Lately I have been seeing clearance racks everywhere. Summer merchandise is being clearanced out to make room for fall and winter. Some big stores like Kmart, Target and Walmart are getting rid of some toys to start making room for the holiday stuff. And grocery stores even clearance merchandise too. But not all clearance merchandise is a good deal, so how do you know?

Clothes: Clothes most often are marked down according to season. After the 4th of July, all the summer stuff starts to really get marked down. But before you purchase that $3 item, ask yourself, is this a good deal? Is it very trendy, thus you’ll look outdated next season wearing it? It may not bother you to wear a July 4-themed tshirt from Old Navy that says “2010” on it, but then again, it might. Even if a shirt is a dollar, if you never wear it, was it a good deal?

Also, be leery of what retailers call the “tips & tails.” That is, all the apparel that is either XXS in size, or XXL. The unpopular sizes are always left behind, that’s why they are cheap. Don’t purchase anything with the intent of losing 20 lbs, or the “It’ll shrink in the wash” or “I’ll wear them with thicker socks” concepts. If it doesn’t fit, then it’s wasted money. Only buy clearanced clothing for yourself if: you definitely have items to match with it and wear it with, it fits now, and it will still be in style next year.

With children, I find it is worth it to take a chance on guessing their size this time next year, and I’ve been pretty successful at it. Then again, save your receipts, know the return policy and considering using ebay and craigslist to unload items that don’t work out.

Grocery: Grocery stores clearance their merchandise for several reasons. It can be that the item was unpopular and no one purchased it, thus taking up valuable shelf space. It can be nearing expiration date or, it sometimes can be as simple as the manufacturer changed the package or discontinued the item.

Check the expiration date and make sure that you will use/eat all of it before it goes bad. Make sure this is an item that you eat/use regularly, and don’t be lured into buying a large quantity just because it’s cheap. And remember, most grocery stores will allow you to use a coupon on a clearance item. The only exception I can think of is Big Lots, who doesn’t take coupons. Acme, Superfresh, Giant, they all take coupons on clearanced items.

Health & Beauty and Cleaning Items: These items often get clearanced for the same reasons as food, either it was unpopular or the manufacturer changed the packaging or discontinued the item. CVS, Walgreen’s, Walmart, Target, Kmart, Rite Aid–they all will take a coupon on a clearanced item.

For all clearance items–the same basic rule applies: Will I eat/use/wear this? Because no matter how cheap an item is, if you never use it and end up tossing it, it’s just like tossing money.

First, wanted to make a correction. The Big Lots coupon is good all day today, as per the fine print. When I posted about it earlier in the week, I hadn’t taken a close look at it and was just going off past sales. In past years, when Big Lots has done a friends & family event, it has been a Sunday evening thing. But you have all day!

In the first section of today’s Inqy, there are some good Superfresh coupons–6.99 for a live lobster, $0.48 for a bag of salad and a half dozen others. Worth taking a look.

Keep your coupons! My sister-in-law once said to me “I look at the coupons each week, I just don’t see anything worth clipping.” Maybe so. But what if you were alerted to a deal online, and if you had the right coupon, that item was free? Like last week’s Skintimate coupon. I don’t regularly buy Skintimate and probably wouldn’t clip the $0.75 coupon. But guess what? This month, it’s $1.50 at Acme, so your coupon that doubles makes it free.

In teeny, tiny font on the spine of the coupon inserts, is the date. Find a drawer or someplace to keep them, and then if you need to, you can find them.

Summer clearance and Back to School deals are everywhere! All the big stores are offering school supplies for a penny or a quarter–stock up! These items often make great stocking stuffers too.

But, I’m still proud of $33 per week for a family of 4.

Last month, I started a challenge here and on HCW.  Yesterday I caved, game over for me.  I started this week with about $18 left in my wallet, plus many catalinas, ECBs, and gift cards for various stores. I also had plenty of gas to get through this week and next. I went to Acme about mid-week to get milk, bread and produce, and spent $18.24, leaving me with nothing except two $5 rebate checks I hadn’t yet cashed.

Yesterday we wanted pizza for dinner and I wanted a bottle of wine. My total for both came to about $25, so I’m out. I could have made it until Monday or Tuesday, have enough gas & milk to get there, could have said no to the pizza and wine, but I didn’t. I’m still owed quite a bit of money from rebates and other ventures like surveys and focus groups, and I was trying to hold out at least until Monday’s mail……but oh well.

On $100, a tank of gas and a book of stamps, I made it three weeks, one day. For a family of four. So I’m proud of that and it was a real learning experience. It definitely made me refocus on every dime I spent, and I was much more focused on not letting perishable food go to waste before we used it. We’ve been throwing out quite a bit of produce and bread, much more than I’d like to admit.

We didn’t sacrifice nutrition, as we ate plenty of fresh fruits and veggies from the farmers’ market. We didn’t sacrifice fun–we went swimming several times, to various state & county parks several times and to the zoo once.  For those of you still doing it–congrats and you’re doing great. If you’re a new reader, this is something you may want to challenge yourself to, to see how frugal you really can be without sacrificing your lifestyle.

I stopped at Acme this morning, as it’s the last day to take advantage of the Kellogg’s/Keebler deal. Just as a reminder, select Kellogg’s and Keebler items are only $1.50 each when you buy eight items, and you can stack coupons on top of the savings. I wanted the Nutri Grain bars and Keebler Graham Crackers–both of those items are essential to a stockpile in a household with a toddler and a preschooler.

Anyway, I noticed some new flavors of Nutri Grain bars, so I grabbed several boxes of those, in addition to the flavors we usually buy. I got 24 items in all, and yes, the deal stacks in increments of eight, so you don’t have to do separate transactions.

I got it home, and was stacking them on my stockpile shelves, when I noticed……….the newer flavors only have six bars per box, instead of the usual eight. Same price–two fewer bars. Shrug–how annoying. Not annoying enough to make me return them, since I basically paid nothing for them anyway, but annoying. I guess that Kellogg’s needed the 25% markup to include the antioxidants that are advertised on the front of the box.

So many items are shrinking:
A “half gallon” of ice cream is usually only 1.5 quarts, for most brands, a 25% reduction
A “pound” of coffee is down to 12 ounces for most brands, even as low as 9 or 10 oz for some
Baby wipes containers used to routinely carry 80 wipes, now it’s usually 72
Yogurts used to be 8 oz in most cases, now down to 5 or 6
Lipton tea bags, in their “new packaging” now has 8 fewer tea bags

If you thought maybe things looked smaller, no you don’t need glasses. Everything really is getting smaller. Keep this in mind as you shop, because it’s happening everywhere, every product line. So make sure when you’re purchasing something, that you look at the price per pound or price per unit. And even then, sometimes it doesn’t matter–

Scott toilet tissue is still 1000 sheets per roll……….they just shrunk the sheet size by about 1.5 inches!