safeway

Cream Style Corn

I really don’t understand the concept of member pricing at supermarkets. Although the member pricing at supermarkets usually is not competitive with Costco, it still looks quite enticing when compared to the jacked-up non-member price. And, if you track prices at all, you will realize how completely ridiculous the non-member pricing is. LIke it’s a trick or something.

So, I spotted S&W Cream Style Corn going for 4 for $5.00 at Safeway, or $1.25 per can. The club price is cheaper than canned corn at Piazza’s, but their non-member price is more expensive. I don’t know if Safeway is trying to instill this message in me, but the takeaway for me is that Safeway is expensive; even more so than the smaller Piazza’s, which already is not cheap by any means. And if Costco will just sell cream style corn, I would be buying it there for $0.783 per can instead. As good as canned cream style corn is, I should probably attempt to make it one of these weekends while fresh corn is still available.

Oxi Clean at Safeway

Sometimes, the Safeway Club Price is a good deal. Sometimes, it is not.

For the rest of this year, Safeway is selling a 6 lb. tube of OxiClean Stain Remover for $12.99. A dollar cheaper than OSH; however, the same price as the 15 lb. box at Costco.

Mini-Wheats

Costco sells a 70 ounce box of Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats for $8.49, or $0.121 per ounce.

Safeway sells a 24 ounce box of Frosted Mini-Wheats for a new low price of $4.49, or $0.187 per ounce. Wow! So, Costco is saving me $4.62 per box, compared to the Safeway per ounce price.

If I consume 2×70 ounce boxes per month, my annual savings is $110.88.

Tide HE on Sale

Safeway is selling a 96 load jug of Tide 2x Ultra for $17.99. That’s $0.187 per load.

That’s better than the per load price at Costco and Target for HE detergent.

However, we’re not talking about a lot of money being saved here. For 96 loads, the Safeway sale price will save you 38 cents total. Not per load. Not per ounce. 38 cents for the entire jug.

However, if you purchased the Tide HE laundry detergent at the regular price of $21.99, or $0.229 per load, you lost out on $3.65 compared to the Costco per load price. Sure, that’s more than 38 cents, but we’re talking about saving a grande cup of coffee. You would save a lot more money by skipping that premium cup of coffee once a week for a year.

Got Milk from Costco?

Costco sells Kirkland Signature homogenized milk 2×1 gallon for $3.99 and Kirkland Signature nonfat milk 2×1 gallon for $3.19. You have to buy 2 gallons at a time. No mix and match, unless you visit the Hawaii Kai Costco where you can purchase individual gallons. However, the pricing will probably be different.

Safeway advertises Lucerne Milk 2×1 gallon for $4.28 for whole, 2%, 1% and fat free. You can mix and match if people in your household prefer different types of milk, so you are not committed to buying 2 gallons of the same type of milk.

Finally, Piazza, a Palo Alto supermarket, offers Our Dairy Milk for $2.00 per gallon with coupon. You don’t have to buy two. In fact, you are limited to a maximum of 2 gallons. In this comparison, Costco has the lowest prices for milk. If your household can finish 2 gallons of nonfat milk per week, you will save $0.81 per week over Piazza’s advertised special and $1.09 over Safeway’s everyday low price. In a year, that represents a savings of $42.12 to $56.68.

Tide Laundry Detergent: Costco v. Coupon

How special are advertised specials? Usually, I just toss the marketing flyers straight into the recycling bin. However, this time, I decided to take a closer look. I buy laundry detergent from Costco under the assumption that more = cheaper. But is it?

Costco sells a 170 oz jug of Tide HE Liquid for $20.99. Actually, the true measure is loads and not liquid volume because liquid laundry detergent can come in varying concentrations. The more concentrated, the less needed. So, Tide sells for $0.191 per load from Costco.

At Target, Tide 2x Ultra HE Clean Breeze sells for $0.219 per load. Of course, neither of these two products were on sale.

Safeway will sell you Tide 2x Liquid for $0.177 per load with Club Card and coupon.

Rite Aid has tagged Tide laundry detergent with a Red Hot Specials badge. At $0.187 per load, this deal is not as special as the one from Safeway, but hotter than the price from Costco and Target.

Longs Drugs also has Tide on sale for $0.170 per load if you have their ExtraCare card. So, the winner is Longs Drugs, which beat Costco by just over 2 cents per load. If you run one load of whites and one load of coloreds each week, that’ll come to 104 loads per year. Saving $0.021 per load nets $2.18 for the entire year.