Crest toothpaste. From $2.37CAD at Walmart down to $0.75CAD, saving 68.35% off retail

Extreme Couponing is a TV series on Discovery Channel that follows the trips of people who can buy $1,000 of products but reduce their total cost to $50 through the use of manufacturer coupons. Extreme they are, organized as well as driven by a personal urge to save. Many came from experiences where they had nothing or were about to file for bankruptcy. Here in Canada their tactics do not work the same, so I set out to find the best strategy for couponing in Toronto, Canada. My example is the purchase of Crest toothpaste, 130mg, discounted 68.35%. I cannot come close to the 95% discount of the Americans, but will keep trying.

Price Chopper, a local grocery chain, advertised Crest toothpaste, 130mg at 2 for $3.00CAD. Both Walmart and my local NoFrills will match a competitor’s price. I had never price matched at Walmart, so decided to try it. Sure enough they said they would. In addition, from a coupon booklet that came in the newspaper, I found two coupons for $0.75/each discount off any Crest toothpaste. Walmart also took these. The total cost after price matching and coupon was $0.75/each.

The savings look spectacular but save the applause. Instead of the Crest brand I could have purchased the very comparable Colgate toothpaste 130mg for $1.27/each. My family considers these two brands equivalent. The savings rate of 68% off retail now drops to 41% of retail. It is still impressive, considering the low margins on grocery and daily use items.

Specific American retail marketing promotions make extreme couponing possible. The first is that certain grocery stores double or triple coupon values at specific promotions. If you can combine an in-store special with triple coupon values, this can save you a lot of money. Also the coupons I have received limit the number of coupons you can use during one trip to only 4. Americans seem to have no limit on the number of coupons they can use in a trip. Americans can subscribe to Groupon and other web sites, pay a nominal fee and receive hundreds of coupons, which when used together with an in-store sale as well as triple coupon values, you can rack up substantial savings. This is not possible here in Canada.

Here in Canada we do not have stores that double or triple coupon values. We also have coupon limits of 4 per visit. This greatly reduces the possibility of huge discounts. Still, I will keep looking.

The other psychologically interesting thing about extreme couponers is their similarity to hoarders. Hoarders have a need to buy and keep but not use products. Extreme couponers are meticulously organized and exact in their strategy. They plan their purchases to maximize their gains by finding out when the store will have the most stock, which cashier is best (male cashiers seem to better handle extreme couponing), and how much they will eventually have to pay.

I wonder if extreme couponers are purchasing products they will actually use, or will all their products eventually go to waste. Some donate their products to a local charity, which is great. Products that you purchase on sale but do not use will eventually spoil and go to waste. There is no savings to be had if you buy a product you do not use. Maybe extreme couponing is a competitive sport where the objective is to beat the stores and manufacturers but does not cost very much to play. If this is their hobby, then I am very supportive.

Extreme couponing just is not as attractive here in Canada. Correct me if I have missed something.

Links:
-Extreme Couponing Isn’t as Extreme in Canada
-The Truth About Coupon Stacking in Canada
-London Drugs and Coupon Stacking

General Notes

Toronto has a varying climate with 4 distinct seasons and significant precipitation. In the winter we can get a snowfall of 20cm in one day. Copious amounts of rain can fall, as is the case today. It has been raining hard today. Toronto is expecting 10-20mm of rain, so much so that you still get very wet running from the car to the store.

___Both Price Chopper and NoFrills start new advertisement flyers today. Flyers are released on Thursday and take effect on the start of Friday. Unfortunately for both retailers, paper-based flyers are delivered to our house via the local newspaper at worst Saturday midday or at best very late Friday evening, after store close. There is, therefore, a loss of one day of exposure for their flyer due to the delivery schedule. Fortunately the internet-based flyers for both retailers are usually posted on Thursday noon. Price Chopper has been known to delay their internet-based flyer until Friday morning.

Price Chopper at Brimley/Huntingwood, Toronto, Ontario,Canada

___Price Chopper, Brimley/Huntingwood, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Objective: New flyer sale priced orange juice, potatoes and general weekly shopping. This Price Chopper is smaller in floor space, so product is at times squeezed together more than I would like. Though they carry the whole selection of products, it is a store geared to Chinese and Indian customers.

