Yes, I often buy "day old" produce, etc. Hey, I grew up on a farm, I know things doing have to look perfect and I'm not adverse to cutting a spot out.

I don't buy meat so much because I raise my own, but canned goods are fair game, as are things like laundry detergent and bars of soap with packages damaged. If I can find a coupon on line, double bonus. I'm not brand loyal for things like soap and cleaning products, so if it's on sale and I can find a coupon, I use it. Except Tide, which breaks me out in a rash. It's never cheap anyway....

The last package of socks I bought I got 75% off because there were only 5 1/2 pairs, one was missing. I figure that just means I have a spare!

Annie

I try NEVER to pay full price for anything..... That's the beauty of having home food storage and being able to "shop" at home. I'm never OUT of anything. I wait to find it at a stock-up price before buying it in the first place.

My favorite grocery store has a clearance section in the back of the store. The gal who stocks it told me if they don't have room for things (on the shelves or in back-stock) they often discount them and place them in this area, they aren't just "rejects" or out-of-date items. I nearly always find something there.... It's often end-of-season items, broken bags of charcoal, or after holiday items like pumpkin pie spice, cans of pumpkin, turkey-size oven bags (which I use in my solar ovens), etc.

There is also a discounted fruit section. Discounted bananas are always welcomed since they go into so many things I bake and we eat them on a daily basis. I also turn less-than-perfect discounted fruit into fruit roll-ups. I often mix more expensive fruit with unsweetened applesauce for fruit roll-ups.

Love those bags of discounted spinach or reduced mushrooms (sliced or whole), and what I can't use quickly I'll dehydrate. I also cook discounted sliced mushrooms in butter and freeze them.

In this economy I scrutinize the reduced meat section. I have a $10/week meat budget so I make it stretch as far as possible. If I don't find anything that fits my budget or needs I'll save that $10 for the next week.

I skip the discounted baked goods because I make those myself using freshly-milled flour, and I make all kinds of things with the pulp from homemade almond milk I make once a week.

Our store pre-sliced their deli meats and displayed little mountains of them in the deli case. At the end of the day they would sell what was already sliced for 50% off. If we happen to be in the area at 7 p.m. we would stop and check the deli section for 50% off deli meat. Unfortunately, they now slice-as-needed, so we don't often get deli-sliced meat these days, but you might check your store and see if they discount pre-sliced deli meat.

-Grainlady

I buy marked down meat all the time. Some stores, when they mark the meat down, the meat looks bad but at the stores I buy from, the mark down meat looks great. It's usually 2 days away from the expiration date.
Typically, it's steaks, flat irons, roasts and chicken. Not processed meats.
Other stuff, not so much. I just don't come across it that often or it's not something we eat.

Down here in the Daytona area, no grocery sells marked down veggies or meats. Oh well.

Yes! When we lived in Massachusetts, we shopped at Market Basket which discounts produce when it's a bit past it's best, or they have new stuff to put out. We regularly bought all kinds of fruits and veggies this way.

We also got Bell & Evans chickens from MB, usually when it was within a couple of days of the "sell by" date. We don't buy any other meat from the supermarket.

Here in the Southwest I haven't come across a grocery who discounts for anything that isn't pristine. I wonder what they do with it?

Cheryl

There's a Meijer store about 35 miles north of us that I use to stop at when I was taking care of my elderly aunt up in that area. They would have all kinds of produce on sale on a rack in the back of the produce section. I use to get a lot of it because it really was in good shape and not bad at all. My aunt passed and I don't go up there anymore. I've never found any meat that was in a mark down section at the stores I go to that I would trust.

It is almost a rule that I only buy meat with a 30% off sticker. It used to be 50% off but that didn't last long. Sometimes the 50% off veggies are worth buying but others not so much. I love getting big bags of mushrooms cheap. I normally buy 50% off bread too. I take great pleasure in getting the deal. Hubby likes it too. I am also not shy if something scans wrong to ask about scanning code practice. At the main store I shop if something scans at a higher price than the shelf says you get up to 10$ off. I got a dozen free water glasses this way.

I'm picky about the meat I buy, so I don't buy reduced meats. I also prefer stores that label their meats with a "packaged on date" and not a "best before date".

We have a number of butchers in the area and two grocery stores with butchers on staff. They offer regular specials on their beef and pork. So I can almost always get a fresh cut at a good price. Recently they had their New York strip loins on sale for $5.99 a pound instead of $13.99. And they often have their prime Ribs on sale.

