Good Deals for the Week

Week 10/14/2009 - 10/20/2009

If you opened up your Albertson's ad yesterday or today and were sorely disappointed in the amount of items on sale, you weren't alone. I was shocked that this week's ad for the northern Utah region consisted of one page and the items on sale were mostly meat and produce. I knew this day would eventually come. It's obvious that the switch-over is happening, but I guess I was living in denial and hoping it would get postponed forever. No such luck - in fact, I'm hearing rumors that the weekend of the 24th and 25th is the official switch-over weekend. From what I've heard, there are some good things about this switch-over from Albertson's to Associated Food Stores. The first being that no shopper card will be required to get the "good deals" at the store. That will sure make it nice in shopping, I know I almost always forget to give the cashier my keys when I pull up to the checkout. Secondly, I've heard that the prices are supposed to be significantly lower. Now I'm not sure if that means the regular prices will be lower than Albertson's regular prices or if the sale prices will be lower in comparison, but lower is lower right? One bad thing I have heard is that they are rumored to be getting rid of the catalina machines - that's sad news I think because it means all of those tremendous deals (sale+promo+coupon) probably won't be as great as they have been in the past. But for those of us who hate having those little coupons floating around that we always forget to roll or use before the expiration date, maybe this isn't such a terrible thing.

All this being said, there are a few stores in the area that are participating in a General Mills Promo this week. You can find details about which stores and what the deals are at the PYP Albertson's thread for this week. Please be considerate and not "clean them out" of items if you decide to go shopping - the rumor is that they will not be restocking or providing rain checks, so let's make sure everyone gets a chance to pick up a few of these last minute deals. Also, keep in mind that the GM promo is a catalina and I would seriously consider picking up some non-promo items or perishables to use up your catalinas right away - there's been no guarantee that catalinas received this week will be honored at the store once the switch-over has taken place.

I'm not bothering to make the trip to one of these stores that's participating in the GM promo. One reason is that none are really close to me anyway, the second is that since I've heard about the Albertson's buyout, I've been carefully stocking up as much as possible on things I use and since a lot of the GM items on sale have been in recent promos, I'm pretty much stocked (plus some) on all of them. I have to admit that I'm extrememy jealous of any of you who are lucky enough to have your local stores remain Albertson's (Idaho, Nevada, Southern Utah, and other surrounding states). I may just have to do a road trip every once in a while to take advantage of the great deals!

As far as good deals at the other stores, here's a few worth mentioning:

Smith's:
- Same promo as last week: Mega Event: Buy any 10 participating items, get $5 off - again, not a whole ton of stuff, almost all of it frozen.
- Kroger Cheese - 8 oz for 99 cents, also some good deals on milk, eggs, produce.
- No other promos, but some good deals on sale items. Check out the PYP list for deails.

Associated Food Stores:
- No promos, but again, good deals on sale items with coupons. Nothing really fabulous jumped out at me, check out PYP list for details.


As far as my shopping goes, I'm planning to just head to Smith's this week. I haven't made it out yet since it's raining cats and dogs down here right now, but at some point I'm planning to pick up some milk, cheese, and whole pork loins (we like to cut this up into boneless pork spare ribs). I won't post a picture since it's a pretty boring list, but thought I'd mention what I was picking up this week in case anyone was interested.

Have a great week and Happy Shopping!