An Eye Opening Trip to the Grocery Store
Mrs. Donna Venning


Coupons, bulk buying, sale or clearance items; there are many things you can do to save money. But the number one tip for how to truly save money on your grocery bill is….to be wise. Product prices can change from region to region, store to store…one of the smartest ways to save money is to take a little time to investigate for yourself and determine where your best prices are.

There are a number of ways to do this: shop the ads, comparison shop or bulk buy. I once did some comparison shopping and the results were eye-opening.

I began by making a spreadsheet of the ingredients I needed for three recipes that I routinely make and then printed that spreadsheet out. Over the next week, I went to four stores (three grocery, one warehouse) and recorded the prices into my spreadsheet. I compared apples to apples; what I mean is, for my chili recipe, I’m particular about the brand of beans I buy, so I checked the price on that brand at each store, even if the store brand was cheaper. However, on items that I am not brand-loyal, such as a can of stewed tomatoes, I recorded each store’s cheapest, non-sale price no matter what the brand.

My logic behind doing things this was was that I wouldn’t be “shopping the sales.” I know with a little effort and preplanning, I can always find things on sale by shopping ads. But my reason for comparison shopping was to determine which store had the lowest “regular” prices on items. That way, if it was a tough week or if I had to shop in a pinch, I knew which store I could count on for overall low prices. I mean, if a store has eight items on ad for low prices, but my other 22 items are at their regular price more expensive, I might not come out ahead in the long run. And I’m not going to make a habit of going to several stores every week. So, what did I discover? Read on…

When I was done, I discovered that the lowest “regular cost” was $11 and the highest cost was….$28! Yikes. A $17 difference! That’s huge (one large reason was the cost of non-sale chicken was quite significant between the two stores). Now, I rarely pay the “regular” prices for this recipe because I buy on sale, with coupons when products are on sale. I buy chicken cheap and freeze it. But this experience was still an eye-opener for me, because this price variance told me that one store was significantly cheaper than the other, especially when I just need to go shopping and not worry about the prices. Since I live within five minutes of four major supermarkets, gas isn’t a concern and you can bet that the store that came in $17 cheaper than it’s highest competitor has me for a regular customer.

I share this to say that although it was time consuming to do that week, it was a relatively small time commitment to receive in trade when I see how much money I save on a routine basis.

You could do a similar price comparison a little at a time; jot down a few items in your brain (your day planner) and the next time you’re at the store, record the price of that item. Then, next time you’re at the warehouse store, record the price per item; ditto for the next time you happen to be at a different supermarket. Don’t forget to check out your local warehouse store. If you’ve got the room to store stuff, you’ll probably come out ahead by buying items there. See our other article in this ezine about bulk-store “bewares.”

PS: And a note for those of you who are shocked to read that I have a recipe that could cost as high as $25. Remember that I make this recipe often and it lasts three meals for our family (less fresh veggies), so I buy things (like beans) when they’re on sale and the recipe actually pans out to be quite inexpensive. I figured with sales and buying ahead it usually comes to around $8 and that’s for three meals! I rarely make a recipe that only lasts one meal. That’s my other money saving tip: find recipes that can be spread out or make more than one meal from. Hey, perhaps we’ll use that as a topic in an upcoming TEACH Talk!