~Ann

Stores don't have that option too much around here anymore. A lot of the stores just don't put out as much so the stuff sells, then they stock. Used to buy some and my cousin used to go at the right time and ask what they're going to mark down but I didn't see that great of a price reduction. 50% off an inflated price is not a good deal.

I've read many threads here on the CF talking about these discounts but I've never seen one here. I know much of what is past its prime but still good is donated to our local food bank. Our deli slices as you order so no waste there. There is also no "day old" section in the bakery section.

/tricia

In the grocery stores in our area, the main items regularly reduced are baked goods and that doesn't interest me but I love going to the grocery store for seasonal clearance items after a holiday.

I will be visiting two grocery stores next week for clearance sales in the Kosher section. I hope to purchase my annual supply of the made with sugar instead of HFCS Fox's U- bet syrups. They usually just carry the chocolate but expand their offerings to the cherry, raspberry and vanilla syrups at this time of year and then reduce them to clear them out after Passover.

I have about two dozen heart-shaped foil pans with lids in inventory, purchased at 75% off after Valentine's day. I use them for taking coffee cakes or brownies to my knitting club, etc. and they should last until the pumpkin shaped pans get moved out after Halloween. A year's supply of Ziplock sandwich bags with black cats on them and red plastic containers for soup giveaways were also added to my pantry at post-season clearance prices.

I have my eyes on cupcake papers decorated with spring flowers at Wegmans that will be a quarter of this week's price by the end of next week.

One ethnic market and a stall at one of the farmers' markets I frequent sells "reject" fruits and vegetables. Misshapen or blemished citrus fruits are my most frequent purchases, along with bee stung apples from the organic orchards. If I want to make ketchup or peach jam, I order what they call "checks" a week or two ahead of time and get very ripe or blemished tomatoes or fruit. I am always surprised at the amount of Siamese twin tomatoes in the cartons.

If you go to the best Amish butcher in another market, sliced smoked bacon is laid out in beautiful rows in the display case but if you ask for sliced bacon ends, the butcher will give you a bag of slices two to three inches shorter than the norm for about a third of the price per pound of the traditional size. That's the primary meat reject that I buy.

I save money on some items and splurge on others but it seems to balance out by the end of the month.

One time, there were 3-4 BIG bags of assorted tomatoes. Maybe 1 in each bag looked a bit squishy?? I took them ALL home, peeled, chunked and canned.

Will occasionally buy package of bacon ends to crisp up as REAL "bacon bits".

Frugality is a little time consuming, but I've got time!

Oh yeah. One store calls the bakery items "whoops, we baked too much" so I took to calling all those items "whoops we ____ too much" filling in the blank as appropriate. So, whoops, we fished too much, or whoops we butchered too much or whoops we picked too many bananas.

I've made several loaves of banana bread and frozen them, made salsa with tomatoes & onions - which they conveniently packaged together for ridiculously cheap, etc. There's always some way to use up the produce.

I do buy the meat and usually just throw it right into the freezer. Never had any problem. For me the biggest score is fish which is scarce in the "whoops" department but when I see something good there, I grab all they have and freeze it.

I don't eat that much meat anymore so what I can pick up in the whoops department pretty much fulfills all my needs except in those rare occasions (Passover anyone?) where I need a specific thing on a specific day.

Not many choices as far as stores go here.
But I do shop the "rejects" when and if there are any.

The Walmart here used to mark down their meat
(beef, pork, chicken)
a couple of days before the 'sell-by' date.
They seem to have stopped that practice.
It was always really good meat,
both looked and tasted very fresh.
Don't now why they don't do that any more,
Maybe they are stocking less at a time
to reduce the amount 'left over'.
I've never seen reduced meat in the other store, also a chain.
Don't know what they do with it,
I once thought they re-wrapped it
and put it back in the case.
(Wouldn't surprise me if they did!)

Can't say as I've ever seen any fruit or vegetable 'rejects'.
Other than bananas.
I don't buy them because I do NOT like to eat them
when they are over ripe
and I do NOT like banana bread (or cake or muffins).

I almost never buy baked goods,
but for some reason, I always look at the outdated rack.
That is in Walmart only,
Never have seen any baked goods marked down
in the other store either.

Sometimes I get really envious
when reading of all the good deals
so many of you find! !

