One thing I’ve seen in lots of “How to Coupon Guides” is to stock up for 6 weeks because that’s the sales cycle. “Every sale comes back around every 6 weeks- so only buy enough to last you that long.” is common advice but I’ve never felt that it was 100% accurate so I decided to do some tracking.
We picked 22 commonly purchased items and tracked their prices (and we continue to track them) for the last 9 weeks at 2 stores: Harris Teeter & Lowes Foods. We only tracked the SALE prices because adding in coupons would have made it really complicated.
Let’s start with Shredded Cheese at Harris Teeter
In the past 9 weeks the prices followed this pattern for the 8 oz bag of Harris Teeter cheese:
| $ 3.25 | $ 1.30 | $ 3.25 | $ 3.25 | $ 3.25 | $ 3.25 | $ 2.50 | $ 3.25 | $ 3.25 |
So you can see that the lowest it has been in the last 9 weeks was $1.30. If we bought enough to last 6 weeks – on week 7 we’d be paying $3.25. However on week 10- the price will be dropping to Buy 2 Get 3 Free making each bag $1.30 again. So that’s 9 weeks in between- not 6.
Let’s now look at 16 oz Coffee Mate Creamer at Harris Teeter
Here is the price for the last 9 weeks at Harris Teeter for 16 oz Coffee Mate Creamer
| $ 2.00 | $ 2.00 | $ 2.79 | $ 2.69 | $ 2.69 | $ 2.29 | $ 2.29 | $ 2.69 | $ 2.69 |
So week 1 or 2 would be the time to buy the creamer- but it hasn’t dropped back down again and we’re in week 9…so again the 6 week rule hasn’t been accurate here.
Here’s another example of prices we’ve tracked at Lowes Foods; Coke 2 Liters
Here are the last 9 week prices at Lowes Foods
| $ 1.00 | $ 1.25 | $ 1.69 | $ 1.25 | $ 1.69 | $ 1.50 | $ 1.50 | $ 1.69 | $ 1.89 |
So to get the Lowest Price on Coke 2 liters- we’d need to have bought 6 weeks worth on Week 1 and as of week 9- it hasn’t bottomed out again. So we’d either be out of coke or be paying $1.50 – $1.89.
Does this mean sales DON’T run in 6 week cycles?
We’re going to keep tracking these prices to see what happens long term but just based on my personal observations and then these tracking numbers I think the whole “6 week cycle” is off. There are a few reasons why I don’t follow the 6 week sales cycle.
Most grocery stores run the same types of sales on the same time each year (like we’ve seen Harris Teeter run their events the same week each year for the most part) but brands and stores don’t sit there and say “Oh we’re at 6 weeks let’s put Jif on sale again”.
Things also go in cycles. We don’t see flour coming up at a rock bottom price every 6 weeks- more like every 6 months (Easter and Christmas even more accurately). A.1. sauce- really ever hits that rock bottom price in the summer time- certainly not every 6 weeks.
So how much should I stock up?
As many as you will use with the coupons you have before the item expires. We have this great Stockup Calculator. Determine how many you will use before the item expires – then try to max that out! Hoping that a sale will come around on some mythical 6 week schedule means you may be paying full price (or close to it) come week 7 or 8. Instead- stock up as many as you can and if the sale does come back around in 7,8,9,10 weeks- you may be able to stock up more- while still having some in the pantry.
Some kind of everything is on sale:
Keep in mind that while Coke 2 liters may not be the rock bottom price every 6 weeks- SOME sort of cola 2 liter will be a good deal. Maybe Pepsi, maybe Cheerwine or maybe store brand. But some sort of soda, cereal, toilet paper, paper towels, yogurt, granola bar, shampoo, etc. will on sale. In fact many brands take turns being the featured item in their category. Have you ever noticed that if Coke 12 pks are on sale Pepsi 12 pks are not? The weeks trade off and on for those brands and same with General Mills Cereals vs. Kelloggs Cereals.
How to really stock up & save:
The best bet to really get a great deal is buy as many as you can
(a) that you can afford
(b) that you can store
(c) that you can get with the coupons & policies available
(d) that you will use before they expire
when an item hits rock bottom prices.
Only getting 6 bags of cheese because we’ve fallen for a mythical 6 week sales cycle will more often than not have us scrambling to find cheese at a good price…or eating cheese-less tacos.
Basically- the trends we’ve been tracking are not supporting a 6 week sales cycle- for the brands it is more flexible than that. My suggestion is stock up as much as you can with the criteria above instead of counting on a 6 week sales cycle. This doesn’t mean that we need to buy 100 bottles of shampoo at a time- using a bit of reasonable expectation for another sale to come around eventually is important- but I wouldn’t count on it being 6 weeks every single time.
What trends have you noticed regarding the repeat of sale prices?
Leave a Reply