I just went to Whole Foods for the first time today because it is a 35-40 min drive. I absolutely loved it!!! Any pointers on how to save $$ there?

anyone??

Well, it's not the best place to save money....but I try to not buy sale items. Also, Whole Foods "395" brand are great products, and usually great prices for organic items. (canned goods, etc).

Also look for stacks of coupon booklets at the register. They are usually piled up where the baggers stand, so get one of those before you start shopping. If you can match coupons with sales, there are very very decent deals!

I buy my spices there. My store here sells them bulk so I get exactly what I need in small amounts and they're always fresh!

I'm so fortunate to have a Whole Foods about 3 miles from my house. I LOVE it. As others have said, it's not the easiest place to save $, but there are some things that are actually a pretty decent value, especially their 365 brand sparkling water. No, it's not as inexpensive as, say, Syfo, but still, for Italian sparkling water, it's pretty inexpensive at $1.25/liter. In general, their 365 brand products are really good and not too high. Also, so many of the organic/natural companies always have Qs on their Websites that Qs are fairly easy to come by. For example, Ecover and 7th Generation are great household products (toilet cleaner, dish detergent, etc) sold at WF, and you can find plenty of Qs at their sites. Another opportunity for saving right now is on the Organic Valley products. Publix put out those Qs in Greenwise, but there are some Organic Valley items that are better for me to get at Whole Foods. For example, Whole Foods has the half-dozen cartons of Organic Valley eggs, so I'd rather use a 1$ off Q with those than with a full dozen, which is all that's available at my Publix. So, yeah, it's more difficult to find deals at Whole Foods, but it can be done. As weird as this may sound, I keep a prioritized list of organic foods/products that I want to buy and how much I'm willing to spend each week at WF. and that's what I get (I buy some organics at Publix, too). Of course, when a great deal on organic foods comes along, I spend extra there (eg, most of the Organic Valley products at Publix right now using store and manu Qs). It's been difficult finding that balance!

Ditto here - we love the 365 sparkling water!

One note on the 365 sparkling water--although, as I said, I love it, I've had bad luck with the plastic bottles, so now I stick with the 1-liter glass bottles, which are only sold individually. At least at my WF they're only sold individually. The 6-pack of 1-liter plastics is cheaper than the individual 1 liter glass bottles that I buy, but the plastics just don't hold the fizz. That's been my experience, anyway, and I've tried the plastic bottles several times (I didn't want to give up on that lower price). So, based on my experience, the 1 liter glass bottles are the way to go!