I love when I see something on clearance that we can use. But I really don’t have a trained eye for it. It is not something that I go in to a store and look for. But that is changing.
In 2019, I will be scanning for clearance whenever I go into a store no matter what kind of store it is: grocery, department, hardware, etc. Matter of fact, I started looking this morning. I needed to stop at Walmart to buy onions. We use a lot of onions and I was down to just one which made me nervous. So I went in and planned to scan their produce, bread cart, grocery clearance, dairy, and any place that I saw the yellow clearance balloons.
The only clearance that I found that I knew we would use is in the picture above. I was thrilled to find the snow peas on clearance. Both packages were in good shape so I got them and put one in the produce drawer to use in stir fry this week. The other I froze until we need it. Snow peas are one of my favorite vegetables and this was the best price I have ever seen. It doesn’t take much to make my day, but this did it.
I have used this breading before to make coconut shrimp and we really liked it. So when I saw this package, I grabbed it. I just wish they had had more.
I purchased these
items using my Walmart Savings Catcher money. I think they call it
Walmart Payday Money now. Paying nothing out of pocket always makes me
happy.
They had lots of other clearance on the bakery cart and a bit of other grocery clearance. But nothing I needed. My goal of baking all bread unless I can get a loaf for less stopped me from buying bread. Their clearance prices are too high and I don’t need the calories from the pies, cookies, cakes and donuts they had reduced. I didn’t check meat because I rarely buy their meat unless it is a brand name.
Walmart had lots of clothing on clearance for everyone but we don’t need clothing. If you do, I would check your Walmart.
I will learn to do clearance and hopefully do it well. I refuse to buy things that we don’t need, even if it is a good clearance price. I hate clutter and I don’t want to to become a hoarder of things that we will never use. I might as well burn our money if I do that.
Do any of you clearance shop? Are you good at it? Are there any tips that you could share with all of us about certain stores? Please let us know in the comments.
8 replies on “2019 Goal: Clearance Shopping”
I hate clutter also, so why is there so much of it in my house? A work inprogress .
We are all a work in progress.
Hi Liz, this is Chris. I do always check the clearance sections of any stores I visit. I try to be careful to only buy what we need, can freeze, or use up before it goes bad. Getting to know when mark downs occur helps. I know Target has a schedule for markdowns that some of the deal blogs have written about. I used to shop my local Sam's Club before we moved on Thurs. mornings b/c I could always find good deals on marked down meat then. I also wanted to mention the marked down produce area at Kroger, I have found some great deals there. One of the deals they seem to have regularly are marked down potatoes, a clearance bag of around 6 potatoes for .99. Unless it is around a holiday, I have been buying my potatoes mostly this way, b/c we can use the quantity before it goes bad (just the 2 of us at home now). I don't usually check the bakery clearance, b/c I don't want to be tempted by the sweets.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for sharing. I wish we had a Kroger store here. I miss my Fry's.
Aldi has a great clearance section. Everything is 50% off the stickered price. The items are usually the things they get in all the time in the seasonal isles that don't sell fast enough for new item rotation. I absolutely love those shelves!
We used to have a clearance section but I haven't seen it since they renovated our store. I will take a closer look next time I go there.
There is one store I go to that has the clearance in the middle of the store, which makes it easy to pass by on the way to complete my shopping. I've discovered amazing deals there, but it's super hit or miss. I'll go six months without seeing anything worthwhile, and then I'll have a day where I buy 20 items. I have the best luck when they are clearing out seasonal items, or making room for seasonal stuff, which makes sense, I suppose.
We do the majority of our shopping at Costco, which doesn't have a true clearance section. However, for clothing, they often mark things down when they have just a few left. For example, I was in Oregon on the coast in October & they had Adidas swim trunks for $4. They were $15 a few weeks earlier in our California store, where the possibility of wearing swim trunks was still around. 😉 We always keep our eye open for deals like that as well.
Hi Hawaii Planner,
Thanks for the tip on looking for seasonal items when they are cleaning them out. I know to do that on major holidays but I will look on others too. Thanks for sharing.