Making the Most of Great Deals at the Grocery Store with Rain Checks

I was in the grocery store today, getting some fruit and several boxes of lean cuisine, and I noticed a really great deal. They were selling 6 packs of 24 oz coke products for $2.25 each (4 for $9.00), and that was too good of a deal to pass up. I love my Vault soda, despite how unhealthy it is. Instead of buying out the store and getting a 6 month supply of Vault soda, I used a trick that I recently heard from a friend. I got 2 six packs of soda, enough for a couple of weeks, and went on my way. The beauty is that I can go back and buy more soda at the $2.25 price even after the sale is over and I didn't have to carry a huge collection of soda home. How did I do it? I took out a rain check.

A rain check basically allows you to get the sale price of an item even after the sale is over. This comes in really handy when a great deal comes at a grocery store. You can get the amount of the product that's on sale now that you want, and not have to worry about stocking up. Instead you have a little slip which will allow you to buy more of that item at the sale price later. You can get the great deal, and not have to worry about carrying 20 of one thing home. Additionally, the cost of whatever your paying for is spread out across multiple weeks of groceries, making it so that you don't take a big hit if you were to stock up on something.

Rain checks also have some other benefits. If the item is on sale is perishable, and you're going out of town for a couple of weeks, the sale doesn't do much good to you. However if you have a rain check, you can get the sale price, buy go and get the item that's perishable after you're back.

One thing to be careful of is if the advertisement says "while supplies last" or "quantities are limited." If the sale you're going in for has these stipulations and they're out of the item, you've lost your legal right to a rain check.

The process of getting a rain check varies from store to store. Sometimes you can just ask the cashier for one, which is the easiest way to go. Other times you have to stand in the customer service line to get one. It's a bit of a hassle, but is still worth the amount of money that you'll save.