Skipping Wednesdays, Avoiding Samples, and Other Mistakes You're Making When Shopping at Whole Foods

You’ve got a lot of plates spinning at the same time when you’re shopping at Whole Foods. It's a delicate dance, that experience, toeing your way through premium products at exorbitant prices. The truth is, if you’re here, you’re sacrificing some savings.

But your doom isn’t as impending as it seems. There are still ways to get in and out of Whole Foods without offering any arms or legs, and what you do right is just as important as what you do wrong. Don’t make these mistakes the next time you’re shopping at Whole Foods.

If you’re an Amazon Prime member, ordering your groceries for pickup or delivery can save you an additional 10%. Use either the Amazon or Whole Foods app and order through it to take advantage of this big sleeper hit.

Whole Foods refreshes their sales every Wednesday, so if you’re showing up on a Tuesday, you’re only going to have access to the unclaimed picks of the previous sale. Get there Wednesday morning and you’ll have free rein of the new sale products.

About to spend top dollar on some cheese that you don’t even know if you’re gonna like? Give it the Blockbuster treatment and try it before you buy it. The cheese counter and deli sections are often pretty generous about letting you give things a taste.

I do the same thing every single time I go to the Whole Foods hot bar. I say to myself: “You will contain yourself. You will not load up your box so much that this meal costs you a fortune. Control. Yourself.”

It’s literally never worked. My box almost always ends up exceeding $20, and the shame that comes along is excruciating. Get in, get out, and don’t forget this place runs you $11.99 a pound.

Allergen-free products are nice of course, but are you actually even allergic to the thing you’re avoiding? Generally, these products are far more expensive. Don’t pay for it if you don’t need it. 

Related: What To Get (and Avoid) at the Whole Foods Salad Bar

The Whole Foods flower and plant section is top-notch. See what’s available — your Trader Joe’s basil plant might be dead by tomorrow afternoon, but these ones won’t be.

Related: 15 Whole Foods Wines For $20 or Less

Subway doesn’t actually have to be the only sandwich you eat today. Pull off the road and enjoy a nice clean space with clean food.

Related: A Sandwich Lover's Ultimate Bucket List

Seasonality is huge at Whole Foods, and since the produce section is on an entirely different tier than most chain grocery stores, it’s always worth it to take a stroll around and see what’s in season. 

Careful, though. I once grabbed a bag of apples without looking at the price and my jaw hit the floor when I saw they cost $10. But you know what? They were the best damn apples I’ve had in a long time.

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