Save money: comparing grocery store prices
With the price of food inching up, you might be tempted to cut back on your grocery shopping bill. Here's a quick-and-dirty way to compare prices --- without wasting too much gas, which is also plenty expensive.
Every market has 'loss leaders' designed to draw you in, where merchants hope they can earn money selling you other products and services.
Your task: identify which supermarkets sell the most things you regularly purchase at the lowest prices. Trent Hamm over at The Simple Dollar suggests you compile a most-frequently-purchased list and then, take it to one of the three or four stores you're likely to patronize for a regular shopping trip.
As you're picking you what you need, jot down the price of items on your list. Add the size and/or quantity to guard against package shrink. Then do it again at the other stores.
Finally, tally up the bills and expect to be surprised, he said.
A price book can also help you determine when a sale's really a sale --- i.e. cheaper than the store's regular price, but not necessarily the lowest price for a product.
You could probably also glean a lot of information about sizes and prices from supermarket receipts from past shopping trips, if you've still got them handy.
Categories: Budgeting, Cheap/Frugal, Shopping
