Saving On Bread
August 23, 2007 | Filed under Money
What many people don’t realise is that it’s very easy to save on necessities such as food. Take bread products as an example. You could conceivably expect the average family of four to go through a loaf of bread in two days. With normal (white supermarket-bought sandwich) loaves costing approximately three to four dollars each, this adds up to about $800 a year on bread alone.
However, what many supermarkets do is discount their bakery items after a certain time, for quick sale so they don’t go stale. My local supermarket (Safeway Woolworths) discounts after 8pm. For every two hours after that, they take another 50% off the marked price. So you go from $4…to $3 at 8pm, to $1.50 at 10pm, to 75 cents at midnight.
Thus, after grocery shopping late last night, I walked away with a twelve pack of cinnamon donuts, a loaf of fruit bread, and a loaf of white bread for four dollars. They’re still four days off their expiry date, and were actually baked yesterday morning. I saved eight dollars.
If you count that as saving ten dollars a week (at the very least), you’re saving five hundred or more dollars a year. Imagine what you could do with that!
7 Responses to Saving On Bread
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That’s cool. I don’t know of any supermarkets here that do that. They only seem to mark down food items after holidays (for instance, the price of candy goes way down after Halloween). But – the coffee shops around my campus would give away/seriously mark down bakery items around midnight. A lot of it went to the homeless? but sometimes students snagged huge loafs.
Chantelle on August 23, 2007 #
Super markets do that here, but a lot of times the bakery doesn’t make bread like white bread. You can buy sour dough and rye and raisin and stuff. But a family needs white bread for grilled cheese and peanut butter & jelly. It is a life necessity.
Kimmie on August 23, 2007 #
Is it wrong of me to feel a special little thrill whenever I find little mundane grocery items on sale (especially if the item is of a decent brand/still fresh)?
BTW, what you said about bread also applies to meat! In the meat section of Woolworths there’s always packs of meat on sale that’s still a few days from expiring. The prices are usually slashed.
Belinda on August 23, 2007 #
Wow – our stores close at 8pm – latest!
Tracy on August 23, 2007 #
Ditto Belinda on the meat. The supermarket I used to work at would mark certain things down at three different times during the day. First thing in the morning, around lunchtime and just before closing. Mum loved it when I worked until closing because I’d get her a shitload of cheap meat.
Nellie on August 23, 2007 #
It’s the same thing here, but some stores only discount when it comes really close to the expiring date (or actually on the date itself) so I wouldn’t buy that
Chans on August 23, 2007 #
Jeez, Amanda. Saving all this money is going to make you a TERRIBLE parent.
Reply: But Jem, this isn’t the absolute best bread around because *gasp* it wasn’t baked less than an hour ago! How could I live with knowing that I wasn’t giving my children the best? :P
Jem on August 23, 2007 #