Does your grocery store have clearance bins?  Mine does!

I love checking our the clearance bins at my favorite grocery store (mine happens to be a Smith’s).  They pretty much always have clearance bins.  Usually at my store the bins are at the back of the store near the dairy but they also have a few clearance bin spots throughout the store.

My favorite day to hit the clearance bins is Monday.  I usually make it a point to do some grocery shopping on Mondays.  Yesterday I went to Smith’s and the first stop was the clearance bin in the produce department.  Here they have bags of produce marked down to .99 a bag.  I grabbed a bag that had 5 apples and another that had 2 mangoes.  The trick to buying clearance bin produce is to just look at the condition.  The stuff I got looked great, the mangoes where a little more on the soft side than I typically prefer, but it came home and was turned into a mango salsa for dinner.

My next clearance stop was the meat department.  I just happened to be there as the butcher was marking down meats.  I got lots of great stuff there.  With clearance meats I always be sure to check the dates and to look at the color of meat.  I think I can count only 2 times that I have ever been disappointed with buying marked down meat.  I always come right home and either get it cooked or frozen quick.

Then comes the real fun.  They had 3 clearance bin carts of other mark downs.  I went through them and got oatmeal and cereal.  Combined with coupons I got name brand cereals that I almost never buy for $.75 each box. Often times I find lots of extras to donate to the food bank too!

My best find yesterday was they had milk marked down for $1.25 per gallon and it was dated 2 weeks out!

I love getting the great deals from the clearance bins.  Sometimes they are misses, but most of the time it’s a hit.

Here are a couple tips from me on shopping the clearance bins:

1- check the dates for expiration

2- if it’s perishable use it quickly

3- try to combine the clearance prices with coupons for even more savings

4- look for clearance throughout the store

5- buy extra for the food bank