Okay, so this isn't a very fun or glamorous tid-bit, but it is money-saving. I have started trying to do most of my grocery shopping at a store in Manassas called Bottom Dollar. An ad comes once a week in the mail so you can see what their best deals are for the week. It used to be a Food Lion and it's right in the middle of town on Sudley/234. They still carry a lot of Food Lion brand items. It's a normal small grocery store but they don't have a deli or a bakery and they don't have a huge variety of most things, but I think their produce is pretty good and they really have lower prices on everyday items, not always on convience foods though. The things I have noticed a huge savings on are cereal, poptarts, produce, cake mixes, meats, bottles of apple juice, packs of crackers with peanut butter. (Now you know what's in my pantry.) No big savings on things like chips, cheese, and milk. (And by the way, they don't carry buttermilk, although I keep asking them to get it.)The best deals I've gotten there have been bags of granny smith apples---$1.99, 5 lb bag flour---.29, last week whole seedless watermelon was $2.99 each, and in the fall they had an ad that had a $10 coupon if you spent $25.
And FYI, when you get to the register, they have free boxes to load you stuff into or you have to buy your own plastic bags, .05 each, I get 10 if I have a full cart, and you usually have to bag everything yourself. It's no Wegmans or Harris Teeter!
Two weeks ago, I spent $130 at Harris Teeter with a cart about medium way full. The next week it was under $100 for an overflowing cart at Bottom Dollar. That's what makes me keep going back.
