Sister Beach and I have been trying to update prices for the local grocery stores. I made a spreadsheet back in 2010 and it's amazing, and quite depressing, how much costs have gone up. Three years makes a HUGE difference!
I'm sure we don't all purchase the same items, but I hope that by sharing this, you might be able to get an idea where is the cheapest place to buy groceries.
It's been quite the learning experience trying this. As most of you know by now, Kroger has changed it's coupon policy and it's pricing methods. I used to think the "old way" was confusing enough, but now I think it takes a PhD to figure out all their sales. They have "Summer sales" (good through Sept. 8), 10 for $10 (sometimes on these it just means everything is $1, and you can purchase however many items you want), and other 10 for $10 mean you have to purchase EXACTLY 10 items-no more, no less, to get the discounted price. Now they have "Buy 4, get $4 off", "Buy 5, get $5 off", "Buy 8, get $8 off" and "Buy 10, get $5 off". Is that confusing enough?
Meijer doesn't have quite as many sales, but they do have some. They have their "Buy 10, get the $11 free" (which means you need to purchase 11 items, and they will each cost $.90 each). They also have similar "10 for $10" (but you don't have to really buy 10), or the "Buy 5, get $5 off". They also have "Price Drops" which usually last a couple weeks to a month.
I think the biggest shocker, besides the price of meat these days, was that I learned something new about the "pricing strategy" of the stores, and it BLEW MY MIND. Have I really been naive all these years?!?! You know when you go to the store and they have the "sale" tags, and right above it is the so-called "regular price"? Well, some of the stores are MARKING UP the so-called "regular price" during their SALE, so it looks like a better deal. So the pizza that was $5.99 last week, regular price, is now on sale for $5.49, with a regular price of $6.99 listed! I think it's down-right fraudulent in my mind, but that's the way they work. So you really need to know what the REAL regular price is, so you can make your own decision as to whether or not it's a good sale or not. I was in the store today and I even saw one that said, "Sale-2 for $6.00". I pulled the sale tag off and found that the regular price is already $3.00. So it wasn't on sale after all. YEP! They are doing this.
And before you put the item into your cart, take a second to check out the EXPIRATION DATE. Here again, I've been trusting the stores to rotate their products. I happened to see a post yesterday that was complaining about the local stores not rotating items, so customers were purchasing expired items. I didn't really think it could be that wide-spread. Well, I happened to be at the store today and decided to check the expiration dates on the 4 items that I purchased. Low and behold, the mayonnaise EXPIRED SIX MONTHS AGO! I heard salad dressings, mayo, and dairy products are the main ones. So check your dates!!
Ok, so let me give you a quick heads up on this Excel sheet. If you see a ( ), it probably means it's a generic/store brand name product. I didn't do this for all the items, but it's there on some. Under the "sale category", you may see two prices. The first one is the "normal sale price", if there is such a thing, lol. And the second one is one of the better sale prices, such as "Mega events", "Cart Busters", etc. Those are the prices that you want to "STOCKPILE".
Be sure to compare the oz/lb/ct on the items as it may have been cheaper to purchase a bigger bottle at another store. In the past I've done all the division and highlighted the best price for each item, but I don't have the time to do that right now. Most of them you can figure out the best price with mental math.
And lastly, remember that these are SPRING/SUMMER prices. Baking products and canned soups usually are discounted around WINTER holidays. So the prices may be quite different now, from what you were paying in November. Maybe this Nov. I'll update the prices and see how much of a difference there really is.
Download the Excel file here:
2013 Grocery Price Comparison
Happy Shopping!
