Each person gets a banana box at the door, then you walk the warehouse filling your box like a live Tetris game, and as long as your top items are even with the top of the box you get everything in it for $30! This sale had an added bonus of completing a short survey for a 10% off coupon so I got my box for just $27!
The store's Facebook page often shows awesome deals on nut free and gluten free snacks and Plum Organics. I was mostly interested in finding these items. I went into the sale with kind of a mental list but I quickly realized that many of the items were well past their expiration dates. I changed my game plan and decided to just grab anything, not expired, that I thought we might eat. Then my plan was to edit at the end to make sure everything fit into my box.
Here is what I got for $27:
6 Bags of Popcorn (Specifically Annabeth's favorite!)
3 Boxes of Glutino Crackers
3 Cans of Fruit
2 Cans of Veggies
2 Cake Mixes
2 Fruit Teas
2 Family Size Boxes of Macaroni and Cheese
2 Boxes of Belvita Breakfast Cookies
2 Butterfinger Bars (One of Mark's favorites)
2 Jars of Pasta Sauce
2 Boxes of Barilla Gluten Free Pasta
2 Big Boxes of Granola Bars
1 Cookie Mix
1 Box of Jello (a rare treat in our house)
1 Box of Annie's Cheddar Shells
1 Box of Gluten AND nut free cookies
1 Box of Gluten Free Bread Crumbs
1 Large Container of Oats
1 2lb bag of Italian Pasta
1 Box of Belvita Breakfast Sandwiches
1 Box of Skinny Cow Chocolates with Caramel
1 Bag of Chocolate Covered Lays (my favorite)
1 Large bag of Milton Gluten Free Crackers
The Experience Overall:
To be honest, it was really overwhelming. We waited in line about 45 minutes before being able to go in to shop and then many more items were out of date than I was expecting. I quickly learned that every company puts their expiration date in a different place on their products and it got to the point where I couldn't remember if we were in the year 2016 or 2017. I tried to be very careful checking dates so I didn't waste space on expired items.
Biggest Disappointment:
I was most disappointed with how quickly the stock was moving. I had seen some brands in early morning shoppers Facebook posts that I really wanted and they weren't out when I was there. I was also disappointed that in order to have all in-date items I ended up with three cans of fruit, two cans of veggies, two jars of pasta sauce, and one box of jello. These are all items that will get eaten, probably within the next month, but they are also items I can always get for less than $1 at the grocery. I had really hoped to find more high dollar items like the kids' allergen free snacks. I definitely would have felt like I got more for my money if I had found more of those.
What I will do next time:
- I will not go in with any kind of list. There were far too many items being taken off the shelves by shoppers and added by stockers to go in with the hope of finding specific products.
- I will go later in the day again. I think we arrived around 11:30 or 11:45 and the line wasn't terribly long at that point.
- I will wear my reading glasses. My eyes were twitching and my head hurt from reading the tiny numbers!
- My friend Andrea suggested grabbing anything I might think we want and then sort later. That was great advice and I actually still had room in my box after my first go around! I made a second pass around and found the popcorn that Annabeth loves! I was glad to have reorganized my box and made room for as many bags as I could.
Overall, I calculated that my $27 box would have cost me around $125 at our local Kroger! That made the trip well worth it!
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