Ontario Food Deals for June 12 - June 18, 2009

I promise I won't rant today, especially as at least one of my conspiracy theories from last week has been proven wrong. The Foodland and No Frills flyers both arrived today, with my other flyers!

I will probably head over to No Frills, because they have a great deal on Catelli Healthy Harvest. I think this is the cheapest I have ever seen whole wheat pasta.

I also have the opportunity to try out Superstore's "Lowest Price Guarantee" this week. Their flyer says that "if you find a lower price we will beat it by 10%". The fine print says "Applies to front page and Price Lock items with this symbol/slogan. Refundable at Customer Service only. See back page for full details." The only thing on the back page that seems applicable is that they reserve the right to limit the quantities. My guess is that Superstore will see the Price Chopper flyer and immediately lower their listed price to match, but I could be wrong. I will head over there tomorrow and let you know how it goes!

Price Chopper

• Black Diamond cheese bars, 500g, selected varieties, including old for $3.97
• Maple Leaf bacon, 500g for $2.99 (common sales price, lowest price I've seen is $1.96)
• Shopsy's all beef wieners, 450g for $1.99
• Silani Feta cheese, 200 g for $2.99

No Frills
Having a Secret sale with up to 60% off on a $9.99 doorcrasher. Starts Friday June 12. While supplies last! Limited quantities per store. Store reserves right to limit quantities per customer. No returns refunds or rainchecks. $9.99 doorcrasher compared to a $24.99 manufacturer's suggested retain price. Full details instore. If anyone finds out what this is, let us know!

• Chicken breasts, bone-in, skinless, fresh for $1.97/lb
• Catelli Healthy Harvest or Smart pasta, selected varieties, 300-545 g for $0.99. Best price I've seen on whole wheat pasta, if you buy the heavier (545 g) packages.

Zehrs (Loblaws)

• Green Giant vegetables, 750 g still $1.99 (price locked)
• Gay Lea sour cream, 500 g for $1.49

Superstore

• Black Diamond cheese bar, 500 g, selected varieties for $4.44 with a lowest price guarantee... humm, do you have a Price Chopper flyer? We should be able to get their price of $3.97 beat by 10%, so for $3.57 per bar!
• Spalding sliced bacon, 500 g for $1.99. Considerably cheaper than the Maple Leaf bacon at Price Chopper, but is it as nice? I'll give it a try!
• Danon creamy or silhouette yogurt, 650/700 g for $1.99
• Heinz baked beans, 398 mL for $0.79

Foodland

• Schneiders Bacon, regular, salt reduced, thick, 500g for $2.99

Food Basics
Equality sour cream, 500 mL for $1.49

Have you heard of Swagbucks.com?

A few weeks ago I finally looked into Swagbucks.com. I had read about it on several blogs, but I didn't pay much attention. I also assumed it was only open to Americans.

A little investigation, and I discovered that it is open to Canadians, and by using their search engine, which is powered by Google, you periodically win points or Swagbucks. After you collect Swagbucks, you can use them in their special online store to buy all sorts of things. The most appealing prize to me is the $5 Amazon.ca gift card, for 45 Swagbucks. There are all sorts of other prizes, ranging in price from 1 Swagbuck to thousands of Swagbucks. I registered on May 11 and redeemed 45 points for a gift card on May 31st, about 3 weeks later.

The Swagbucks.com search engine gives similar, but not identical results to a Google search. Some of the search results are sponsored, and clearly marked as such. Google as sponsered results too, although they show up separately from the main results. Most of the time, I find using Swagbucks to search works as well as Google. I added Swagbucks as a search engine option in the top right corner of my Firefox window. I can type my search terms in there and if I don't like the results, I can just change the choice of search engines to Google and search again, without having to re-type my search terms.

I have already got in the habit of typing the name of the pages I go to regularly into the Swagbucks search box. The search finds the page I want, and I click through. Some of the time, I end up with a Swagbuck or two. It does take one extra click if you ususally type your URLs straight into the address bar, but it doesn't seem to slow me down.

I will let you know I have a little ulterior motive in telling you about Swagbucks. If you use my referral link, then if you win any Swagbucks, I will get some too, up to your first 100 Swagbucks. My brother said "Oh! A pyramid scheme!" when I told him about it. I will point out that I won't get Swagbucks when you get Swagbucks indefinitely. It is only for the first 100 points, which so far doesn't look like it will take long to collect. Since I redeemed my 45 points, I have collected another 20 Swagbucks already! That makes 65 Swagbucks in less than a month.

If you decide to join Swagbucks based on my recommendation, I would appreciate if you would consider using my referral code! Thanks!

Ontario Food Deals for June 5 - June 11, 2009

I apologize in advance. This week's flyer deals has turned into this weeks rants and conspiracies! There are so few deals this week I think I will try to skip the stores all together and just buy milk at the drug store and fruit and veggies at the farmers market! Maybe that has put me in a bad mood, leading to all my ranting?

The No Frills and Foodland flyers didn't come this week. Those stores are a little farther from my home, in a nearby small town, only worth driving to for really great deals or if I am headed that way anyhow. I wonder if they have decided we are too far away? The other possibility is that the big new Walmart that is between my larger town and those stores is sucking away some of their business. Sending us the flyers only makes it easier, because Walmart will price match from flyers. Just rambling: I admit I don't have particularly strong views on Walmart, one way or the other. By the way, if there are any flyers you don't get but want to see, you can check them out at flyerland.ca. You can find the link for Canadian Online Store Flyers on my side bar, under "Useful Websites".

Watch out again this week for "deals" that aren't really deals. The Sockeye Salmon (wild red pacific) is on sale for $2 for a standard (213 g) can at Price Chopper this week. The add says "save up to 99 cents". I guess that may be true, but the very same Clover Leaf salmon is pretty easy to find for $2 a can. That was the price it was "locked" at in April at No Frills, and may still be. I wait until I can find it for $1.50 a can to stock up.

Food Basics

• Green Seedless Grapes, product of Mexico, $0.99/lb. Be aware, these are on the dirty dozen list of fruits and veggies to think of buying organically because of their high pesticide load.
• Breyers double churn ice cream (1.66 -1.89L) for $3.99. Last time I bought Breyers, I discovered it wasn't really ice cream when I got home, it was a "frozen dessert". I find that kind of off-putting. This is more expensive type of Breyers, but seems to really be ice cream!

Price Chopper
The $1, $2, $3 Sale continues

• Chicken leg quarters, $1/lb
• Kellogg's cereal, Jumbo boxes for $3. Mini Wheats (850g), Special K red berry (700 g), corn pops (515 g), foot loops (580 g), just right (1.02 kg), corn flakes (1.35 kg), selected varieties. (Just so you know, there is no way in a million years I would buy a giant box of foot loops, or even corn pops for that matter, but I figured I would type it all out, as listed in the flyer!)
• PEI potatoes, 10lb bag for $2. Just so I can fit in one last little rant, these aren't local to us here in Ontario, and Ontario grows lots of lovely potatoes!

Wow! I had better stop now! See you all next week.