My First Impressions of Bottom Dollar Food

Lately, in the Philadelphia area I’ve been hearing a lot of radio commercials for a new supermarket called Bottom Dollar Food.  Bottom Dollar is what is known in the supermarket industry as an “extreme-discount” grocer, a store along the lines of Save-A-Lot and Aldi.  An extreme-discount grocer is one who can sell their wares cheaper than your run-of-the-mill large-scale grocery store by having smaller stores, smaller staff, and less merchandise than your typical supermarket.  You will also find a large percentage of goods in these stores are house brands.

I was asked by a rep of Bottom Dollar Food if I would be interested in checking out one of their stores and letting you all know what I thought.  I have been intrigued by the ads and the store website, and anxious to try out the store, so I of course said YES!

I made my first trip there this week.   I visited the Bensalem, PA store.   I didn’t bring my coupons, because I wanted to check things out and see how the everyday shopper would experience the store.  The first thing that I noticed was that the store was much smaller than my regular supermarket.  However, this was a nice change for me.  There’s nothing I dislike more than realizing (at the end of a long shopping trip) that I forgot something at the other end of the store.  Heck, I’m so lazy, I have been known to say, “Ah, forget it…I’ll get it next time!”  Oddly enough, even though the store was smaller, it felt very spacious, with plenty of room in the aisles.  The store was very clean, and the staff was helpful and friendly.

I didn’t make a list, because I’m a disorganized mess because I wanted to just explore the store and see what they offered, and pick up a range of things my family would use.  Below is a photo of what I got on my first visit.  I spent a total of $58.40, with only using one coupon that was a peelie on a package.  My haul included about 7 lbs of meat, several pounds of fresh produce, snacks, drinks, a week’s worth of lunch for the kidlets, whole grain bread, eggs, and hubby’s favorite soap and pickles.  One of my fave deals?  A 3 lb. bag of onions for only 99¢!  The same bag sells for $2.49 at the market I usually shop at!

My Haul from Bottom Dollar Food

Yes, you read correctly, I used a coupon at this extreme-discount grocer!  That’s one of the differences between Bottom Dollar and their competitors such as Aldi and Save-A-Lot.  Bottom Dollar also offers their store loyalty card that you can load with e-coupons!  How excellent is that?  Their coupon policy is readily available on their website, and is very clear.  Love that!

Another difference is that Bottom Dollar offers a LOT of national brand merchandise as well as their house brands.  At Aldi and Save-A-Lot, you only find a few national brand items peppered in among their house brands, which comprise the majority of items available at their stores.

However, there are also some similarities among these extreme-discount grocers.  Everything is strictly bag-your-own.  If you do not bring your own bags, you can opt to buy reusuable bags (I believe they were $1) or plastic bags, which are 5 for 25¢.  They have bagging tables along the front of the store for you to bag up your goodies.

All in all, I was very impressed by my experience at Bottom Dollar Food, and I will definitely be visiting again.  As a matter of fact, you should watch this space in about two weeks for some video footage from my next visit!  I’ll also be taking my receipt to my usual store to do some price comparisons, so you all can get a feel for the savings that are possible with Bottom Dollar Food.

I hope you all found this helpful and that you’ll check out Bottom Dollar Food to experience the savings for yourself.  You can click here to see if there is a Bottom Dollar Food near you!

Disclaimer: I was provided with a gift card to facilitate this review.  As always, my opinions are my own, and influenced by nothing other than my experience.