E-mail from a California Reader

Thank you to Sandy in California!!!

Sandy from Central California took the time to let me know that she did some comparison shopping between my WinCo Food list from Richland, WA and her WinCo in California. It seems the prices don't vary too much.

 Here is her message:

I live in Central California, about 45 miles from Fresno. In order to make the most of my time & money, I usually stick to the stores that publish prices either in paper ads or online, in addition to a Sam's Club stop. However, today I finally took the time to go by Winco in search of a good buy on whole chickens, and to see if my local store prices were the same as the ones you list.

I thought you (and your CA readers), might be interested in what I learned. I did not check all of the prices. Just the items on my list. The items in the value aisle appeared to be about the same as those your list. There were a few differences in prices though.

Kettle Chips $2.48 (.01 cheaper in CA)

V8 Juice 46 oz $2.38 (.10 cheaper in CA)

Hy Top Tuna .48

Pillsbury Grands Biscuits $1.18

Bar S Bacon $1.78

Pillsbury Brownie Mix .78

2 pk Whole Chickens .88/lb (.09/lb higher in CA)

Del Monte &/or Hunt's Spaghetti Sauce .98 (.12 higher in CA)

French's Mustard @ $1.38 was Spicy Brown 12 oz.

No Deli Cooked Ham was on sale for $1.68/lb

The Pillsbury Grands! had a peelie coupon for $.55/1 Pillbury Refrigerated Cookie Dough which was $1.98 (.26 higher in CA--but the peelie helped!)

Generally, the prices seemed to be pretty close. 

At the register, the clerk told me that they do not take printable coupons. I asked about how often their value aisle changes and she offered to call the manager to help me. He couldn't really give me an answer, except to say that it seems that they generally do the most price changes throughout the entire store on Sunday's, but they have some price changes nearly every day. He said that the value aisle changes depending on how fast the merchandise moves and how much stock they have in storage.  

(I, NW Coupon Lady, also asked the store manager in Richland and he didn't know much about the prices either; he said that it seems they updated the Value Aisle on Thursdays and other things change all the time).

Since I had the manager there, I asked him about the printable coupons. He corrected the clerk and said that they DO accept printable coupons. He said that they do not see many of them and asked about where I get them.

Since he seemed interested and we were talking coupons, I asked whether they would take coupons from other stores websites and showed him a printable I happened to have from Save Mart Supermarket's website. He had never seen one, and said that he really didn't know, but that they probably would not take other stores' coupons. He said our conversation made him realize that they need to refresh their clerks on their coupon policy and actually thanked me for taking the time to talk coupons with him!

I, NW Coupon Lady, talked to the Richland ,WA store manager about taking other store's coupons and he said no.  I would suggest to ask your WinCo store manager if their store takes printable coupons. If you are checking out and a clerk says no they don't accept them, ask the clerk to call manager over to clarify the store procedure on printables. 

Since I go in each week on the same day and time I know which clerks understand the store's policy on coupons.


Thank you so much to Sandy for the great information!!