Starving Student Meal Deal

Of the two main Syracuse grocery stores I frequent, the closer, more convenient option is my least favorite. However, my opinion was slightly changed last night after a particularly fruitful shopping experience. Tops offers these "Family Meal Deals" where you buy one relatively large ticket item and receive all of the meal fixings that go along with it for free. This week's deal featured a chuck roast with an assortment of veggies, dinner rolls, cupcakes, and a two liter of soda.

The nice thing about this meal deal is the consumer has some choice in the ultimate cost of the meal. My boyfriend and I swung for the least expensive chuck roast at $22.62. But the Family Meal Deal could also be a good excuse for a shopper to splurge a little and purchase a larger portion of meat thanks to all of the savings from the "free" grocery items. Instead of spending $38.87 on a nice pot roast dinner, we only paid the cost of the meat.

The Deal
http://www.topsmarkets.com/WeeklyAd/Store/362/

It's a great deal not only for families pinching pennies but also all of us poor college kids out there who deserve a nice meal every once in a while. It's enough food to split with a whole group of friends so if you ever want to have a family meal with your buddies, have everyone pitch in a few dollars and you'll all be eating like kings even if you're broke.

Our haul - someone may have snatched
 a cupcake before I snapped the photo
(2 liter bottle of soda not pictured)

Don't you love seeing the word FREE