I went to QFC today and did two surprising things – I didn’t use ANY coupons and I didn’t buy a single thing from my list of awesome deals for the week. Frankly, I didn’t have my coupons ready to do the big coupon run (gasp!) and the only reason I stopped by is because we were literally driving right past it on the way home from a school field trip this morning.
And, more importantly, I stopped by QFC because I received this darling e-mail from my husband this morning:
“I will make dinner tonight, so think about what you want. If you go to the store, look in the meats for a “quick sale” – we can do some sort of roast, maybe with potatoes?”
Ha! I love it. He has the “quick sale” concept down – and I think it’s completely adorable that 1.) He offered to make dinner, and 2.) He’s giving me advice on how to do my shopping. So I stopped by QFC to check out the markdowns and to get my husband a roast and some potatoes. He’ll probably kill me for posting his e-mail verbatim on the blog, but I did put the roast in the crock pot, with the potatoes and veggies – so he won’t have to make dinner. 🙂
So . . .on to more relevant information, while at QFC I met two very important people – the guy who marks down the dairy products and the gal who marks down the meat products. Both very nice and informative folks. By “mark down” I mean they go through the perishable stock, check expiration dates, and put happy, yellow labels of joy on them – often marking the items down 50% or more, for quick sale. There are lots of terms for this – quick sale, manager mark down, clearance, etc.
When people ask me how to save on meat, dairy and produce – I say markdowns, markdowns, markdowns. If your grimacing at the thought of buying outdated, moldy and old food – it’s not that way at all, really! Here’s what I learned today from the two employees who were marking down products:
- Milk markdowns, 10 days out! – At my local QFC, they mark down milk that is 10 days out from it’s expiration date. This means that today, March 17, they are marking down milk that doesn’ expire until March 27. Crazy huh! The guy that I talked to said, “At QFC we want to have the freshest milk.” And guess what? If it expires within a week, they pull it! So you don’t have to worry about buying a gallon of milk at the grocery store and finding out a couple days later that it’s nearly expired. Hallelujah! I hate that when that happens.
- They markdown as needed – I always wondered what day of the week they marked down products. Generally one person is responsible for the markdowns and they mark down everyday that they work. I asked the dairy guy what days he worked, he looked at me like I I was going to stalk him, but fessed up that at our local QFC it’s Monday through Friday. If they know they are going to have a busy week with other tasks, they might mark down a couple days ahead of time (so the items will have even later expiration dates)!
- Look around for markdowns – Sometimes they move the markdowns to a specific area – like in the meat section, they have a little markdown spot. Or, if that area is full or they don’t want to leave a gaping whole on the shelf, they’ll mark down items where they are stocked.
- The closer to expiration date, the better the price – I always wondered how they figure out what price to mark down the items to. Turns out all they have to do is scan a product with their pricing guns and it gives them some options based on the expiration date. The final mark down price is up to the discretion of the employee. Generally – the closer it is to reaching it’s expiration date, the better the price.
Now this information is just for my local QFC store (Lacey, WA), not all stores have the same policies and I find stores like Safeway are not nearly as generous with their markdowns. As you can see from my photo above – nearly everything I bought was a marked down item.
- Roast – $6.40 (reg. $9.16)
- Organic milk – $1.79 (reg. $3.50)
- Organic salad mix – $1.56 (reg. $3.30)
- Dannon yogurts – $0.25 cents (reg. $0.60)
- Gourmet stone ground mustard – $0.79 cents (reg. $3.99)
- Bag of potatoes – $2.99
- Carrots – $0.99 cents a pound
I also wrote a post about this back in December – Last minute shopping – dairy, meat and produce markdowns are your friend, that I think covers some other great points that I didn’t talk about here.
So that’s the lowdown on the markdowns. I saved 50% off basically, without coupons.
And my husband’s happy he’s getting some meat and potatoes.
kim says
I just bought a gallon of milk yesterday at Fred Meyer for $1.49 that expires March 31. The milk that expires 4/1 was full price! Love it when I catch those.
Beth says
Can you use a manufacturers coupon with a markdown item? If you buy yogurt that is marked down to .75 cents can you use a .50 cent manufacturers coupon to bring the price down to .25 cents?
Heather says
Great question – YES! You can use coupons are marked down items.
Lisa says
Good post! I go to the Lacey QFC often and find the same! I almost never pay full price for organic milk. Sometimes if I don’t see any gallons marked down I look at the dates on them. If there’s one that has today or tomorrow’s date, I’ll ask them to mark it down for me. (And they always do) I’ve never had one of these gallons go bad – even if we don’t finish it for a week.
Also because of the cultures in yogurt you can buy it and it will keep for days and days after expiration and be fine. =)