How I Saved More Money at Save-a-Lot than at Wal-Mart

Until Wal-Mart became a superstore here where I live, I used to shop at Save-a-Lot. But when Wal-Mart opened, I turned my back on shopping at this discount food store. Well, as everyone who knows me knows, I have been really short of money and I had to use my imagination to even put food on the table. Yesterday I got paid my monthly paycheck, so instead of going to the superstore, I went to Save-a-Lot.

I kept track of my prices while I was shopping and I thought I had somehow made a mistake, because my buggy was overflowing with food. When I checked out, I asked the girl to subtotal it a few times, because I had expected my shopping bill to be upwards of $250. I know if I had shopped at Wal-Mart for the same items, I would have easily gone over $300. When I was almost done checking out I asked her again to subtotal it, and it was just $114.30 at that time, so I was feeling good. The final tally came to just a few cents over $140. I walked out with 2 carts. One cart was filled and the other cart was half full.

I am disabled, so getting the groceries into the house took over an hour. To my chagrin, my family wasn't home so I did have a time unloading the car and bringing the food in and putting it away. When I was done putting everything up, I looked at my pantry and I was so happy. I have never seen my pantry full, and it looked like a mini store in there. I will not be running out of food by the end of the month now.

Save-a-Lot advertises that you can save up to 40 percent when buying food. I did the figures and I found that I saved 56 percent on my monthly grocery bill. I bought in bulk and I saved a lot. My family loves pizza. We normally buy 6 or 8 frozen pizzas, even though I know how to make them from scratch. To my surprise, I found pizza makings on one of the isles. I bough 20 packages of pizza dough mix for a steal. So now instead of heating up a frozen pizza, I will be making a fresh pizza that my family will love just as much, if not more.

I believe I saved so much, because I am a smart shopper. I don't buy any junk foods really. My family does all the junk food buying, but I bought the staples that we would need for the month. I also bought the meats that were on sale for 5 family packs of meat for $19.99. Granted these are round steaks and chuck steaks, but I know how to tenderize meat by swissing them, and they are delicious and fork tender.

Save-a-Lot stores deal mainly with off brand items, although they do have many name brand items if the customer wants them. The produce section at the Save-a-Lot store in Winder is wonderful. In fact, the produce section has been remodeled and is much bigger than it has been.

If you have a Save-a-Lot store near you, it would behoove you to try it out. I have heard that some stores require you to bring your own bags, and bag your own groceries. Our store stopped that about 7 years ago. They bag our groceries for us, and the prices never went up significantly. I am so happy that I decided to shop at Save-a-Lot, because I did truly save a bundle.