How to Easily Save Money on Groceries at Menards (or other Hardware stores)
The grocery aisles at hardware stores are a secret weapon I use to keep my grocery budget in check. It is one of my favorite places to grocery shop and coupon. I got hooked when my husband and I bought our house in 2011. I went to a hardware store more in that first year of homeownership than I had my entire life up until that point!
And in the process of fixing up the house and walking through aisles and aisles of stain, paint, tools, equipment, etc. I found myself wandering aimlessly through any other product aisle that I found more appealing.
Naturally, that happened to be the food and personal product aisles. That’s aisles, yes plural. Menards has multiple aisles full of groceries and packed with savings you can’t ignore. As someone who tracks our grocery spend via monthly couponing reports, I’m always on the lookout for the best deals I can find to stretch our dollars.
Why Grocery Shopping at Menards Rocks!
1. The sale prices rival any grocery store
LaCroix stock up sale!
Of course, I wouldn’t be purchasing grocery or household items if there weren’t deals. They consistently have low prices on staples such as milk. They regularly have sales on other staples such as buy one get one on olive oil or sales on coffee.
Typically they’ll start placing items on an end cap on Saturday night in advance of a new sale starting on Sunday. Their frozen section regularly has 24oz Hormel bacon on sale for $4.99! That’s crazy for a pound and a half of good bacon.
My favorite deal of all that I see about once every 2-3 months is LaCroix. They periodically will have LaCroix on sale for $3.33 for a 15 pack. That’s right, not just for a 12 pack, it’s a special bonus 15 pack. Can you say stock up sale??
2. Mendards is never busy!
Okay so maybe on a Saturday morning Menards can be a zoo, but head to the store at nearly any other time and the entire store is either dead or at least the grocery aisles are dead. It’s not a place people typically think of for groceries, so you can usually have the aisles all to yourself.
That’s awesome if you like browsing aisles by yourself or aren’t a people person interested in battling crowds to find deals. You can have the aisles to yourself, my friend.
For someone like me who loves perusing each and every aisle, scanning the shelves with eagle eyes looking for deals, this is a dream scenario. I can spend as much time as I want to compare prices, checking units of measure against each other, etc.
Typically there are not a lot of people in the store period. Just you and aisles of groceries you can shop all by yourself.
3. A Source for The Sunday Paper: Coupons!
My local Dollar Tree stopped selling the Sunday paper. I’m in the Chicagoland area and all of a sudden our Sunday paper priced skyrocketed in price. I went to the Dollar Tree to pick up an extra copy and they didn’t have any. I was told they couldn’t sell the paper for a dollar any longer so they couldn’t sell it in the store.
What? Where am I supposed to go now to get extra papers so I can stock up on coupons?
Why Menards of course.
It may be different geographically but I can get extra copies of the Sunday paper at Menards, sometimes starting on Saturday night for $1.50. That’s more than $1.00 at Dollar Tree, but not bad!
4. Mendards offers an 11% Rebate – wow!
Did you know that Menards regularly offers an 11% rebate on everything in the store?
How it works is you check out as normal. Before you leave the store snag one of their 11% off rebate forms from customer service or download one online.
Submit your receipt and in a few weeks, you will receive essentially a cash-back postcard from Menards to the tune of 11% to spend in the store. So essentially it’s a credit you can use in store.
Menards 11% Rebate Sale
Shopping during one of their 11% off sales that they have at least twice per month is a great value above and beyond any sale prices they feature.
To really maximize savings, try this pro tip: If you earn an 11% rebate, spend it during an 11% off rebate sale. Menards allows you to earn 11% on your total purchase, even if you used a prior rebate to pay for it.
Check out this stacking scenario: My husband was finishing our basement and spent around $500 on construction materials during an 11% off sale. He subsequently received a rebate of $55 to spend in the store.
We went to the store during another 11% rebate sale and spent right around $55.00 of which he paid for using the $55.00 rebate; thus he earned another $5.50 rebate off the original $55.00 rebate. Awesome savings!
Conclusion
Don’t knock it ‘til you try it. The next time you find yourself in a hardware store, take a stroll through the grocery aisles. You may be surprised at the savings you find! The aisles will likely have sales comparable to, or better than grocery stores!
Do you find grocery deals at hardware stores?
Steph
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