As spring begins to roll into summer, many communities are seeing their local farmers markets roll into full gear. Even in northern communities, farmers markets are starting up, with local producers already bringing fresh vegetables and items of all kinds for sale.
For those who are seeking a good deal on super-fresh ingredients, farmers markets can offer a wealth of bargains, but only if you approach shopping with a strategy in mind. Here are seven key strategies you can adopt to reduce your costs and get the most value for your dollar at the farmers market.
Be super flexible. Don’t go to the farmers market with an expectation that you will find one or two very specific things at a great price and that nothing else on sale at the market matters. If you take that approach, you’re going to be disappointed. Instead, treat the farmers market as an opportunity to buy inexpensive produce that you’ll plan your meals around in the coming days.
For example, rather than walking into the market saying that you specifically must have Swiss chard and nothing else, walk in with an open mind and look for any green, leafy vegetable, such as spinach, collard greens, beet greens or kale.
[See: 12 Ways to Be a More Mindful Spender.]
Bring knowledge. When you go to a market, it’s a good idea to know what’s in season in your local area, because those are the items that the producers at the market will have in abundance and likely at a low cost. You can use a tool such as Sustainable Table to find out what’s in season at the moment in your area. If you can bank on anything at your farmers market, it’s that whatever is in season right now will probably be in abundance there.
At the same time, it’s also a good idea to know what’s on sale in the produce section at your local grocery stores. While farmers markets may or may not directly compete on price with those items, you can use them as a baseline to determine whether or not you’re going to buy.
It’s a good idea to have these in-season items and in-store sales written down somewhere, either on a piece of paper or on your smartphone, before you go.
Do a quick loop through the market before buying anything. Before you start shelling out cash for anything, get a sense of what’s actually on sale today at the market by walking through the booths and checking out prices. You might quickly identify a seller who has a lower price on a particular item, for example, and can easily save money by buying from that seller first.
[See: 20 Tips for Saving Money at the Grocery Store.]
Bring cash. One of the most effective ways to save a little at the farmers market is to make it easy for the producers to make change. For example, if you walk up to a producer with $11 or $12 in items and offer $10 for all of it, holding out a $10 bill, the seller is likely to simply take it because it’s easier than making change and ensures that the seller will have change for future customers. Just offer exact change that’s a bit below your total and most of sellers will just take it rather than deal with making change.
Similarly, if you notice a producer running low on $1 bills and $5 bills, you can usually get a small discount by paying with those small bills. If the sellers is almost out of change, you can often get a $10 item for a $5 bill and four $1 bills.
While this isn’t a guarantee, it’s usually a very efficient way to haggle down your price a little bit. Simply making life more convenient for the seller rewards you in the form of a small discount most of the time.
[See: 10 Money Leaks to Shut Down Now.]
Bring your own bag. Another useful way to save a little bit of money is to bring your own reusable bags, so sellers don’t have to give you one of their bags in order to make the sale. Those bags do have a cost for the sellers, so when you provide a bag, you’re saving them a few cents, which does make them more open to a bit of haggling.
This works very well in conjunction with the above tip of bringing cash. Make sure you have several ones, fives and tens, then make an offer in exact change that’s a bit below the price and point out that you have your own bag, too. You’ll often get a nod and then you’ll find yourself walking out with some discounted vegetables.
Negotiate on multiple buys. If you’re buying several items at once from one seller, you’re in prime negotiating territory. Make an offer for all of the items that’s 20 percent or 30 percent below the sticker price and you may just find him taking the offer because, after all, a sale is a sale. This works even better if you’re using the above tips of having exact cash on hand and your own bag to carry off the produce.
Negotiate on late buys, too. Another strategy that sometimes works well is to visit the farmers market near the end of the market and offer to buy items just as they’re about to pick up. You can often get a good discount here by making a low offer. The only disadvantage is that by this point in the market, the vegetables and fruits on offer are sometimes picked over, so you might not get the most beautiful produce, but it will definitely be edible, and the price will definitely be right.
Using your smarts at the farmers market can get you a bounty of produce at a very low price. You just need to come prepared and have a strategy in mind.
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How to Get the Best Deal on Fresh Produce at the Farmers Market originally appeared on usnews.com
