How to Stockpile Groceries in our area

At the coupon class someone had asked me how to stockpile on grocery items when we don't have the great stores who double coupons all the time and I didn't have a real good answer and it's been bothering me.  I've been chatting with other bloggers who live in areas like ours and now I feel I can better answer that.

Mostly everyone feels that we don't have the opportunity to do those "Extreme Couponing" shopping trips but we can do "realistic shopping" which is reducing our grocery bill by as high of a percentage as we can.  This may be using coupons which reduce our bill by 10% to 50% or more.  That is more what we need to focus on is using our coupons to insure we don't have to pay full price.  The TLC show makes us feel like were not doing our job as couponers by not getting a giant grocery purchase for $.14 but it's not realistic for where we live. 

What I have started doing is really stockpiling on items I can get free.  I have been buying coupons online or trading to get as many as I can on those items I know I will get free.  For example, I knew with July 4th coming that all things grilling are going on sale.  So I took a gamble and ordered coupons for bar-b-q sauce, spices, etc and then have been waiting for them to go on sale.  I did get lucky with the $.99 KC Masterpiece Bar-B-Q sauce at Target and I had a lot of $1 coupons for that.  I also have a lot of $1 off Weber Grill spices which I have yet to see go one sale.  I also got about 10 packages of Oscar Mayer hot dogs for $5 which will last us all summer and more.  Each season there will be great sales and coupons so we can stockpile those items.  At Thanksgiving there will be lots of baking ingredients to go on sale, Christmas has tons of candy, Easter had lots of cake mixes, food dyes and such. 

Below is a list of the stores commonly seen on Extreme couponing that run awesome deals.  Just an idea, if you are traveling this summer and will be in a city with one of these stores, see if you can make a coupon run.  I'm planning to go to Publix in Nashville myself this summer.  I'm also planning to go to Kroger in Owensboro.  I don't have high expectations for that store because they only double to $.50 and they do have some high prices but they have store coupons.  I'll let you guys know what happens.  If you have shopped there before, please leave a comment here to let us know how you did.

Albertsons
Publix
Kroger
Shop-Rite