On the topic of changes in my life lately (see previous post), I made the choice earlier this year to start buying my groceries somewhere different. I promise I’ll get back to fun, crafty posts eventually. But we all know how much I like idiot data experiments related to grocery stores.

Now, there are only three grocery stores in the town where I live (Safeway, Walmart, and Grocery Outlet), so I am aware that choice is mostly an illusion… but I was simply ready for a change. Either way, I started shopping at Safeway more often in February.  Since then, I’ve become a little obsessed with their membership rewards program. 

For those of you who don’t know, Safeway has a program called Safeway for U.  Besides offering a bunch of weekly coupons, the program also allows you to earn points for shopping at Safeway.  It’s usually $1 spent = 1 point, and you can exchange these points for certain rewards. It’s basically arcade prizes for adults. If the prize is a free block of cheese.

Among everyone I’ve talked to about this, perhaps the most popular reward option is exchanging points for discounted fuel through Safeway Fuel.  You can exchange increments of 100 points for $0.10/gallon off of gas.  I believe you can exchange up to 1,000 points for $1.00/gallon off gas.  What if I told you that’s likely not the most valuable way to use your points, though?

Early in my Safeway loyalty, I decided to exchange 100 points for $0.10/gallon off gas one day.  I drive a fairly small car whose fuel tank is 11.4 gallons total, according to the owner’s manual.  Of course, I try to fill up before my gas tank reaches empty, so I seldom purchase more than about 8.5 gallons of gas at a time.  Please pardon the amount of arithmetic coming up, but if I bought 8.5 gallons of gas and used 100 points for $0.10/gallon off gas, I only saved $0.85 off my gas purchase.  

However, another reward option Safeway offers is to exchange 100 points for $1.00 off of your purchase in the store.  Do you see where I’m going here?

Extending that example, if I exchanged 1,000 points for $1.00/gallon off gas, I would only save about $8.50 total.  Conversely, if I use the 100 points = $1.00 off my purchase ten times, those same 1,000 points would save me $10.00 from my grocery bill.  

Beyond these two choices, Safeway offers many other rewards that are objectively a better value than using points for fuel discounts.  I was intrigued, so I went through every reward Safeway offers and noted the non-sale price of the reward/items at my local store.  I divided this cost by the number of points you need to exchange for that reward, which left me with a ratio of reward value per point.  The greater the ratio, the better the value that reward is.  This is what I found:

Now, this is where it’s important to remember that value is actually a very subjective thing and there are some caveats to this data.  

• Safeway points expire.  If your points are about to expire and you find yourself in need of gas, but you don’t need groceries, then using those points on fuel make sense being that you only have your points to lose.
• Accounting for personal taste.  Even though an 8-piece package of Café Chicken from the deli is objectively one of the best values for the points, it isn’t worth anything if you are vegetarian.
• Sale prices affect the relative value.  If one of the reward options happens to be on sale, it reduces the value ratio in a way that may make it a relatively worse option.
• Some reward options change periodically.  Between the time I initially collected my data in March and now (6/27/2025), I noticed many of the reward options have changed – so I updated my data. Safeway likely refreshes their reward options from time to time to increase engagement in their program, and also to hedge against price increases of specific products. The data here is based on prices from my local Safeway and the rewards available as of 6/27/2025.
• Some of the reward options are nonsensical. For example, you can exchange 500 points for either $7 off of a produce purchase or $7 off your total purchase. $7 off your total purchase is obviously the more flexible and useful option.
• The reward options may be individualized. I haven’t been able to verify the reward options that other Safeway shoppers in my area have available, but it is possible Safeway offers different reward options to different people.

Finally, there is a threshold in the amount of gas you can purchase where it does make it a better value to use your points for a fuel discount. It merely needs to be a better value than the reward option with the highest value ratio.  With a little bit of algebra, it becomes apparent that if you are planning on purchasing more than 24.98 gallons of gas in one transaction, you will save more money using your points on fuel rewards compared to redeeming points for any of the other reward options Safeway offers.  This isn’t the likeliest scenario, but some larger vehicles have gas tanks that large.  For reference, the gas tank of a standard Ford F-150 SuperCrew pick-up holds 26 gallons (according to Google).  Where g is gallons:

(This also works if you exchange 200 points for $0.20 off, etc. since it always reduces to $0.10100 points.)

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For everyone out there who’s curious, I chose to start shopping at Safeway instead of buying my groceries at Walmart for a variety of reasons.  Of course, part of it is in my attempt at “voting with my dollars” by choosing the better option among those I have available to me.  But the real reasons I switched?

• Safeway’s app/website is better.  At least it is on my phone.
• Safeway still offers smaller shopping carts.  Our local Walmart has transitioned away from offering smaller carts or baskets as an alternative to full-sized shopping carts.  I am a household of one, so a full-sized shopping cart is often overkill for the amount of items I purchase in a trip.  I appreciate the speed and agility I can achieve with a smaller cart or basket, and I also don’t buy as many extra things.  Plus, Safeway’s small carts have cup holders.
• Safeway offers a more pleasant shopping experience.  The store is smaller and quicker to stop into for one or two items.
• Shopping at Safeway or Walmart ends up costing about the same, on an average basis.  If you need one specific item, the truth is that Walmart is often the cheaper alternative.  However, I have found that if you plan ahead, shop with the sales, and stock up on non-perishable items when they are on sale, then my grocery store bill from Safeway ends up being about the same as Walmart.

The only downside to shopping at Safeway is I tend to run into so many more people I know.  This is unavoidable in a small town, but sometimes I want to have a messy ponytail and not see everyone I’ve ever known.  But my only real option to alleviate this is to move.  Oh well, you can’t win them all.