Super Savings Saturday: Discovering Extreme Bargains

We passed by what I thought looked like a scratch-and-dent grocery store on Platte Avenue the other day, and I knew I had to come back to check it out!  I found out that Extreme Bargains actually has three locations in the Springs: 3190 North Stone Avenue, 2727 Palmer Park, and the location I visited at 3112 East Platte.

All sorts of non-perishable food was available, from baking mixes to cereal to spices to personal care items.  Of course it’s luck of the draw as to what they get in, but they had a pretty good selection.  Come to think of it, I didn’t see a lot of canned goods (I could have missed them).  Here’s some sample prices of what I found in the grocery area:

• Grey Poupon mustard $1.50
• Various brands of whole grain pasta $1.00-1.25
• Energy bars 4/$1.00
• Baking mixes (cake, brownie, cupcake, etc) $.75-1.25
• Pampers Feel n’ Learn or Easy Ups $7
• Pampers wipes (216 ct) $4

The manager told me that once they clear out the Christmas stuff they’ll have more household products like cleaning supplies and laundry detergent.

I thought their prices were probably pretty fair and cheaper than WalMart, how much just depends on the product.   Now, I will say that I can get better prices on things like cereal, baking mixes, diapers, and quite a few other things buy following the sales at the grocery stores and using coupons, but there’s an awful lot of people who do all their shopping at WalMart that could probably save a pretty good chunk by making a stop here.  The food packaging is often damaged slightly, or some of the food is expired, but quite honestly the packaging at WalMart is often damaged and I’ve uninentionally bought food at Safeway that’s expired, so it’s not a huge concern to me.

I didn’t buy too much on this trip, but I did buy a jar of Grey Poupon for $1.50, a package of anchovies for $1, and a carton of Swanson broth for $1.75 – all items I needed that I have a hard time finding on sale.

They also carry a fair amount of gourmet teas and some other fancy food items like the mustard above.  Might be a good place to stop in to put together a gift basket without paying retail.  [I really wanted to buy this mustard simply because of it’s pretty packaging, but I just bought some boring old McCormick mustard the other day and couldn’t justify it.  I would be ridiculously thrilled to get this a pretty little package like this for Christmas.]

Of course, there’s more than food: they had the junior size Tinker Toy building set for $10 – retailing for $8.99 at Amazon currently, but when I was at the store toys were on sale buy one get one 1/2 off, so if  you bought two it’d be $7.50 each.  Hoover WindTunnel2 vacuums were $99, retailing for $200 at Amazon.  Christmas gift wrap was $.75, I think, and they had tons of it (I’d check it out the day after Christmas for even more markdowns, maybe).

The entire east wall of the store is a rack of western-style button up (or is that button down?) shirts for men, women, and kids (some camo gear and coats mixed in, too).  The shirts are $5 and appeared to be samples or discontinued items from other stores.  Not as cheap as Goodwill, but you wouldn’t have to tell your dad you bought his gift used at a thrift store if you paid a dollar or two more here.   My cowboy-lovin’ brother would have gone crazy at the awesomeness of cowboy shirts available to him here.

• Open 7 days a week, 9 AM to 6 PM
• Accepts cash, checks, credit cards
• Clean, well-organized (for a discount store!), friendly employees
• As with any store, know your prices before you go so you know what’s really a good deal!

The Platte Avenue store has only been open about a month.  I was told their location at Circle and Palmer Park is planning to move into the old King Soopers building a few doors down soon, which is around 36,000 square feet.  The location on North Stone is also quite a bit larger than the Platte Avenue store.  I’ll be checking out their other locations soon!

Found a store with great bargains in the Springs?  Let me know about it and I’ll try to feature it here!   If you’re the owner or manager of a store I’ve reviewed and have additional information you might think is helpful to our readers, please feel free to let me know.

See what others around the country are doing to find great deals at Money Saving Mom’s Super Savings Saturday!

Disclosure: I received no compensation in any form for this unbiased review.