I live in a very small town that boasts two grocery stores, in addition to the Walmart Super Center.  One of those stores is a Safeway, while the other is a local franchise.  Like most people, we signed up for a Safeway card years ago to save money.  What I am noticing, however, is that I really don’t save any money by shopping at Safeway.  In fact, many items - even on sale - are more expensive than I can get them at Walmart or the local chain.

Take canned goods, for example.  Almost without exception, Walmart offers the better deal on canned goods.  Occasionally, our local chain will have a “flat sale”, where you can buy a tray of cans for ridiculously cheap, beating out even Walmart.  Even on sale, Safeway can’t touch the prices at both of these stores.

I ran an experiment last year where I tracked the prices of everything we bought and compared them across all three stores.  I recorded regular prices and sale prices on every single item we bought.  It was a time intensive project, but it sure helped me see where to save money.  For canned goods and processed foods, Walmart always had the better price.  Our local chain couldn’t be beat for both quality and price of produce, plus they had a better selection of natural and organic foods.  Safeway usually offered better meat prices, especially during sales, but the prices were not significantly better than the local chain.

So after years of shopping at Safeway, we stopped altogether.  Not only were we not saving money, we were spending more in most cases.  The only benefit we have found that still works for us is the $.03 discount on gas.  So next time you go shopping, take a good look at prices and see if you really are saving any money by having that extra piece of plastic in your wallet.