Sunday Supplement: 'America's Cheapest Family' Helping to Spur Increased Use of Manufacturers' Coupons At the Grocery Store; Accept At Fresh & Easy

The Economides', America's self-proclaimed "cheapest family" likely wouldn't shop at a Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market even if one was located just a few steps from the front door of their house.

It's not that the family, who's last name (pronounced economy-dis) even sounds frugal, has anything against Fresh & Easy in general. Rather, they have one specific problem with the grocery chain's stores, which would be a deal breaker for the family to shop them: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market grocery stores do not accept manufacturers' cents off coupons.

The Economides' use manufacturers' coupons as their key strategy in spending only $350 a month on groceries for their family of six. And despite spending such an amazingly small amount of money each month on food and groceries, the husband and wife team say they eat very well, thank you.

Husband and wife Steve and Annette Economides, the heads of the self-proclaimed cheapest family in America, say they are able to stock a lot of food for a little bit of money, thanks, in part, to coupons. They use them for almost every item. During one recent shopping venture, for instance, the Economides' bought more than $140.58 worth of food for $53.01, Annette Economides told ABC TV's Good Morning America last Thursday in this report.

The Economides' told Fresh & Easy Buzz that manufacturer cents off coupons are the key to their multi-level strategy, which allows the family of six to spend a mere $350 monthly for groceries.

Last week ABC TV's Good Morning America decided to put America's self proclaimed "cheapest family" to the frugal grocery shopper test.

The morning show's producers gave Annette and Steve Economides $100, telling them to employ all their frugal shopper strategies including using manufacturers' coupons, and see how much they could buy with the $100.

The Economides' did their America's Cheapest Family" image, and Good Morning America, proud. They left the supermarket with 13 full grocery bags, buying everything they intended to, going over the $100 budget by only $1.77. Thirteen full bags of groceries, including fresh produce, meats and everything else for $101.77 isn't anything to sneeze at. Most of us feel pretty good if we can get away with four bags at that cost.

Chief among the tools Annette and Steve Economides said they used to achieve the 13 bags of groceries for a shade over $100 bargain was manufacturers' coupons, and lots of them--but only for those items they regularly buy--which is one of their hard and fast rules. No impulse item coupons for "America's Cheapest Family."

The Economides' may be cheap but they also are savvy marketers. They've created a website called (what else) America's Cheapest Family. On the website they offer frugal grocery shopping advice and strategies, sort of a primer in strategic shopping, as well as sell their New York Times' best selling book titled (what else) America's Cheapest Family. The also offer a subscription-based newsletter, The HomeEconomiser, that is packed full of strategies and tips for families to save money. The website also sells other related books and items, along with having a few ads on it.

Annette Economides has been called the" Coupon Queen" for her strategic method of using manufacturers' coupons to save substantial sums of money at the supermarket. She's even taught classes in strategic coupon use.

Last week on ABC's Good Morning America, the "First Family of Frugality" offered a few other tips to viewers in addition to strategically using manufacturers' cents off coupons to save money on groceries. Three tips from the Economides from ABC's Good Morning America:

Don't go to the grocery store often
A lot of families are going three, four, five times a week. You have to take a challenge and say, "I'm going to plan a menu. I'm going to plan five dinners. And I am going to go shopping once this week, and buy the stuff I need, use what's in my pantry."

Leave the kids at home.
You'll save three times the price of the baby sitter if you have time to really think and walk through the store and pick up the things you really need.

Slice your own luncheon meat.
Buying meat and asking the deli to slice it can save $1 to $5 a pound. The Economides family also recommend that you grind your own meat. You can buy the cheapest cuts of chuck roast or chuck steak at $1.50 a pound, leave most of the fat on and grind it to look and cook as if you had bought $5-a-pound lean ground beef. The say the savings can be $3.50 a pound.

These three strategies, along with the strategic use of manufacturers' coupons, are merely the tip of the frugality list from "America's Cheapest Family." That's why they created the website, which is turning into an industry along with their book.

Hits on the website, sales of their book and other related items are soaring even higher than the cost of food and groceries are in the U.S. The high food inflation, soaring gasoline price and all together poor economy is creating a demand for what the frugal family is preaching, evidenced by the fact that requests for them to speak to groups, appear on television, be interviewed for publications and teach classes, are keeping them so busy Annette Economides is having a hard time finding time to do her grocery shopping.

Of course, what the Economides are teaching and preaching isn't the best music to the retail food and grocery industry's ears. In what is arguably the lowest margin business in the U.S., grocers count on impulse sales to give them a sales and profit boost. And manufacturers like to use coupons in many cases as a way to generate new trial and boost sales of impulse-oriented products. However, if the Economides family's strategic grocery shopping program ever becomes widespread, the industry just might have to rethink its entire business model.

But the frugal family also are partly responsible for the soaring increase in coupon use among American shoppers in the last year. Not as responsible as the poor economy and fast-rising food prices of course. However, their message is being publicized in media far and wide which is helping to generate the highest levels of manufacturer coupon use ever seen in recenttimes, according to a recent report from the Food Marketing Institute (FMI). Coupons are like cash (eventually) to grocers, so they generally welcome and even encourage their use.

Earlier we mentioned Annette Economides is so busy with the business and money-making aspects of "America's Cheapest Family" she's finding it hard to carve out time for frugal grocery shopping. She makes time for the strategic shopping though, along with making time to clip manufacturers' cents off coupons and use the Internet and other sources to obtain them. Shoping on the cheap and using the coupons are her bread and butter in more ways than one after all.

