Ralph's downtown and my coupon's

photo via google

My friend and I went grocery shopping last night at the Ralph's in downtown; we had spent Sunday night clipping coupons so we decided to use our coupons there since they double coupons still up to a certain amount. Well the downtown Ralph's is really nice and new, the selections are more gourmet and the "Fresh Fare" theme means it is more upscale targeting a different demographic (hence higher prices). But we decided to go anyway and use our coupons and only buy stuff on sale. As we browsed some of the isles we noticed that even the sale items weren’t that great of a savings. I was not sure how their double coupon program worked there since it had changed,so I decided to ask the customer service desk. There where two what looked like GM clerks setting prices I asked them how their double coupon thing worked, but they had no idea. One girl then spotted the manager and asked him about it. The manager was a young Hispanic guy with a shaved head you could see tattoos on his neck and arms under his white coller shirt. He looked like he could of been some gangster but it seemed more to me like he was just a LA guy who was trying making the "gangster look" cool and was tatted down like most people . He was nice and professional but he said that they don't double coupons, which got me annoyed. I told him the other Ralph's do double coupons. He said they did not there but he seemed confused about it as well. I told him dang this Ralph's is really tying to be all bougie. He just laughed. I guess they are not used to people really bothering with a coupon who knows. There is a Ralph's by my job in Lomita with a big banner that says " Double Coupons Everyday" I should have expected that from that Ralph's but I did not think they would not know anything about coupons. We kind of got annoyed at the high prices. We found a couple of good deals like on Ralph's brand bagged and sandwich cheese and toothbrushes in which we used one coupon we had at face value but that's it. We just decided to go randomly and look for only the sale deals that you can't pass by but as far as a full grocery cart we are heading elsewhere. We headed to Food 4 Less and tomorrow we are going to the 99 cent store. During these times you got to be smart about your shopping. It was shocking at some of the prices at that Ralph's. I worked at Vons when I was younger and the savings I got from using coupons was wonderful! This was back in 2000 thru 2004 when the prices where cheaper and they doubled coupons. I would get the best deals, now I gone to Vons and it is expensive and they don't double coupons. I had to give up going there even though I felt at home there.When I got home I went on the Ralphs.com website and signed up to get the weekly ad emailed to me. I also noticed there was a Ralph’s not much further to us on Third St and Vermont. I think I am going to start going to that one because I know it will be much cheaper then the downtown one. I also like going to all the smaller chain Hispanic grocery stores for their cheaper prices but it does mean going to a couple different stores to do your shopping. Again times are rough and we got to be smart to survive.

Does anybody have money saving shopping tips to share?