Whenever someone mentions grocery store flyers, my grandparents immediately come to mind.
Checking the weekly flyers was a necessity for them, as they were on fixed incomes. But I suspect it was also a bit of a sport. They’d plan out where they were going to go to get whatever was on the best sale, and set off for an adventure on senior’s discount day.
There is nothing wrong with comparing flyers. I don’t judge it. But I also don’t have time for it. And then a woman at a grocery store recently told me about an app called Flipp that does all of the comparison shopping for you.
I downloaded the free app to my iPhone and took a look around.You need to input your location, of course, and it sends you a notification when all of the local weekly flyers have been loaded. Then you can go in and search for whatever you want.
I plugged in Cracker Barrel and got eight hits. Sobeys had blocks of Cracker Barrel cheese on for $5.99 and shredded Tex-Mex cheese for $6.99. But wait! Right beside the Sobeys shredded cheese was the exact same product for a dollar less at Independent Grocer. Below that, another $5.99 offer at Loblaw. I have to admit, that was a pretty easy way to see who had the best deal.
I suppose that if I’m in the market for multiples of an item and it’s a dollar less somewhere other than my usual haunts, I might make the switch. But I’m not going to run all over the city to save fifty cents here and a quarter there. The grocery store woman told me candidly that Walmart has a price-matching plan where you just show them the app and they’ll charge you the lowest price for any identical item advertised at any other store. That takes traveling out of the equation but there’s still so much research to do.
If you’re a flyer flipper, Flipp will definitely make your life easier. I see the wisdom and love saving money but I haven’t got the tenacity for this particular task yet. I can only imagine how Grandma and Papa would react to all of their research being reduced to a few clicks on an app.
We’ve used that app for more than a year now. Save on average $10. Per week, sometimes much more though. Walmart price matches, but so do a lot of the other chains, but not all just now. Walmart also has wi-fi so you don’t need a phone – we use our ipad minis. The cashiers appreciate that cause the flyers are a bit larger to see. Doesn’t take long to get familiar with the program, it’s user friendly, but you need to be organized when hitting the checkout line. People get ticked having to wait a couple of minutes…..we keep price match items in a separate part of our cart and are ready then when we hit the conveyor belt. Rather have the money stay in our wallet than in their cash registers.
That’s terrific! It sure seems like a great tool. Those are excellent tips, Brenda.
I LOVE Flipp! It used to be pretty tight competition in the newsroom to see who could grab flyers and who’d have to go without. Now I can leave the wrestling matches to the professionals in the WWE.
That’s great. I tend to buy multiples of stuff we use often when it’s on sale at my favourite store. But maybe I’m missing out. I’ll experiment a little more with Flipp on these recommendations!