The frugal Economides family is helping to make cheap chic in the U.S. during these tough economic times. We predict there even soon might be low-priced cheap-chic designer versions of manufacturer cents off coupon mini carrybags. After all, even the cheap should get to do so in style.

Frugal Gourmets: Fresh & Easy's 50% Off Discounts Make it Into LA Times Piece on Eating Well Without Spending Like Crazy in These Tough Times

Frugal shopping and cooking in frugal times: Christine Jory has written the 99-Cents Only Stores Cookbook. She wrote it with the cooperation of the retailer but the book isn't a product of the 99-Cent Store Only chain.

Marketing consultant Shauna Dawson has learned well about Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's 50% discount or mark-down policy on fresh foods that are near their package out-of-code date it appears, based on a feature story by staff writer Jerry Hirsch in today's Los Angeles Times' Business Section.

Below is the opening paragraph of the helpful piece about how consumers can eat well--and even gourmet--without taking out loans in this current inflationary, and in California and numerous other states, darn right recessionary, U.S. economy:

Gourmet eating for less
Despite raging inflation, it's possible to eat well without spending like crazy, chefs and other food gurus say. You just need a strategy. ¶ Here are some of their secrets.

By Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 20, 2008

Marketing consultant Shauna Dawson likes good food and good deals, and that has turned her into a bold shopper. ¶ The 34-year-old Carthay Circle resident will troll a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, checking to see if the "sell by" date on a product is that very day. It's almost like food bingo. When Dawson finds something she wants, she asks a clerk for 50% off. ¶ "I bought a package of fresh cream puffs this way -- just the other day," she said. ¶ It can be tough these days to be a gourmet. With food prices rising at the fastest pace in 18 years, Dawson and other shoppers must look harder and shop smarter to get the special items they want. But they say they have figured out ways they can still afford some of those premium goodies such as a double-cream brie, perhaps a juicy rib-eye steak or even a small bottle of truffle oil. ¶ Despite raging inflation, it's possible to eat well without spending like crazy, Dawson and other food gurus say. You just need a strategy. ¶ Here are some of the secrets to eating well for less.

Read the entire Los Angeles Times feature article, "Gourmet eating for less," here.

Five Quick frugal gourmet and everyday shopping and eating for less tips from Fresh & Easy Buzz:

>Shop the 99-cent and dollar stores. They currently have lots of specialty, gourmet and natural foods items because many suppliers are having cash-flow and high inventory problems and thus are selling more shelf-stable specialty and gourmet grocery products to these format
stores than ever before.

You can buy gourmet oils, vinigars, condiments and other items for example for 50% -to- 75 less in the 99-cent stores than the items regularly sell for in supermarkets. You have to take what the 99-cent stores have though. They work on an in-and-out basis. What's there today might not be next week. But it can be fun shopping as well. They sometimes even have huge discounts on wines.

>Always shop the supermarket weekly advertising circulars. Supermarkets are running hotter and better promotions in their weekly advertising circulars currently than any time in the past 15 years. Value is in, and the retailers are hammering their suppliers for better deals and promotions to pass on to consumers in order to remain competitive and maintain sales and market share.

>Don't pass up store brands. Today's store brand items are in the main close to or as good as nearly all nationally branded products in terms of quality. There are exceptions of course. Fresh & Easy Buzz has never found a store brand liquid bleach as good as Clorox, for example--but we often purchase the store brand anyway.

The same is true with Mayonaise. It's hardto beat the taste of Best Foods brand, if you like or use mayo. But with store brands as much as 25% -to- 30% cheaper than Best Foods', we often buy them as well. Here's all you need to do, depending on the use of the mayo of course. Add a little crushed garlic and a squeeze of fresh lemon to the store brand mayo, especially if using it as a dressing and such. Not only does it give even Best Foods mayonaise a better, gourmet taste, it makes most store brands and Best Foods brand iindistinguisable in terms of taste.

>Use coupons, but only for those items you regularly buy. The majority of "cents-off" coupons distributed in newspaper free-standing-inserts or mailed to your home weekly are for items you likely wouldn't buy anyway. That's why many manufacturer's use the coupons; to generate consumer trial. However, many manufacturers--Proctor & Gamble which makes Tide, Crest Toothpaste, Downey Fabric Softner and numerous other top brands is a good example--of items you do buy regularly also issue coupons. Use the coupons you get for the items you regularly buy, but avoid using the coupons for the impulse items you don't regularly buy, and you will save lots of money.

>Coupons 2.0: Leverage store promotions with coupons. A great strategy with coupons is to combine them with items promoted in a retailer's weekly advertising circular. In other words, you get a double discount; the discount the retailer is giving on the promoted item, and the added discount from using the coupon.

For example, last week Safeway Stores had a mega-pack of Scott brand paper towels on sale for 30% less than its everyday price. The weekly newspaper FSI also had a $1.00-off coupon for that size package of paper towels. By combining the $1.00 coupon with the 30% discount, the total savings would be 40%. That's what we call shoppers' leverage. Also, if you are in an area where retailers use "double coupons," take advantage of it. But again only for those items you regularly purchase.

Vox Populi: Use the comments box below to share your frugal--gourmet or non-gourmet or both--shopping and cooking tips with your fellow Fresh & Easy Buzz readers. Fresh & Easy Buzz has many readers who are food and grocery industry experts, as well as having many smart and savvy readers from all walks of life. Share the wealth--and your knowledge.