Winn Dixie brings the savings!

As a resident of Jacksonville, FL, I naturally do a lot of my grocery shopping at the local Winn Dixie. The grocery chain is based here, and there's dozens of locations in my area. It's a quick trip up the street, and for me that was the main reason I started shopping there... after today, I realized I have a couple of reasons that I continue to give my business to Winn Dixie, instead of Walmart or the higher-priced Publix.

The Winn Dixie customer reward program is insane. I mean it, it's crazy. I did my big grocery trip today, and as the cashier started ringing things up I was getting a bit nervous as I got closer to my $200.00 food limit, but then BAM in the blink of an eye (and her hitting subtotal) the numbers just started dropping and dropping, until finally I had a much lower total... about 80 bucks lower! That's right... I walked out of there with 80 bucks worth of free groceries basically. How did I manage to do this? I take advantage of their weekly ad. Even before I start making my list, I check the weekly ad to see what is on sale, and how I can use that to my benefit. A good thing to do is to go to the store on Tuesday, because it's the last day of the weekly ad. Before I go, I can look at my paper ad I got in the mail to see TODAY's savings, but then I check the website to see next week's ad that starts tomorrow. I don't mind making two trips in two days if it means I can get two packs of pork chops tomorrow, and two packs of steaks today. Combine the sales with the constant stream of Buy One Get One Free options they have, and I can easily stock up and save money at the same time.

The second reason I continue to go to Winn Dixie, is not only do I save on gas because the store is close, but also because I earn money off of my gas purchases at Shell, just be shopping there! Winn Dixie has this great promotion going on, where for every 50 bucks you spend on groceries, you earn 5 cents off the price of gas at Shell stations. I like to let mine build up a little bit, and then when I go to fill up my tank, sometimes I can get as much as 25 cents off! That goes a long way nowadays.

Don't get me wrong, I do have a few gripes... like, the stores have a pretty limited selection. There's not nearly as much of a selection at Winn Dixie as there is at Walmart, and that can be a little frustrated, especially with the way every store has an aisle dedicated to cookware. Seriously nobody in their right mind is going to by cookware or appliances from a grocery store. Not to mention those items are WAY overpriced. Also, the whole aisle full of cheap toys and household junk... that can go too. You should have more than 4 kinds of doritos and at least two racks of cereal!

Long story short, even with the smaller selection I can't help but to save money and save big, so I will continue to shop at Winn Dixie.