A decade or so ago, I was OBSESSED with complicated money-saving strategies that I just will not do any more.
True story, I drove to every Walgreen’s in the greater Austin area buying up diapers for free. Using a complicated store/sale/manufacturing coupon/extra bucks’ strategy, I “purchased” diapers that would take me nearly to potty-training!
I had so many diapers that my kids made a couch out of them before I strategically put them away under every bed in the house!
At one point I had 2 years’ worth of free cough syrup stashed in my closet from CVS.
I do not do stuff like that anymore. I hit a point where it was too much to keep up with.
I am guessing other people in my stage of life feel the same way. They still want a sweet deal, but not one that involves 7 transactions at a pharmacy at 10 pm.
Enter grocery shopping.
I doubt there is any purchase with more opportunity for saving money with than food!
From the brands we choose, to the stores we shop at, this area is where we can really save some cash!
I think we all know that eating at home is usually healthier and more affordable. Spring break travels last week with a tween and the voracious appetites of the teen and adult males in our family illustrated this abundantly! I am not looking forward to the next credit card statement (which I will, as always, pay off in full. It is just going to really hurt).
How much does the store we shop at affect our monthly grocery bill?
Introducing: THE GROCERY SMACKDOWN (imagine all the sights and sounds of a boxing match here. Whoo-hoo!)
This month, we are looking at how much my groceries cost at two big chains found in central Texas. These are HEB and Walmart!
Most of you I assume are familiar with Walmart. If you are not a Texan however, you may not know about HEB. 
HEB was formed 116 years ago by Florence Butts in Kerrville, Texas. Her son Herbert took over in the 20’s and grew the chain.
Today, H‑E‑B serves families all over Texas and Mexico in 155 communities, with more than 340 stores and over 100,000 employees (thank you HEB website for this tidbit of trivia).
For Texans, HEB is an institution! It is a fantastic store! It is not only clean, but well-organized. Their customer service is rivaled by none other. Additionally, their prices prove competitive.
But how competitive are they exactly? I decided to test this out a couple of weeks back and report back to you, dear readers, the results.
To do so, I planned to cook 6 dinners this week. I took my recipes from Cook Once, Eat All Week. This cookbook is one of my go-to’s in prepping healthy dinners that my family will eat here.
My menu this week included the following:
Chicken potato buffalo casserole
Grilled turkey/cheese and homemade tomato soup
Pizza Sheet Pan Dinner
Italian Meatball Soup
Texas Chili
Asian Lettuce Wraps
I planned my grocery list accordingly and took it to Walmart and HEB .
I am going to confess something to you. As much as I love HEB, I tend to do my weekly shopping at Walmart. This is an efficiency issue more than anything for me. Their curbside is free (HEB adds a $4.95 fee). This is what got me started.
As of late, I invested in Walmart delivery service. It cost me around $100 for the year, but my groceries get put on my porch. At less than $2 a week, this is luxury that has been saving my sanity.
Having said all of that, I still frequent HEB for odds and ends A LOT. I would say I am in there at least weekly for additional produce, bread and so on.
Philosophically, I have shopped at Walmart for the big haul largely because I find my overall bill is lower. I was curious to find out how my dinner costs at Walmart would compare to HEB.
My rules in choosing foods at each store was 1. All foods needed to be of comparable value. In other words, if I bought Hill Country Fare at HEB, I added Great Value brand to my cart at Walmart. 2. I tried to get as close to the same size of product as possible. Sometimes I ended up with more of an ingredient from one store than the other.
The results surprised me.
Are you ready?
At Walmart, my total bill came to $58.90.
At HEB, my bill came to $56.02!!!!
What?! This was not what I was expecting.
Now, I will throw in two disclaimers. I got an extra pound of chicken from Walmart and, an extra half pound ground pork. Additionally, my package of pepperoni was more than double the size of the HEB counterpart. Meat packages were larger at Walmart.
Because of the overages, my HEB purchase was probably actually more expensive. But not to the level I had expected!!!
My conclusion: I am going to try this experiment once more next month using my entire weekly grocery order. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, what are your thoughts? Is it HEB or Walmart for the grocery-savings win?