One roundup a week. Written on Sunday night, posted Monday.
08/03/2026 · Renata
I took the chain’s app off my phone on the first of July and shopped the paper tags for four weeks, keeping the receipts. I wanted to know whether the digital-only coupons are worth the aggravation of clipping them at the till, or whether the app was mostly steering me.
Over four weeks the digital-only prices I could identify from the shelf tags would have saved about $17. Against that, my total spend fell $46 compared to the previous four weeks, and I bought two fewer things I had not planned. I do not claim that is a controlled experiment. It is one household, one month, in a month with no birthdays in it.
Where I landed: the app is back, but the notifications are off and I open it only from the list, not from the front screen. The steering is the cost, not the coupons.
The cheese one is the closest thing I have to a permanent rule. Blocks beat bags at almost every price point I have logged, they keep longer, and a box grater takes ninety seconds.
New logged lows for eggs and black beans this week. Both are in the price book.
Renata. I shop for two adults and a teenager, mostly at one regional chain and a discount grocer four miles apart.
I have kept a price book since 2019. That is the only reason any of this is useful.
If I would not have bought it at full price within the month, a discount on it is not a saving. Most of what I skip each week fails that one test.