How To Save Money Shopping for Groceries at Walmart

How to Save Money Shopping at Walmart

I live in a town that has a grocery store that is smaller than some convenience stores I have been to.  Ten miles away there is a Walmart and a mom and pop grocery store.  While Wal-Mart doesn't give me the best savings for my grocery dollar, it's most convenient, and the easiest to save money when shopping.

My first tip is simple.  Just shop there.  Usually prices are a couple cents cheaper than other places, and this can add up.  There are exceptions, especially if you use coupons, but for the most part, just shopping at Wal-Mart saves you money over other stores.  Wal-Mart can be very picky about coupons.  This can vary by location, but whenever I have had a problem with a coupon, it has tended to be at a Walmart.  Most recently I had a coupon for a free bag of Lay's with a price limit of $4.29.  The bag of chips I got was $4.30.  Instead of writing in $4.29, the cashier said I had to get a smaller bag.  Called a manager over, and she said the 'good on any Lay's item" was in fact, NOT good on any Lay's item, but the price limit could not be exceeded.  Finally my husband (who had worked at Walmart for a few years) explained that it should work if the price is keyed in.  (That usually has to be done with ANY totally free coupon, regardless of price.)  The manager was gone by that point, the cashier tried it, and viola -- we got $4.29 off our bag of chips.  I've had cashiers (and managers) create unique coupon policies at check out (We only accept one coupon per day since we don't "double" and using two different coupons is "doubling" -- which is NOT what doubling is!)  My point is if you plan on using many coupons, WalMart may not be the grocery store of your choice.

FTC disclaimer:  This post contains affiliate links.

My second tip is to use iBotta.  It's super easy to use at Walmart.  You just sign up, add offers to your account, and then scan the bar code at the bottom of your receipt once you check out.  You don't have to scan any groceries at all!  In fact, if you are using grocery pick up, it is so much easier to redeem your offers because you just make sure you are putting the correct item in your cart and even if you don't know where a certain free after offer item is, the employee pulling your order would know!  One great thing about iBotta is Walmart is a partner store with some offers.  Last year at Thanksgiving and at Back To School they had a number of free items (including a turkey breast!) 

Third, use other savings apps.  While savings apps aren't specific to Wal-Mart, they do help.  I use Fetch (My referral code is NP7PE ).  It takes a while for points to add up but I get a few Amazon gift cards a year with this app.  I also use Receipt Hog (My referral code is stroh862 )  This one takes even longer to see rewards from it than Fetch.  With both of these, instead of scanning the bar code like you do with iBotta, you have to snap photos of your receipt.

Fourth, there aren't many places that offer cash back for grocery pick up at Walmart unless it's your first time using the service, but if what you need can be shipped, go through a cash back site.  This can work because sometimes the items you want aren't in stock at your local store.  My husband and I love spicy Nongshim noodles but they are not sold in our area because most people don't like spicy food where we live.  Another item we use is Nido.  It's great for cooking and you can't tell it was powdered milk when you use it to cook with or in potato soup.  It's often found in Hispanic markets, and none of our stores within an hour carry it.  So I order it online, and Walmart is the place.  Pet items count if you order from walmart.com and not use the online grocery pick up.
The best places for cash back at Walmart are:

TopCashBack - 2% for pet items  Swagbucks offers 1 point per dollar spent at Walmart.com.  (Although I admit I could be mistaken on this and it could change at any time.)  

One of the great things with going through Swagbucks is you can turn your points into rewards for future Walmart cards!  You can also add "magic receipt" items which are usually identical to iBotta offers if you would prefer Swagbucks over iBotta (but usually the value is higher with iBotta.)

Lastly, use a good rewards credit card.  Unfortunately Walmart is not coded as a grocery store for most credit card issuers, so a good overall no fee card is a good choice.  Just be sure and pay it off and not carry a balance or your rewards will not be as much as you spent.  A card I would recommend for Wal-Mart shopping is Discover.  You also get a $50 statement credit when you use the card in your first three months of opening it.

Wal-Mart used to have more offers that appealed to bargain shoppers to lure us in.  But gone are the days of the Savings Catcher and ad matches, and we have to do what we can with what is available, but thankfully the Walmart only iBotta offers have really helped make up for Savings Catcher.  (Especially for me because there were no major stores to compare prices to within a 25 mile radius!) 

Wal-Mart is the toughest store to save money at if you are wanting to take a little extra time and stretch your budget as far as it can go, but it's also the easiest in the fact that overall their prices are lower than most grocery stores.  There's not a lot of ways to save at Wal-Mart, but at max you would spend about 5 minutes looking up iBotta offers, then putting in your receipt.  Time is money, so I do shop at Wal-Mart even though I can often save more elsewhere with a little effort.

This is the first in a series of saving money on groceries at different stores.