Price Matching 101 How to save upwards of 40% on your weekly groceries. Fit Mom Fun Mom

Getting Started Preparation is key when you are looking to save money on anything. Organizing your shopping list, identifying best prices, matching up coupons and heading out. Not only is it important to prepare in advance of your shopping trip, it is vital to shop prepared. Having your list, your best prices, and your cart organized will aid you in getting the most bang for your buck with the least amount of headache. Follow along and we will walk through how to get in, get out, and get saving with minimal stress and maximum savings.

Knowing where to find the best prices Apps galore There are numerous apps that you will want to consider when building your price matching tool box. My personal favourite is Flyerify. Flyerify National content Easy to scan through Updated daily Cannot “clip” Hundreds of flyers Flipp Local flyers Can clip deals and store to a “clipboard” for easy reference Reebee Local (same flyers as are delivered in your paper)

Preparing Your Price List Using your preferred app, browse the flyers to identify the best prices. Seem too complicated?! Let’s do some research... There’s a website for that! A website where you can find the best prices for the week all in one place! With screen shots! ysavings.ca/

Organizing Your Trip, Saving You Time Once you have identified the best prices for your routine groceries you might notice that not all the items you want to buy are covered. No problem! Go to salewhale.ca to do a quick search for the products you want. The website allows you to enter your postal code, the search range (up to 250km) and the product to see if there is a sale somewhere in “your area”. Neat-o!

Tips for Your List ItemSale $Regular $Savings Cucumber0.44 Blueberries1.67 Cabbage0.50 Hotdog Buns1.88 Wonderbread1.88 Chicken Breast2.99 / lb Ground Beef2.99 / lb Milk3.97 Yogurt1.99 Eggs1.97 Pizza2.77 Toilet Paper4.44 Helping to ease the chaos of price matching: Organize your list according to the layout of the store – Produce – Bread – Meat – Dairy *notice I stay on the outside of the store, this is where the healthiest foods are! – Frozen foods – Non-perishables (inner isles) – Household

Tips For Your List Now that you have identified your best prices, done up your list you need to make sure you have easy access to those prices. You need to save the images on your phone so that when it’s time to check out, you have those prices at your finger tips. What you need: Save the pictures to your phone make sure; – Prices are easily visible and CLEAR – Dates are indicated on the image – Size or any product specifications are visible and CLEAR Without these things, your prices may not be honored. TIP: Save the images in the same order as they appear on your grocery list!

Price Matching Meat and Produce Meat, meat, meat (even produce) is often sold by weight. The prices advertised are most likely per pound but they register per kilo at the cash. What to I do? When you are prepping your list, calculate the per kilo price so that you can double check the price at the cash. To calculate the per kilo price:

Getting Ready to Check-Out Can you feel the stress building inside, looking at the cashier in front of you, the full cart beside you, and the line of people behind you? It can be intimidating... Breathe, you’ve got your list organized, your phone organized and now it’s time for the last step, getting the belt organized. Organize the belt in the same order as your list, the same order as your phone and vola = you’re ready to check out and save some big $$! To save on headaches: Put any non-price matched goods upfront. This will give you time to load the belt in the order you need. Load up your price matching goodies in the order of your – List – Phone Let the cashier know you’ll be price matching and remember to shoot them a friendly smile You will be working with them to save you money, be nice! Once you get to your PM’d food, work with the cashier, phone on hand, to match up the best prices.

You’ve Done it! You’re Done... Almost A couple tips for making your trip easier: Organization is key! Keeping your list, your phone and yourself organized will go a long way to being successful and reducing the stress of price matching. Your list, your pictures and your belt should be organized in the same order so you can shop and price match with ease. Take a moment to jot down the regular price (Wal-Mart) price as you shop, this allows you to (a) identify whether your price is actually better and (b) calculate your savings at the end of the day. Be patient, this will take time to get used to. Once you get the hang of it, you will see yourself beating last week’s savings. You may even notice yourself cringe a little when you have to pay full price for food – I know I do!

Wait a minute... What about Coupons?!?! Coming soon...

Or Rebate Apps?? Coming soon...