Jim,
I’d like to share my recent experience with grocery discounts using the controversial discount cards that stores issue. First of all, I’ve never filled out a customer-information form for any such card, and since I pay cash nobody knows who I am. So since my name is not connected with the discount cards, I gladly use them to take advantage of every possible discount.
There are three Kroger stores in my area, and one day recently I was on the canned vegetable aisle and noticed a tag that said that a certain brand of diced tomatoes was priced at 97 cents, but with the Kroger discount card and if 10 or more cans were purchased, the tomatoes were only 47 cents a can! So with anonymity and cash in hand, I went to all three Kroger stores in town late in the evening (when far fewer other shoppers were around) and bought every can of that brand of diced tomatoes, scoring more than 300 cans at just 47 cents each. I did the same thing the following week when certain types of dry beans were on sale with the discount card for 74 cents per pound. I bought every bag in all three stores, taking home 150 pounds of beans for just under $112. There is no sales tax on food items in my state.
I realize that a lot of preppers would rather grow their own food than stock up on canned goods, especially vegetables, but why do these two conditions have to be mutually exclusive? I think of my stock of canned goods as the “bridge” that will help sustain me and my family until I am able to grow enough food to feed my family on my own. Since when is having hundreds of cans of items you eat anyway ever a bad thing?
Now, as far as what canned goods I buy, I’m a bit picky, wanting to get the maximum nutrition for my money. So about the only canned vegetables I buy are the ones with the highest nutritional content for the money, primarily tomatoes and other tomato products, carrots, and spinach or other greens. Green beans and corn are popular with most people, but they provide little more than “bulk” and don’t really give you much nutritional bang for your buck. It would be wise to consider not just taste but nutrition as well in what you’re stocking up. – Chad S.