HEB grocery stores have become my favorite regional grocery stores.
They offer free store coupons, fantastic meal deals, and a little-known expired products policy that will have you shopping on a regular basis.
If you’re in Texas, and are into frugal coupon living, check HEB out!
HEB grocery stores are a nice Texas chain.
Their motto is “Here Everything’s Better” and they do a great job keeping clean, organized, and attractive stores.
The chain is interesting, with stores ranging in size from ones the size of a small Dollar General to ones as large (with products as diverse) as a Super Wal*mart.
HEB grocery stores ads run from Wednesday to Tuesday, weekly.
You can view them online at HEB.com.
In-Store or Local Store Coupons
HEB grocery stores offer free store coupons. These bright yellow, local store coupons, can be used in combination with a manufacturers coupon.
I’ve found nearly all my local HEB stores to be very coupon friendly, in part, I assume, from their massive use of these yellow in-store coupons.
They’re very good at putting the free store coupons right by the products they are good on, or you can go to the master coupon “wall” usually located around the entrance or cash registers to pick out coupons you would like to use.
I have not run into a limit on coupons, so, say I wanted 5 half-gallons of OJ that they had a $1 off in-store coupon for.
I’d simply pick out 5 half-gallons of OJ and give the cashier 5 yellow in-store coupons (and if that OJ happened to have a manufacturer’s coupon too, I’d give the cashier 5 of those.)
I’ve found that if I use more than, say, $30 worth of coupons in a particular order, a manager needs to come over and approve the transaction at the end. I’m really not certain what the specific dollar cut-off is for manager approval, but it’s somewhere around the $30 mark. The managers who come to “approve” my orders have always been encouraging and pleasant.
Though your mileage may vary with frugal coupon living, I have never had any unpleasant coupon experiences in any HEB I’ve shopped at.
Their prices are decent, and even competitive in smaller towns against Super Wal*Mart.
Meal Deals
HEB grocery stores offer a weekly “Meal Deal” which often (but not always) involves store brand items. They require you to purchase one item, such as the meat for a meal, and then give you all the accompanying items for free with their free store coupons.
So say the meal deal was for a spaghetti dinner. They might ask you to purchase 2-lbs of ground beef and then give you the sauce, noodles, bagged salad, and a loaf of bread for free with their local store coupons.
Sometimes these deals are really good. Other times they are horrible.
Don’t assume that just because they have a Meal Deal that it is a good deal. And frugal coupon living means that you never spend money on something you will not use.
I have a woman across town that gives me HEB meal deal food that she buys (because it’s on sale) in exchange for toiletries I get at other stores for free. It boggles my mind why she would buy food she has no intention of ever eating.
Expired Item Policy
My favorite part of HEB grocery stores is their policy on expired foods. The official company policy says that if you, as a consumer, finds an expired product in their store, you can have a like item for free.
What does this mean? If you’re shopping for Crab Salad, for example, and notice one that went out-of-date the day before, take that item, along with an identical unexpired item to the cash register and you get it free.
We kind of stumbled across this policy one day while shopping at HEB grocery stores.
We were looking for lunch meat on the first day of the month and found a massive amount of products that had expired.
My husband suddenly remembered that a friend had said that his father, on a limited income, frequently trolled HEBs looking for expired products to get free.
So my husband went up to customer service to ask about this policy. Here’s how it was explained to us:
Find a product that is expired, bring a like, unexpired product to the check out line
This item (and any other expired items you find) will be rung up in a separate transaction
A manager will need to be called to approve the transaction
You only get one, same kind item, even if you find 5 same kind items that are expired
If all of the same kind items are expired (meaning, there are none that are unexpired) then you are out of luck
There is not a limit to how many different kind items you can get for free
After hearing this, my husband spent the remainder of that grocery shopping trip examining nearly every item in the store! We walked away with 24 free items, a value of over $60. We even got a half-gallon of milk. Now looking for expireds is his favorite activity at HEB grocery stores. I coupon shop, he checks expiration dates. That’s frugal coupon living.