I did the first of two monthly shopping trips at WinCo this morning. The last time I was there (in October), I'd noticed a few items on sale. Sales at WinCo last for a month or sometimes longer. I keep a mental list of the foods that are routinely marked down to their lowest price of the year or season and check on those items each time I visit. Fall is prime time for many of these sales.
Every fall, WinCo puts their store-brand canned vegetables on sale for 50 cents/can. Walmart also does this, but for a shorter period. Now is also one of the best times of year to buy butter. At WinCo, their store-brand butter will stay on sale through about mid to late November. I've been buying a few extra pounds every time I shop for the last couple of visits. And with back-to-school time, I also typically find canned tuna and jarred applesauce at it's year-low. I use a particular brand of organic all-purpose flour, and sometime in fall it goes on sale. I never know the exact week, but since I shop there every other week, I catch that sale. However, others also find that sale, and they are often out of stock.
So today I went prepared to stock up on a few items. I brought extra cash (it's a cash, check or debit only store), and had a plan.
I loaded 7 cases of vegetables (a mix of green beans, corn, and tomato paste) into my shopping cart and headed to the checkout. I knew there wouldn't be enough room in my cart to also do the rest of my shopping. I drove the cart out to my car, loaded the trunk, then went back into the store to buy the rest of my items, both regular groceries and more stock-ups.
In addition to the canned vegetables, I stocked up on butter (10 pounds), canned tuna (12 cans), 4 additional jars of applesauce (I had 4 jars in stock already), and 6 bags of the organic flour I prefer. The flour in itself is a real deal. I saved over $2 per bag. It won't go on sale like this again until next year. If I had more room in my freezer, I would buy even more. I also bought 1 more 18-count carton of eggs. I now have 6 dozen eggs at home. I'll be freezing about half of those in the next week, and those will be our January eggs.
I can guarantee that both butter and eggs will go up in price in January and will not go on sale again until shortly before Easter (late March this coming year). I try to buy enough butter over the fall months to last until the Easter sales. I don't do as well with eggs, as there's more work involved with freezing eggs than there is for butter.
I can also guarantee that our garden will not produce any vegetables in January, February, and early March. Coincidentally, WinCo will not have their canned vegetables on sale during those months.
I do my best to catch the fall sales for the items we really need, and that I can't find at even near fall prices again for several months. I do have to walk past some sales, due to a limited budget and space for storage. But that's okay. I've done my best.
Stores feature a handful of foods on sale every fall. We can count on that. Then in winter it feels like groceries are soooo expensive. My plan is to have enough food on hand that I can slide through January and February buying far fewer groceries while still feeding my family well.
Edit: I also want to point out that this is also the time to buy foods that are only available in fall, like fresh cranberries. Fresh cranberries freeze beautifully. I pick up a few extra bags to freeze for later use in muffins, smoothies, sauces, and jams.
What fall sales are you seeing in your stores? What foods will you stock up on this fall to use in winter and beyond?
