graham cracker variety.
Beverages Top Pick:
At Kroger, you can get six Pepsi product 2-liters for $5. How it works: buy 4 at $1.25 each, get 2 free.
Household Top Pick:
All Lysol household cleaners are fifty percent off this week at Kroger. For the very best deal, combine with $.75 off Lysol coupons from the April 26 SmartSource coupon insert.
Find more deals by accessing the stores’ weekly ads online:
- Prices valid 5/31-6/6: Kroger, Ukrop’s, Target, Walmart, Walgreen’s, CVS
- Prices valid 6/3-6/10: Tom Leonard’s, Whole Foods, Fresh Market
- Prices valid for month of June: Ellwood Thompsons
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Alison Brown
Check out more of Alison’s stellar cost-cutting tricks and tips over at Richmond Bargains or follow her on Twitter. Your wallet is sure to thank you.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
I love this blog! I don’t get the paper or have much patience for cutting coupons, but you may inspire me to start.
As someone commented last week, I think Ukrop’s gets a bad rap, comparing individual items to each other, of course one store may have a hotter deal week by week, but I compared the whole basket to what I was paying at Food Lion and was pleasantly surprised that I was saving money at Ukrop’s! They’re doing a 10/$10 this week, so that helps. And bananas were .29/lb!
Go figure, as soon as I lament exorbitant chicken prices, they drop. Bought some Tyson at Kroger yesterday and the full price was marked $3.18/lb. Hopefully this means we’ll see even lower sale prices soon!
MidloMom- Thanks! I’m trying to keep “coupon deals” to a minimum and pick items that are good prices even without, because I know there are a lot of folks who just don’t want to hassle with them. But coupons are definitely the way to score the real steals. In future weeks, I’m planning to cover some ways to get coupons without subscribing to the paper.
As far as Ukrops goes, I’ve been pleasantly surprised too with some of the sale prices it offers. I think stocking up on those items is key to making shopping at Ukrops affordable. Great banana deal, thanks for sharing!
To save even more money on chicken, you can often buy the whole chickens for 59 cents a pound, sometimes even less, and cut them up yourself. When they go on sale, I usually stock up, and cut some into halves for broiling or throwing on the grill, and cut some into pieces and freeze the breasts, thighs and legs in separate packages.
I’ll usually buy at least one or two whole chickens to make chicken broth or soup with, and freeze some of the cooked meat for later use in casseroles, salads, pot pies, etc.
Buying the chickens whole is a huge savings over buying the pieces seperately, and they’re really not hard to cut up, once you get the hang of it.
I refuse to pay more than $1.99 per pound for chicken breast. I always stock up. I stockpile cereal, too, and work the store sales and coupons.
If only I had a deep-freezer, I’d stockpile so much more!