Are You Connected?

Harris Teeter, Food Lion, Lowe's Foods and Aldi will all send their weekly ad circulars to you by email. You need to sign up for this service. And then you need to actually read the emails when you get them. Take 5 minutes. Seriously. I can't stress this enough. Knowing who has what on sale is the key to getting the deals. Shopping at the same store every week and buying the same stuff (regardless of price) are bad habits that drive up your grocery bill.

All the addresses are self-explanatory: Harristeeter.com, Lowesfoods.com, Foodlion.com, and Aldis.com.

To sign up for emails from Harris Teeter, Food Lion, and Lowe's, you'll need your customer rewards cards so you can enter in your customer number. (VIC card from Harris Teeter, MVP card from Food Lion, and Rewards card from Lowe's.) Don't worry, they all have privacy policies in effect and I've never gotten unwanted emails from them. Just the weekly flier. There are little bonus rewards to doing this, too. Harris Teeter will enter your name in a weekly gift card drawing and occasionally link a free product coupon to your VIC card this way. (They'll tell you about the free product in the weekly email - you just need to go to the store and buy it. It will be free when your VIC card is scanned.) Food Lion has weekly "click your email to win" contests and also offers printable coupons on various Food Lion brand products every week.

You'll receive the Harris Teeter and Food Lion fliers every Wednesday. Even though Lowe's Foods sale week also runs from Wednesday through Tuesday, you'll receive theirs on Saturday for some reason. (You don't have to wait until they send it to your email, though - the flier is available on their website on Wednesday.)

Aldi doesn't have "frequent customer" cards, so you won't need anything but your email address to sign up for their weekly flier. Aldi is on a different sale schedule altogether. You'll get their flier by email on Sunday for "Special Purchases" available in stores starting Thursday of the same week. The prices of those items won't go up at the end of the week, but they're available only while supplies last. When they're gone, they're gone. So plan accordingly and get there as close to Thursday morning as you can.

So go grab your keys (and all your "frequent shopper" key fobs), take 15 minutes, and sign up for emails from all the local grocery stores. It's a simple step toward saving lots of money.

PS: No "what's for dinner" post tonight - The Kid has an end-of-year thing for scouts.