Groceries For Le$$: The “Yenta of Yen” and the Nuptial Negotiations 9/6/11

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The caption for the photo to the right is:  “If I only wanted to look, I’d stay home and watch Animal Planet!”

On with the show - I hear you saying, “Sure he’s okay at summarizing the weekly supermarket flyers each week for his San Diego neighbors, but what about big ticket items? Can he help me with those?  Probably not, but I may have a few tips up my ‘short’ sleeves (it’s San Diego) to share.

When my lovely wife Leesa and I began the planning and preparation for our wedding on December 10^th, 1995, we met with a lot of perspective vendors.  Wow, I just got “lovely wife” and the correct date year of our anniversary in the same sentence.  That’s gotta’ be worth major points on the marriage score card, but I digress.  Anywho, after choosing the date and venue, one of the first tasks we took on was choosing an invitation.  The invitation store had enormous loose leaf binders filled with hundreds of styles.  Now, every groom wants to give his bride the wedding day she’s always dreamed of and I was no different, but when faced with the reality of her choosing an invitation costing more than $5.00 a piece, I had to think fast.  “Fine”, I said, “show me exactly what you want, which loose leaf book it’s in and which style you like”.  I made a few note on a scrap of paper and we left.  The next day I used a telephone book (note: in ancient times, people used a book called the Yellow Pages.  It contained company names and telephone numbers conveniently printed in alphabetical order) to track down the contact information for the company that manufactured and printed the invitation my future wife desired.  I asked for sales and told them I had a retail store and was interested in becoming a distributor of their product and add them to my stores’ invitation offerings (of which I had none).  Long story short, I had their binder delivered within 3 days and had the invitations my future wife desired within 14 days.  We paid 50% less than if we had purchased them at retail.

  I always got a thrill from saving a buck, but then just as I do now, am willing to share.  Subsequently, I supplied all of my newly engaged friends with their wedding invitations at 50% off as well.

Flowers were another item where the sky is the limit asfar as their cost.  I came up with a price of what I thought was a fair price to pay for flowers.  Rather than asking the florist “how much are flowers?”  I took a different route.  I told the florist, “I have X amount of dollars for flowers.  Is it possible to do the bouquet, table centerpieces, the aisle and ceremonial canopy for that price?”  He scribbled some numbers on his pad with a pencil and much to my surprise, he said “it’s cutting it close, but I think we can do it if we use carnations”.  “But my fiancé has her heart set on white roses everywhere! There must be something we can do!?  We don’t have another penny and I don’t want to disappoint her!”  Well, we must have caught him on a slow day because at our wedding, we had more white roses than John Gotti’s funeral cortege!  It was a beautiful thing.

My wife got what she wanted the vendors made their sales and everyone went home happy.  I do not consider myself cheap.  On the contrary, I simply believe that money is hard earned and hard to come by.  Whenever possible, I avoid paying more than I need to and believe that the money saved is best served in my pocket and spent on my family or saved for a rainy day.

Perhaps my experiences can help you to create some innovative money saving techniques of your own!  Perhaps next week I will describe to you how to buy an automobile.  It’s easy and no phone books required.

For the week of Sept 7-Sept 13, 2011 Here are your best buy!

ALBERTSON’S

Beef Chuck Steak or roast $2.49lb

Jenny-O Turkey Store Buy 1, Get 1 FREE

Chicken Split Breasts 99c lb

Hostess Snack Cakes 2/$4.00

Barons Market

Valencia Oranges 3lbs/$1.00

Red, Green and Romaine Lettuce 77c each

Red Seedless Grapes 97c lb

Bartlett Pears 49c lb

Yellow Peaches 77c lb

Sprouts / Henry’s

Peaches or Nectarines  69c lb

Red, Green or Black Grapes 99c lb

Roma Tomatoes  69c lb

Cantaloupe 69c each

Red or Green Peppers and Cucumbers  3/$1.00

Avocadoes 99c each

Ralph’s

Ralphs Orange Juice  $1.99 each

Pepsi 2ltr (Buy 6)  88c each

Ribs: Beef  $1.57lb,  Pork $1.97lb,  St Louis $2.77lb, 

Ralph’s Cottage Cheese 16oz.  2/$4.00

Eggo Waffles  $1.99 each

Stater Brothers

Red Grapes 99c lb

Cantaloupes $1.00 each

Top Sirloin Steak  $2.97 lb

Chicken Half Breasts 99c lb

Pepsi 2ltr  88c each (must buy 4)

Oscar Mayer Lunchables  99c each

Celeste Pizza 99c each

Shredded or Block Cheese 32oz.  $7.99 (That’s $3.50lb!)

Mix and Match buy 6 and pay (dozens of items including):

Oscar Mayer Weiners  99c each!

Capri Sun (10pk)  $1.49 each

Kraft American Singles 16oz  $2.50 each!

Planters Peanut Butter 16oz.   $1.49 each

Von’s

Boneless Pork Sirloin Chops  $2.47 lb

 Boneless Beef Round Steak or Roast  $2.47 lb

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Not responsible for typographical errors.  I type the best I can with 2 fingers.