Discount grocery stores

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a little goldmine in our town in a little non-descript little building called "Markdown Market." I had heard about discount grocery stores that buy out overstocked and damaged goods, but I didn't think we had one. Well...we do. It's tiny. But it's awesome.

If you have one in your city, I highly, highly recommend checking it out. Ours is tiny, but it's a fantastic resource for basic pantry items. The inventory varies, but I can always count on it for cereal, rice, granola bars, and basic pantry staples (spices, flour, sugar, cake mixes, etc). And it's a bit like a treasure hunt because you never know what cool thing they just got in on a cool shipment. Last time, I snagged two bottles of my favorite name-brand laundry detergent for $2.99/bottle (usually $4.99-5.99 at Wal-mart). Today, I found ranch style beans (a rare find) for about $.45/can. It's a great way to stock up your pantry, and, for us, a neat way to experiment (I just bought a new marinade today to see if we'll like it) and indulge (hello $1 box of poptarts...).

You do have to be careful at these stores. I usually set a specific limit that I won't go over. Just because it's a good deal doesn't mean that it's okay to go over your budget. I look carefully for things that save us money and also help bulk up our pantry (like the $.50 bags of rice or HUGE containers of chicken bouillon.)

I'm pretty pleased with my haul today. I got enough breakfast stuff to last us for the month of January (cereal, oatmeal, poptarts, muffin mixes), some bouillon, different kinds of beans, quite a bit of rice, gravy mixes, some brownie and cake mixes, and much more. This will definitely help my "eat from the pantry " push next month.