Scenes from the 'used bread store'
Posted
Jun 02 2008, 11:53 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
When I bought flour tortillas this weekend, I noticed that the price had gone up by 20 cents. That didn't surprise me, since the price of bread and other flour-based products has skyrocketed lately. But I'm still ahead of the game because I shop at a bakery outlet. Even with the cost increase, I paid just 79 cents for a 20-ounce bag of tortillas.
Something else I noticed: The outlet seemed busier than usual. A cashier told me that business is booming, and that some new customers are surprised to find "that it isn't old bread" on the outlet shelves.
Well, sometimes it is: I saw a bunch of multigrain breads within a day of their sell-by date, priced at $1.19 for 24-ounce loaves. But most of the items in the store had at least four days to go. I've seen bread older than that for sale in supermarkets.
A bakery outlet is a frugal way to brighten up your brown-bag lunches. The same old ham and cheese will taste different on an onion roll or on pumpernickel, sesame or potato breads. And if it turns out that you don't like the taste of dill rye, then you're out only $1.59 instead of the $4 or more you might pay elsewhere.
Some jam for that bread?
This particular outlet offers more than just sandwich slices. You can buy rolls, bagels, cookies, tortillas, English muffins, coffee, mustards, fancy jams, gravy mixes, crackers, potato chips, and a selection of Bob's Red Mill specialty flours and baking mixes.
I saw Bimbo sandwich breads for 89 cents, Thomas and Oroweat English muffins for $1.19, and whole-grain and other hearty breads for $1.59. Mother's cookies were on special for 99 cents. I didn't dare look at the marked-down Entenmann's baked goods; the last thing I need is a fridge full of doughnuts.
Apparently some people consider these stores low-rent. As the cashier suggested, they might think that "outlet" means "stale." I grew up thinking everyone shopped this way, since my mother used to buy and freeze 10 or 12 marked-down loaves at a time.
My advice to those who have never shopped in bakery outlets: Get over your squeamishness. The money you save on bread (or doughnuts) can be used to offset the higher price of other food items, or set aside to help fill the gas tank.
Make a joke of it if you must; a friend of mine calls it the "used bread store." But focus on the savings. Why pay three bucks for English muffins if you can get them for $1.19?
Think of it as a thrift shop for bread. Or tortillas: That 20-ounce bag would have cost me anywhere from $2.95 to $4.49 at a supermarket. I greatly prefer paying 79 cents.
Coupons at the outlet store
This particular shop recently mailed fliers with two buy-one-get-one coupons and a third coupon that filled me with frugal happiness: one free item from "the green section," no purchase necessary.
(No, the green section doesn't mean green with age. It's just a green shelf.)
After browsing among choices like kaiser rolls, thick-sliced sesame bread, potato rolls, French bread, hamburger and hot dog buns, and sourdough bread, I finally decided on a free package of eight onion rolls. They went really well with tuna salad.
I offered one of the BOGO coupons to a woman filling her cart with hearty breads. She was enthusiastic. "My grandson eats sandwiches in his lunch every day for school," she said.
"And after school," the 10-year-old boy clarified.
"And I take my lunch, too. So every little bit helps, doesn't it?"
Her grandson pushed the cart back and forth. "I could eat a thousand sandwiches," he said.
It can get cheaper
Some outlets have punch cards; this store, in fact, offers double punches on Wednesdays. Ask if your local store has a senior discount, too.
See if there's a mailing list for fliers like the one I received in the mail. In fact, I "received" 11 of them because many of my neighbors tossed them into the recycle bin in our building lobby. Maybe your neighbors throw such things away, too.
Even in an outlet, it pays to shop carefully. For example, all the tortillas cost 79 cents, but some bags held 11 ounces and some held 20 ounces.
And that $1.19 multigrain bread that was within a day of its sell-by date represented a 40-cent savings over the other loaves. It would have been just fine if you'd frozen it and removed a couple of slices at a time for sandwiches.
Maybe 40 cents doesn't sound like much of a savings to you, unless you think of it as one-tenth of a gallon of gasoline. But if you were on a fixed income, it could mean a lot. Especially if your grandchildren could eat a thousand sandwiches apiece.