Today Price Chopper starts a new two week flyer. Normally the start of a flyer guarantees the purchase of sale items, but often shipments are late or the manufacturer has no product to ship. This week both my items were in stock.

It was raining cats and dogs outside, but the metal overhang of the store kept the shopping carts dry. My sons sits in these carts, so a wet shopping cart is unacceptable. We have been known to leave retail stores that have wet shopping carts for this reason, most notably Home Depot. Today the carts were neatly ordered in two rows, I put my money in and got a cart in good working order, just like I should. This fact surprised me at the time, which probably means it does not happen often enough.

My search for the advertised sale priced potatoes started, logically in the potatoe section, where there was no sign of the sale priced item. Hmmm, the next logical place to look is the front of the store near the entrance, and this is exactly where I found them. The potatoe section has large bins of their regularly sold brands, with no place for these sale priced potatoes. It would have been better to have at least a sign and some stock of the potatoes on sale.

Frozen orange juice should logically be found in the freezer section, and it was. There were three variations of the same orange juice,all available, well merchandised and priced.

Recently Old South frozen orange juice has changed its packaging from a cardboard sleeve with aluminum ends to an all plastic container, and in doing so decreased the volume of their product by 5% while increasing their price. Did you think I would not notice? We are not amused. This has not been competitive enough for me, so I have been avoiding the brand. When all your competitors are offering more juice for the same price, you should follow suit. I am also unsure of the safety of the all plastic container and prefer the cardboard and aluminum wrapper. Most other manufacturers still use the older packaging, so I need not change to the newer plastic container.

In following the orange juice market I have noticed that within the last year frozen orange juice has rarely gone on sale, while regular unfrozen orange juice from concentrate regularly goes on sale. Regular unfrozen orange juice from concentrate varies the most in price. Regular unfrozen orange juice not from concentrate is by far the most expensive but sometimes goes on sale. In a blind taste test of family members, we tested 1) unfrozen not from concentrate, from China, Huiyuan brand, 2) unfrozen not from concentrate, 3) unfrozen from concentrate, 4) frozen from concentrate. Overwhelmingly the favourite was regular unfrozen not from concentrate. The Chinese orange juice brand uses an orange that is tarter than we are used to here in North America, so it was called out by my kids. Personally I don’t mind it.

Testers found no difference in taste between unfrozen from concentrate and frozen from concentrate. We use tap water filtered with a Brita filter. Such simple tests can help you determine whether the extra cost of unfrozen orange juice is worthwhile. We no longer purchase unfrozen from concentrate orange juice.

Other items that we sought were easily found and purchased. There were no employees packing out merchandise during my shop. Checkout was quick and efficient.

___Experience Rating: A. A good shopping experience with merchandise well layed out and priced.

NoFrills, Kennedy/Sheppard, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

___NoFrills, Kennedy/Sheppard, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Objective: New flyer sale priced ice cream, cheese and general weekly shopping.

Again it was raining cats and dogs, so I was glad to get under the store’s large metal overhang. Unfortunately for me, the metal overhang was leaking more water than the Titanic, and if it could have sunk, would have. Unfortunately for both of us, almost all the shopping carts were wet. The first row of carts seemed driest, so I inserted my coin but could not dislodge a cart from its brethren. In trying to get a cart free, I got my finger stuck in the cart and pinched it quite badly. It continues to throb as I write, over an hour later. I am unamused. In order to get a dry cart I had to move a group of 10 carts away. These carts are heavy and I should not need to do this much work to get an appropriate cart. Please, NoFrills, keep your carts well maintained and dry. Is this too much to ask from your customers?

There were many employees packing out merchandise. Often they are sloppy with their boxes and skids and can block the aisle so that your cart cannot pass. Sometimes they will block access ways between fixtures, such that they create one long 20′ aisle with one way in and one way out. Today there were some blockages but I was able to get my cart through. One employee was concentrating so much on merchandising that he failed to see that customers wanted to pass. I had to wait for him to wake up, but be did apologize. Ok, fine.

I found one of my favourite cashiers putting on sale labels for products reduced in the new flyer. She is one of my favourites because on cash she is competent. At least I have confidence that she will put the proper labels on the right fixtures. I wondered why this repricing was not this done earlier?

The sale priced cheese was readily available, properly merchandised and priced. This brand of cheese is new to the store. About two months ago this cheese was also on sale, but I could not buy any because supposedly the manufacturer did not send any to the NoFrills warehouse, so none of the stores had product.

