Jill Cataldo

Chicagoland Savers has posted my new column for this week:

"Coupon Craze Leads to Newspaper Theft"

Visit the site and click "60 Second Savings" at the top of the page to read it. The site also archives the past year's worth of columns, as well as my weekly series of video coupon tips, "Sixty Second Savings."

Chicagoland Savers is the first Chicago media outlet that's carrying my weekly syndicated column, "The Coupon Queen!" Now my Chicagoland audience can enjoy what over 20 million people around the country already read in their newspapers each week!

... the first Super-Couponing workshop took place.

It's been a wonderful two years. :) I have taught over 19,600 people in live workshops since that date, and countless thousands of others via the DVD workshop and my blog.

Whenever you began Super-Couponing... happy anniversary to you :)

Will you ever shop the same way again?

There are so many stories about the state of grocery shopping in the media as of late. Here's a recent report by Deloitte called "The American Pantry Study: The New Rules of the Shopping Game," which covers changing grocery shopping trends with consumers:

"American consumers have re-learned how to shop — and in the process re-shaped the playing field for both consumer products marketers and packaged goods retailers. The recession has made it necessary for Americans to rethink and adjust their shopping patterns, which has resulted in a more strategic, informed — and even calculating — approach to a shopping game previously driven by impulse, advertising responsiveness and the fundamental attractiveness of brands."

Some notable points:

• 92% of people surveyed have changed the way they shop within the past two years
• 89% are more resourceful when they shop, with 84% stating they are "more precise"
• 67% say they have increased their coupon usage
• 81% say they're "having fun" seeing how much they save with coupons
• 48% will put off purchasing an item if it is not on sale
• 93% say they will continue to shop this way even if the economy recovers
• "Resourcefulness and precision are the new badges of honor"

The state of the grocery industry just continues to get more and more interesting. Over the past few weeks, I've been sharing articles about some traditional supermarkets and retailers believing the key to future financial success is to be "more like Wal-Mart," touting everyday-low-prices versus employing high/low sales cycles.

Well, today's edition of Daily Finance has this story... "Wal-Mart Quietly Raises Prices."

According to the article, Wal-Mart has been increasing prices 6% across the board over the past six weeks, with some products' prices taking increasing as high as 60%..! Some highlights:

"For instance, the price of a 32-ounce bottle of Windex household cleaner jumped 50%, a 12-ounce box of Quaker Oats instant grits climbed 65% and a 50-ounce container of Tide detergent rose by more than 50%.

After last week's article, "What is SuperValu doing to Jewel-Osco?" about changes to stocking, pricing and sales cycles at Jewel (which, if you haven't read already, I encourage you to) a reader wrote to share another interesting shopping-related story with me.

Thursday's issue of Business Week has a great article on dollar stores and the current economy. As consumers tighten their belts, many are understandably heading to the dollar store. Dollar stores have long been purveyors of inexpensive, privately-labeled house brands, but the biggest increase in sales at the dollar stores lately? Name-brand products.

While the parent company of Chicagoland's largest grocer cuts inventory on its national brands, ultimately aiming for 20% private-labeled house brand penetration to fill that inventory gap, chains like Dollar Tree, Dollar General, and Family Dollar are enjoying an upswing in sales on name-brand groceries and household items, and they're quickly moving to stock more of them:

As I touched on in Monday's Deals of the Week post, it's been a great week for clearance toy and clothes shopping all over town! Hope you've all been out bargain-hunting and enjoying your finds!

As I discuss at great length in my Super-Couponing classes, both January and late July/early August are when many stores slash prices on both toys and clothing. On Sunday, we picked up some clothes at the Old Navy 50% off clearance summer sale. Not all Old Navy stores dropped (it's not quite like the January Old Navy clearance where every single store drops at the same time) but Algonquin's clearance was running, and my husband got some nice work shirts in the under-$3 range, as well as a $1.97 shirts for our boys. Many readers posted reports of $2 swim trunks and children's clothes too.

It is in no way my intention to complain about, slam, or otherwise present Jewel-Osco or any of its staff in a negative light. I've publicly stated hundreds of times that Jewel is my favorite Chicagoland shopping destination. However, the amount of press their parent company, SuperValu, has received lately regarding their decisions for Jewel-Osco's future has left me and many of my readers wondering what's going on with one of our favorite places to shop. We have had numerous concurrent discussions running in the blog forum over the past few weeks about shoppers' unhappiness with some of SuperValu's changes being implemented at Jewel, with readers asking what's going on and why. Special thanks to all of my readers who sent articles and links that contributed to this post.