:>)

Rusty

I shop for discount lobsters and crabs.

Normal price for chicken lobsters(1 1/4 lbs) at $9.99 a lb. 1 1/2 lb ones are at $11.99 a lb.

I buy freshly dead ones at $2.00 a lb. Some of them are still alive but not very lively. You cannot tell the difference once they are cooked.

Same with Dungeness crabs. Normal price at $8.99 a lb. Dead ones at $2.00 a lb.

Also, live crabs or lobsters with one claw or some legs missing at 1/2 price.

I understand this practice bothers a few, but I am perfectly happy with it, considering 99% of the other seafood we buy and eat are dead ones.

dcarch

Another way to get cut rate meat is to find a local meat processor, who often sells met retail in addition to processing. Here's a link to one a couple of hours from me, they sell "bundles". For instance, at the bottom of the page is a pork bundle of 35 pounds for $87.95, a bit over $2 a pound and it includes bacon, sausage, pork chops and ham.

None is outdated and all comes fresh and frozen, but you have to take a drive out of the "city" to find it.

Annie

Here is a link that might be useful: Galesburg Meat Company

It could be that people who were only borderline about buying the marked down stuff, are fully in the glad to have anything group now, buying it all up, and so it's scarce to see marked down goods. Not gone because the stores don't want to continue the practice. Just a guess. There have been things I've come to skimp on out of pure necessity of lacking funds since 2008.

Red meat was the first to go. And I won't pick it back up because it's not good for me anyhow. I'm even headed for the no more pork camp. Chicken will be next. I am truly thinking of becoming pescatarian. Even when I am up and running again in the financial arena. I love seafood and it's healthier anyhow.

But yes, I will buy all kinds of things marked down. I'm not proud, never have been. I think it's fun to find deals!

Rob333, you certainly have a point there!
I hadn't thought about the changing over-all economy
and how it affects us all in some way or another.

Annie1992, when we first got a bigger freezer
Quite a lot of years ago,
One of the first things we did was buy a quantity of beef
From a meat processor in a city about 50 mi from us.
They constantly had ads in the newspaper,
Different 'package deals',
each one contained X number of pounds
of a variety of cuts,
Chose the package that best suits your needs,
and you get X number of pounds of pork or chicken free.
It sounded like a good deal so we went for it.

Never again! ! !

That was without a doubt the worst beef we've ever had!
Tough, stringy, tasteless, very pale colored.
Now I feel sure that this is not the run of the mill experience
When buying meat this way.
But it only took that one experience to make me
extremely 'gun shy' about buying in large quantities.
Especially if they are highly advertised and 'cheap'!

Whether it is marked down because of package date,
Or as a draw to get customers in the store,
'On sale' is pretty much the only way I buy meat anymore.
I try not to buy anything that isn't on sale,
But that isn't always easy to do around here.

Rusty

Rusty, I've also had people say they got "bad beef" from a local farmer but that doesn't happen regularly, at least not here. Most places want your return business and if they sell a sub-par product, there are plenty of other places to go, and that includes local farmers. Someone who doesn't sell a quality product soon goes out of business.

Now, the caveat that I'll add is that those places usually have their own feedlot beef or pork, not raised any differently than commercial beef, although on a slightly smaller scale.

Earl's Meats in Holland told me that they have pigs available whole or halved at all times. Pig roasts are a big thing up here for family reunions, etc. They get their pigs from the local CAFO, a big pig farm. They get the ones that don't fit exactly into the weight requirement that the big companies require, they process them and sell them on demand.

I will say that Earl's Meats in Holland, Michigan, has the best bacon I've had anywhere, other than home-smoked, I almost wished I'd have just let them smoke mine and saved the time and trouble, it really was that good. I snitched a piece of Amanda's, just to test, then I snitched another one!

Annie

Annie

I do browse the "rejects" display when I'm at the back of the store. Yesterday I got some rejected store cooked shrimp which made a decent dinner for me since the HG was out of town.

Annie, Earl's Meats in Holland, MI...a little late for the heads up about bacon! LOL
BTW we enjoyed our visit to Holland.

Sorry, Cathy, I should have let you know sooner. They also sell things like elk, buffalo, ostrich jerky, grass fed beef, all kinds of stuff. Their only other claim to fame is that they were featured on "Dirtiest Jobs". (grin) I think there's a You Tube video....

Annie