Joe and I took a field trip yesterday to look into some different things for research purposes, of course. The really big one made my day. We found an outlet for Mrs. Baird's Bread! Some of you will be unfamiliar with the brand but locally it is a very big one. I am a bread fanatic, I love bread.....so this was an exciting discovery. I managed to walk out with 5 loaves of bread, 2 things of bagels, hamburger buns, hot dog buns, 2 packages of english muffins and 2 boxes of snack size cherry pies. My total at the register? Under $13.....Now, since it is an outlet the bread is close to its expiration date which means that in order for it to stay good I need to toss it in the freezer. So, out came the Tin Foil and the Ziploc bags and I went to town. This is a great time to test the theory that bread stays perfect in the freezer. Anything that I thought we could not eat in the next couple of days got wrapped up, zipped up and is patiently waiting to be thawed. If the experiment does not go well, then I am really not out anything since one package of english muffins were snarfed for breakfast and lunch, a bunch of the pies are gone and we ate half the hot dog buns and half of the hamburger buns are slated for chicken sandwiches tonight. If none of the bread in the freezer turns out ok, I still got my moneys worth. The really great part about it is that these are the breads that I buy regularly! The english muffins and bagels are Thomas's, the bread and buns were a mix of Mrs. Bairds and Orowheat. The bakery outlet is a bit of a drive from our house (For my local Houston folks, it is off South Gessner. Take 59 to the Gessner exit like your going to Olive Garden and instead of taking the flippy-do, a technical term, just cross the intersection and go about 3.5 miles down Gessner and the bakery is on the left.) not horrible but not as close as my regular shopping haunts so I would prefer to do it every other week, if not once a month.
However, on the corner of South Gessner and 59 there is also a Staples. I am a big fan of Staples and always have been. Their pricing is better than a lot of the office supply stores and I will admit to a minor office supply addiction. I have been working on this one for years and have gotten much better but, well we all have to have our vices. On the way home, we wandered in to look around because I saw an ad last week where they were advertising all sorts of cool stuff for a $1. They also have a back to school program where you purchase a savings card and get 15% off of all school supplies through Sept 17th....all of you parents out there, stop into the store! When we got home, I opened my paper to dig through (I buy the Early Sunday edition of the Chronicle on Saturday to look at the ads and check out the coupons that I will be getting the next day. That way if I see anything I have to have I can get up early and run out to get it before they are all gone.) and found an ad for Staples where they have a couple of items for $.01 this week AND reams of multipurpose paper at $.25 (This does require a rebate). Paper has been on my watch list because the prices are ridiculous in the stores. More than $6 for a ream in a lot of cases for the store brand!......I can totally do $.25. As a sidenote, this ad was NOT in my Sunday Chronicle.....today I had ads for Office Depot and Office Max, they have some really good sales going on as well but nothing as exciting as Staples. I have read that for a month or so Staples does these sales on schools supplies every week. You can go online to Staples.com and sign up to receive their ad via email every week or just stop by the site and look at the ads on Sunday or Monday when the new ones come out.
So, I think that for a while I will be making a weekly trip to Staples to stock up on supplies (btw, this is a great item to donate. There are tons of programs out there for underprivileged children who cannot afford supplies) and while I am there I will wander down to the bakery to see what I can score during the week rather than what is left on a Saturday afternoon ;-)
I have also been watching the meat cases in the stores I go to. I usually go to 3 stores a week...Sam's Club, Target and a grocery store (either HEB or Kroger, depending on which one has the better sales). So I have been looking at all of the meat cases to see what is going on. The sales for meat come every week depending on the store and what they have in stock. However, if you can find them some of the meat (on sale or not) has tags on it with discounts! This can be either because the expiration date is coming up soon or they just have a ton that they want to move. I see those and snatch them up! I got a killer deal on hamburger last week and the week before that I took home a roast for under $6....that was 2 dinners and sandwiches for 3 days in our house!
This time of year is a great time to look around and see if you have a local farmers market for produce as well. I have been looking but haven't found one yet. These are excellent places to get fresh produce directly from the farmers at incredible prices. Take the middleman and the markups out of the picture and you can find excellent deals on fruits, vegetables and all sorts of other interesting stuff. A lot of these things can be frozen, canned or stored in other ways so that you can have your favorites any time of the year.
Try doing some online searches and see what turns up. There are savings to be had out there, sometimes you just have to go look for them.
Until next time, happy shopping and good luck!
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