Super Center or Grocery Store?

If you have been around Southern Savers for a while or attended a workshop, you know how I feel about supercenters: they can never compete with local grocery stores.  However, I have noticed that many people still seem to think that shopping at supercenters is the way to go.  In an attempt to prove to you that you will save more money at grocery stores, I did a little test this past week.  I took all of the on-sale items at Publix and Kroger and went into my local supercenter to look at how their prices matched up.  To put it simply, they didn’t.
It may seem to be slightly biased to select only the on-sale items and compare but my particular local supercenter (and I suspect yours does as well) advertises “Always Low Prices”.  In other words, their prices are always as low as they will get and they will not run a lower sale.  Also, as you know, I only buy on-sale items.
After taking all the listed prices, I calculated the effect of coupons on both the grocery stores and the supercenter, remembering to double where it applied.  I did the math based on buying one of every item on the weekly Southern Savers list.  If it was a store brand, then a comparable brand was chosen at the supercenter.  The results were:

Publix On-Sale Items Plus Coupons: $139.84
Same Items with Coupons At SuperCenter: $196.80

Kroger On-Sale Items Plus Coupons: $203.99
Same Items with Coupons At SuperCenter: $243.65

This again was pretending to only buy 1 of each item, and using Southern Savers we want to stock up for 6 weeks,  which would only make the amount saved greater.  To put these numbers in perspective,  let’s say that you went to Publix and purchased only one of the on-sale items for a month (4 weeks) instead of the supercenter.  You would save over $240 a month!
I hope this is convincing and shows you how much money you could be saving.  I know that the supercenters are convenient and it can be easy to shop there.  But if you really want to save money, the grocery stores are really the way to go.
Let’s dispel one other myth with these numbers too:

“Aren’t B1G1 prices increased so you really aren’t saving??”

Looking just at the Publix B1G1 deals and comparing the cost after coupons to the cost at the Super Center it truly shows that the Big Box store can’t compete with a grocery sale price.  “Buying” one of each B1G1 item the numbers are:

Publix Buy One Get One items with coupon $43.22
Same items with coupons at SuperCenter: $81.17

Buy one get one deals are normally sold at the top retail price, but this shows that getting 50% off the top price is a considerable savings over the “everyday low price” at the supercenter.

If you still aren’t convinced, let me know what you would like to see compared next!

**Publix numbers did not include any competitor coupons since each area is allowed different coupons.

By Jenny at SouthernSavers