Huge skids of Coke-brand product that were on sale last week were still on the floor, unwanted and unpurchased. At least they were still at last week’s sale price. Is there nothing else worthy in the new sales flyer to replace Coke?

We bought eggs, canned pineapple and salt, all with no issues. Checkout was also without issue. Still, my finger was throbbing.

___Experience Rating: C. I should not get hurt while on a shopping trip. Physically harming your customers does not put them into a great shopping mood and pretty much spoils the shopping experience.

___Wet or dry, sun or snow, all grocery retails should be able to adapt to changing weather. Today Price Chopper did a great job and NoFrills did a poor job. Year in and out, the weather conditions are similar, so why was weather such a large issue today?

$1.20/lb, 1.5 lbs of ground beef, browned with onions

If you are what you eat, then we are certainly not cow. At least not much, anyway. We’re not really big beef eaters, and never were. Hopefully this will bring us good luck in the Chinese year of the Cow, which starts on Monday.

It did not help when we learned of the Canadian mad cow scare, where the brains and spinal cords of cows were put back into cow feed. That’s bovine cannibalism, which is crazy when you think that cows are herbivores. Yes, mankind did lend a helping hand. The Canadian government did not even heed the learnings and warnings from Britain, where there was a huge and disastrous mad cow outbreak. Even Japan warned us. I guess our Japanese isn’t as good as it should be.

The "bonus" portion left over from browning 1.5 lb of ground beef

No matter, life goes on. There are hambergers from Johnny’s that are great. The kids eat hotdogs, but only ones with no milk or milk products. Sometimes we’ll get some beef at a resteraunt, which is Ok. It’s not often. A couple of times a year we do corned beef from Brazil  for breakfast. It’s a little salty, but the kids like it.

When we make the conscious decision to cook beef, we look to buying it either at the big box superstore or the local Chinese grocer. No Frills and Price Chopper are convenient and, if you watch what and when you buy, cost effective. The Chinese grocer has a meat counter, so we can get exactly what and how much meat we need, and fresh, not that they don’t package up more than we asked for.

My question is about quality. It’s the little things in life that you need to take care of. After all, this hunk of flesh is going down the hatch of your progeny. If the little weeds start sprouting an errant horn from their cranium, this might not reflect very well on you. There may also be the question of your ongoing reproductive capability.

Beef, once ground and then browned, turns its  fat from a solid to a liquid. Once this is done, if you throw it into the ‘fridge the fat will congeal and resolidify, after which you can break it up and throw it out. It’s not healthy to eat that stuff, oh my dear sweet Mary no, something about those bad saturated fats.

It’s my belief that, barring a high priced and well aged steak, the leaner the beef, the less the fat content, the better the quality. In practical terms this means that when you brown it, there is much less fat left in your pot. Empirical experimentation has led us to believe this is true. The price of beef, however, leads to some confusion. A 2 lb roll of lean ground beef from No Frills or Price Chopper, costs $2.50/lb. When browned, as a token of their appreciation you also receive a significant amount of fat left in your pot, very similar to the photos above. It is also disconcerting that you cannot see the beef because of the plastic wrapper. The same amount of fat, or less, can be had from ground beef from the Chinese store costing $1.20/lb. Buying the $3.00/lb beef at the Chinese store and browning it leaves almost no fat. This may not be a benefit when doing tacos.

We then ask ourselves why buy the more expensive beef at the Superstore when we can get better quality for a better price at the Chinese store.

Disadvantages include signs only in Chinese, an intimidating variety of new fruits and vegetables, and often a sad lack of cleaning. No matter, you’re shopping there, not eating off the floor. Traffic in and out of your Chinese grocer can be harrowing at best and dangerous at worst. Many Chinese in my area can’t negotiate the parking lot safely, so stay alert and expect odd movements, such as driving on the left side of the road. Oops, I forgot we’re not in HK.

Very often I see non-Asian shoppers at our local stores, so if you have not tried your local Chinese green grocery, I encourage you to pop in. you might actually like it, eat better, and save money as well. If you don’t know where to go in your local area, make friends with your Asian neighbours and ask them where they shop. The locals know, and if the locals are dissatisfied, they’ll vote with their feet and take their business elsewhere.