Unpopular opinion: the dented can shelf at my Food Lion in Raleigh cut my grocery bill in half
I was walking past the clearance cart near the back of the store about two months ago when an employee named Dee waved me over and pointed at a whole shelf of dented cans and bruised produce marked down to 50 cents each. I grabbed 14 cans of beans and tomatoes plus a bag of slightly soft peppers for $9 total, and that haul made three dinners and a big pot of chili that fed me for four days. Now I swing by that same cart every Sunday before I even look at the regular aisles, and my weekly food spend went from around $60 to $32. Turns out most of that stuff is fine, the dents were just on the label side. Does anyone else have a specific store or section they hit first now?
Dented cans are such a cheat code and people sleep on them. That cart at the back is the first place I check at my store too, right before the meat markdowns hit around 8am. Half the stuff is only banged up on the label side so the seal is totally fine, and you can't beat 50 cents a can. Kind of funny how Dee the employee is the real MVP of your whole grocery budget.