looking for low cost food/grocery store, like Aldi's (Phoenix: rent, credit card)

[Lovegun]

I would not recommend food city's produce. Yuck.

I always found Fry's to be reasonable priced out of all the grocery stores.

[thegirlinaz]

Originally Posted by Friend of Sonic

Fresh and Easy has some great deals occasionally.

I think they have good deals on their meat most of the time.

[CodyW]

Agreed. Food City. If you can find one in a newer part of the valley, the experience won't be so bad.

I generally find their produce to be BETTER than Fry's. Fry's has downright horrible produce.

[azjack]

If there is a Fresh & Easy near you, check it out. When (if) the new F & E closest to me actually opens, I plan to shop there once per week, with a once per month supplemental trip to a Wal-Mart Super Center.

[aiwei]

I have been shopping at 4 places consistently: Fry's, Safeway, Basha's and Albertson. I only buy what is on sale and stock up, if I have space. I have found 2 places that have decent produce: Lee Lee's oriental store in Chandler and a little place at the SE corner of Main and Greenfield in Mesa. Both place has great prices. But I only buy enough fresh stuff to last 3 to 4 days; any longer, the fresh food would start to wilt or rot. One thing I do is to check unit pricing. "$ per oz." is a pain to find out and stores do not always mark them uniformly. The last thing is I am trying to buy my food at Safeway since they give customer 10 cents off per gallon of gas per $100 spent each quarter. Last 3 months I spent $500 there and saved 50 cents per gallon of gas. Hubby and I put $40 worth of gas into 2 cars @ $1.37 per gal. that was at least $14 saving.

[Ponderosa]

Walmart ad matches with everyone, so if you can stand the hassle and keep things straight, collect all the newspaper ads and take them to Walmart. Point out the ad price at wherever on check out and they will adjust.

[azjack]

"Walmart ad matches with everyone, so if you can stand the hassle and keep things straight, collect all the newspaper ads and take them to Walmart. Point out the ad price at wherever on check out and they will adjust."

Definitely bring the weekly ads with you to WM, at least for a few key items. That is my plan for my monthly WM trips. I make it sound like a journey because those stores are usually pretty chaotic.

They honor just about every ad item except "buy one get one free" type stuff or "percent off" type deals.

[thegirlinaz]

Originally Posted by CodyW

I generally find their produce to be BETTER than Fry's. Fry's has downright horrible produce.

We always grocery shop at wal-mart.. that has always been cheapest for us.

And I am glad I am not the only one who thinks that Fry's has bad produce. The rest of the store is fine (a little pricey), but their fruit and vegetables are not that good. And the cereal that I like there is twice as expensive as wal-mart.. what a rip off.

For good and cheap produce I would recommend Sprouts, I love going there! They have a huge selection and some really delicious food! I actually think Sprouts is better than Fresh & Easy, but there aren't as many of them.

[Uhuh]

Originally Posted by aiwei

I have been shopping at 4 places consistently: Fry's, Safeway, Basha's and Albertson. I only buy what is on sale and stock up, if I have space. I have found 2 places that have decent produce: Lee Lee's oriental store in Chandler and a little place at the SE corner of Main and Greenfield in Mesa. Both place has great prices. But I only buy enough fresh stuff to last 3 to 4 days; any longer, the fresh food would start to wilt or rot. One thing I do is to check unit pricing. "$ per oz." is a pain to find out and stores do not always mark them uniformly. The last thing is I am trying to buy my food at Safeway since they give customer 10 cents off per gallon of gas per $100 spent each quarter. Last 3 months I spent $500 there and saved 50 cents per gallon of gas. Hubby and I put $40 worth of gas into 2 cars @ $1.37 per gal. that was at least $14 saving.

I love Lee Lee's. They just opened one in Peoria as well.

[aiwei]

I try to buy more at Lee Lee's. But not everything there is cheaper. I figured out i should buy what they sell the most there because that is the item they move the most hence has more in stock. For example, rice. I pay about $20 for a 20# bag of balsamic rice, where it is 2x or 3x as much per pound at other grocery store. Their fresh produce is 30-50% less. The other ethnic food prices are fair because they do not have many competitions. You should also know Lee Lee's gives all customers a 10% off of your whole bill at the check out. They do not advertise that, but it is great to have.