One of the "gems" of bargain shopping that I enjoy are freight-damaged goods stores. These are stores that buy items from big chains like Wal-mart and then resale below normal retail price. Often times a pallet of cereal, for example, will have one box that was smashed and therefore the whole pallet gets sold off to an outside buyer.

In the Memphis area, the one freight-damaged goods store that I've been able to locate is Penny Wise Discount Grocery in Olive Branch, MS. (If you know of any other stores, please leave a comment!) The availability of items varies, so you have to hit them at just the right time. I still do not know when that time is, but I do know you can call them ahead of time and ask if they've received a big shipment lately.

Today we were in the Olive Branch area, so we stopped by Penny Wise. I was pleased to find their shelves well-stocked! I got several cans of beans for .49 cents each as well as 28-oz cans of Organic Crushed Tomatoes at .99 each. Another find is Cascadian Farms Organic Granola - $1.75 for 13.5 oz. And one more deal worth mentioning, Mott's Natural No-Sugar-Added Applesauce cups - 6 cups for .79 cents.

Penny Wise is opens at 9am Monday - Saturday and generally always has a good selection of canned vegetables and breakfast cereals.