Somewhere in the archives of this blog I wrote that I shopped at the “expensive” grocery store in town. I like it for a variety of reasons but a big part of it is just habit. I had even done a spreadsheet-type comparison for the items I buy and found that it wasn’t really much more expensive and besides, it doubles coupons.
Recently another grocery in town sent me one of those coupon sheets where you get a free item each week for four weeks as long as you spend $25. The free items were good…milk, soda, bottled water, so I’ve shopped there for the last three weeks. I have found that my oh, so carefully done previous analysis didn’t take two important factors into account:
1. This store has many more sale items each week than my prior store.
2. This store offers many more generics than my prior store.
As you might guess, I’ve found a new store.
The kids went with me today and I found them getting into the price comparison game. My daughter even went looking for Bagel Bites and came back with the store brand! I’m eager to see what kind of impact this switch will have on our grocery budget over the long haul.
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I’ve switched from the expensive store too–the other store has great deals, and while their store brands aren’t *quite* as good (or as varied), the cost savings are worth it.
They’ve also recently implemented a REALLY cool self-check system where you carry around a scanner, scan the barcodes as you put items in your basket, and then check yourself out. No lines! It’s excellent.
My husband still prefers the expensive store, so he doesn’t mind stopping in when we need something we can only get there.