Overview

Craig Herkert is the CEO of SuperValu. He joined SuperValu in 2009 after leaving a CEO position at Wal-Mart. When he took over, both trade publications and coupon boards buzzed with speculation and fears that Mr. Herkert would ultimately try to "Wal-Mart-ize" its SuperValu-owned supermarkets, moving away from a "high/low" pricing structure to an "everyday low price" model, with more house-branded products to maximize profits. (Yes, this is probably something the average, rest-of-the-world Jewel shopper neither researches nor worries about, but couponers are a much different breed!) And, over the past few months, those of us who have long been loyal Jewel customers have seen signs that the direction Mr. Herkert's taking Jewel in may be negatively affecting its shoppers.

Last fall, Mr. Herkert announced plans to open 1,200 new Save-A-Lot stores nationally over the next five years [link]. My readers may be unfamiliar with Save-A-Lot, but it's comparable to Aldi, offering mostly house brands, very few national brands, and a stripped-down product offering. Again, shoppers on blogs and messageboards around the country wondered if this "many house brands" strategy would, over time, carry over to the SuperValu-owned supermarkets too -- including Jewel.

In February, Retail Industry News reported that "The news over the weekend ended months of speculation about Supervalu’s plans for various divisions now that its new CEO, Craig Herkert, has made clear that he believes the Save-A-Lot business model - stressing reduced SKUs and a strong value proposition - is the company’s retailing future." [link] And shoppers knew changes were to come.

So, I'm walking through Jewel and I spot an item in the dairy case that many readers have written me to say exists, yet it hadn't hit my store... until now.

"Shopper's Value" imitation shredded cheese.

For those who missed the news, SuperValu's CEO has decided to take a more "Wal-Mart-like" approach to Jewel and remove up to 25% of the products they previously carried, replacing them with Shopper's Value house brands in an attempt to "cater to women." (Note that the Jewel stores themselves are not at fault here -- they have no say in this as it was ultimately SuperValu's decision.)

But... is ANYONE going to buy this? Especially with a Catalina sale running this week that makes name-brand Kraft shredded cheese one-quarter of this price?

NOTE: CONTEST HAS ENDED! Our winners are Shopaholic4206, Pepsi4Power and Ynotpat! Congratulations and thanks to everyone who entered!

I'm sure it's no secret to any of my readers that my schedule's pretty hectic. Between teaching several coupon workshops a week, writing my syndicated newspaper column, filming my "Sixty Second Savings" video series, blogging Deals of the Week, being a (mostly) stay-at-home mom with my young children, and the myriad of other activities that fill my life, my husband and I don't always get much time to have a "date night." So when I was invited to have a free dinner for two downtown at one of my favorite Chicago restaurants, I jumped at the chance!

My readers know that I love giving products away on my blog -- whether it's groceries, coupons or other contests, it's fun to share giveaways with an audience who, like me, loves free things. Over the past few months I've posted some fun contests for my readers, and a few weeks ago I received an invitation to attend an appreciation dinner at Ben Pao, which has amazing Chinese food and is one of my favorite dining destinations downtown. General Mills and MyBlogSpark sponsored the event as a thank-you to their bloggers who've posted giveaways of General Mills products. Not only was the dinner free to attend, but attendees would also receive a $50 MasterCard gift card to cover gas and parking in the city, providing a truly "free" night out. (How long do you think it took me to RSVP? Do I need to mention again how much I love Ben Pao's food? "Yes!")

On Thursday night, my husband and I arrived at Ben Pao and saw that the entire restaurant had been closed for the event. We weren't really sure what to expect, but we checked in at the counter and were seated. The server informed us it was a prix fixe menu, where soup, appetizers and desserts would be the same for everyone, but we could choose one of eight entrees. I chose an orange chicken platter, he chose shrimp lo mein, and we enjoyed a fabulous meal as course after course was served. (I can't honestly remember the last time just the two of us went out without the kids..!)

So... Dominick's has a huge "Buy 4, get a FREE box of Nature Valley granola bars" sale this past week in which not only is Nature Valley involved in the Buy 4, it's also the bonus free item. Wouldn't you think the stores would have made sure their Nature Valley displays would be well-stocked for what the store should know will be a hot sale on these bars?

I went into the Carpentersville Dominick's to do the Nature Valley deal on Wednesday, and before I headed to the store, my husband requested the Roasted Peanut Crunch variety. They had plenty of boxes on the shelf, but...

Every single box was expired. Every. Single. Box. Look at the next picture -- a December 2009 expiration date. NINETEEN boxes. There was not a single box of Roasted Peanut Crunch that wasn't expired, and the majority of the boxes expired almost EIGHT months ago.

A few of the boxes expired in April of this year. Most expired in December 2009. One box expired July 12, 2010. I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but I did buy that July box because they're my husband's favorite, and it was only nine days' expired at this point - and it was free as part of the sale and he'll eat them this week.

But COME ON, Dominick's.