Saving on bread products by shopping outlet stores
It’s September and although it’s 85 degrees today we’ve had glimpses of fall and school starts in a few days. During the school year we go through a lot of bread products. Sliced bread for lunch sandwiches, bagels for breakfast (or sandwiches), french toast on the lazy weekend mornings, and french bread for when I make soup (which I do a lot!). . .
In preparation for the school year I stopped into the Franz bread outlet this afternoon. I was surprised to discover it was $1 Saturday – lucky me! Apparently today was the first time for this awesome sale – which they will now have the FIRST SATURDAY OF EVERY MONTH. They had an entire section of the wall that had items for just $1! How exciting!
I purchased 24 items, each $1 (see photo at top of post). Plus anytime you shop the Franz Outlet store you earn free items. Today, for buying 24 items, I earned three free items. You select your free items from a specific rack labeled free items. And they are also having a promotion, when you follow Franz on Instagram you get a FREE item (Follow Queen Bee Today, while you are at it!). So I got FOUR FREE ITEMS today.
Current Franz prices at Fred Meyer are $5.19-$5.99
I spent $24 and got 28 items – this is $0.85 cents each. Many of these items would be $4-7 each in the grocery store. I would speculate that if I bought these 28 items at full price, at an average price of $4 – that would be $112 at the regular grocery store. I think this is being conservative. . .many of these items are $5-6 each!
Most of these bread items will technically expire within the week. Many have expiration dates of September 6-8. Some expire as soon as tomorrow. ALL THIS BREAD WILL GO IN OUR FREEZER TODAY until we are ready to use it!
I’ve been buying bread at the outlet store and freezing it for years. We take a loaf out the night before we need it and it is ready go the next morning for lunches, breakfast or dinner the next day. You can toast frozen bread and it works just fine that way, too!
Franz Outlet also has donuts, cookies, jelly-filled pies (remember theses?) and I always try to pick up some sweet surprises for my family. Today we got Old Fashioned donuts and Frosty Lemon cookies for $1 a pack. We won’t freeze these – but they don’t expire until September 7 and 9. We VERY RARELY buy this stuff at the store because of the cost and I try not to buy a lot of sugary, processed stuff. I only hit up the Franz store about once every couple months so it’s a splurge that the kids are always excited about!
When it’s NOT $1 Saturday . . .and you go to the Franz store on a typical day, you’ll find lots of items for $2.50-$3 each (with regular expiration dates a couple weeks out). They will have a wall of closer-to-expiration items that will be $1.50 – that’s usually where I shop from. This selection varies depending on what they have in overstock. The general premise is – the closer it is to expiring, the cheaper it is. I usually always find organic varieties, the bread with lots of seeds (my favorite, but not my kids favorite), keto-friendly and other varieties. If you are buying organic or keto bread – you will save EVEN MORE at the Franz Outlet store versus the regular grocery store.
Oh. . . and to make it even sweeter, my store has a punch card! For every $10 you spend, you get a punch. I didn’t get punches today – I already felt like they were being so generous, but when you fill your punch card you’ll get 5 FREE free items. So for every $50 you get 5 free items. Isn’t that cool?
So RUN on over the Franz Outlet store today (mine closes at 6 pm) or mark your calendar for October 7 – the next $1 Saturday so you can stock up on bread. And even if you stop by Franz on a regular old day – you’ll still save a TON!
If you don’t have a Franz Outlet store near you. . . look for a Wonder Bread Outlet or an outlet for your local bread companies.
I should add that I save on bread products by often baking my own! I love to make my Grandma’s roll recipe and I have a sourdough starter in the fridge that I like to bake bread from. I also like to look at the day-old section in my local grocery store bakery – also a great place to save.
How do you save on bread products? Do you have a bread outlet store near you?
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