It’s a great week at area markets and stores for deals on grain-based products: Cereals, breads and pasta.

Shaw’s will instantly discount your order by $10 when you buy 10 boxes of Cheerios, Chex and other General Mills products for $25; use manufacturer’s coupons to save more. Stop & Shop is knocking $4 off four [...]

Soup’s on . . . Progresso’s Traditional soups, the kind with chicken and meat, can be found on sale this week at a number of supermarkets. Prices on the 18.5- to 19-ounce cans vary by store, though. It’s priced at $1.25 a can at Market Basket, at $1.33 a can at Shaw’s, and on a “Buy two, [...]

Among the current supermarket circulars, Market Basket’s seems to offer a number of good bargains. Specials on the flier cover include boneless, skinless chicken breast and Italian sausage both for $1.99 a pound; its brand of cooked ham for $2.99 a pound; half-gallons of its brand of milk for $1.39; and fresh asparagus for $1.99 [...]

The calendar matters sometimes in shopping for supermarket specials. With two chains in the area, Stop & Shop and Shaw’s, running their weekly sales Friday-Thursday and two other chains, Market Basket and Hannaford, on Sunday-Saturday weeks, it can pay to scan the circulars quickly after they arrive.

If you’d done that last Thursday, you’d have [...]