Roundup for 08/17/2026 — The Saver Spot

Roundup for the week

08/17/2026 · Renata

Stationery is the real thing this fortnight

Composition books at 50¢, wide-ruled loose leaf at 25¢ a pack, glue sticks four for a dollar. These are loss leaders and they are the one time of year I buy a full year of them. We use maybe eight composition books across the household and they do not expire.

The limit is usually printed and usually enforced — ours was ten per household on the notebooks. If you want more than the limit, go twice on different days rather than arguing at the till.

The lunch value pack, taken apart

The pack was $6.99 for eighteen items: six small bags of crisps, six fruit cups, six granola bars. Sounds like 39¢ an item.

Bought separately	Pack size	Price	Per item
Crisps, family bag portioned out	approx. 12	$2.79	23¢
Fruit cups, store brand	8	$2.49	31¢
Granola bars, store brand	10	$2.19	22¢

Same eighteen items assembled from those three boxes: about $4.60, and you have leftovers. The pack is paying two and a half dollars for the portioning, every week, for nine months. That is the one to notice.

Skipped: branded backpacks at “40% off.” Forty per cent off a $58 backpack is $35, and the plain one two aisles over was $16 and has lasted my kid two years. The percentage is doing all the work in that sentence.

Also noted

Butter still at $4.29/lb here. See last week — the drop I hoped for has not reached this chain.
Rice, 20lb bag, $14.99. That is 75¢/lb against 99¢ in the 2lb box. Only worth it if you have somewhere dry to keep it; see bulk buying.

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Who writes this

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.

Standing rule

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.