Money Saving Tip: Always Compare Prices

When shopping for groceries, normally you would think that store brand groceries would be a lot less expensive.  This is not always the case.  It is always important to compare prices and I’ll show you why.

 The White House brand 6-pack of applesauce is $1.76.

The Wal-Mart or Great Value brand 6-pack of applesauce is $1.92.  That’s about 8% more than a major leading brand.

Here we have some examples of yogurt.

The Dannon 32 oz container of yogurt is $1.96.

The Yoplait 32 oz container of yogurt is $2.14.

And the 32 oz container of Wal-Mart yogurt is $2.28, which more than any of the other two leading brands! 

Many people assume that the generic/store brand will be less expensive than other brands and so they automatically grab the store brand products.  As you can see here, store brands are not always cheaper.  And I have to tell you folks, these are just two examples.  I have seen many other products done this way. 

If you’re a coupon user, you can get the leading brands for even less money when you use your coupons.  I frequently receive coupons for $.50 off the large Yoplait yogurt.  You can’t get coupons for store brands, which means there’s even less savings.

Today a friend of mine posted a facebook link to this story, Wal-Mart Quietly Raises Prices.  Honestly, I had originally planned to title this article, “Watch for Rising Prices at Walmart” but decided to make this more of a money saving tip about comparing prices, no matter where you shop.  I will say though that I have done less and less grocery shopping at Wal-Mart during the past year.  It is so much cheaper for me to shop the grocery store sales for items that our family frequently uses.  I also try to stock up during triple coupon and super double coupon sales. 

Have you found store brands to be more expensive than other brands?

Tips for Comparing Price Per Unit

When shopping, it’s important to compare price per unit.  Many times it’s commonly thought that the larger the item, the better the price. That’s not necessarily true. Here are a few comparison shopping tips:

1.  Pay attention to the shelf tags in the store.  Some stores will break down the price per unit and put it beside the price of the item.

2.  Try to take a calculator with you. Even though some stores will break down the price by units, sometimes they are not equal comparisons. What I mean is that sometimes you’ll find items compared by ounces and then a similar item compared by the piece.  It can be really confusing, so taking a calculator is the best way to compare.

3.  Keep a log of the best prices you find per unit.  This doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. It can be a piece of paper that you keep folded up inside your coupon pouch.  Simply write commonly used items on the list and a target price to look for.  This way you’ll know when a good deal comes around.

4.  Be sure to factor in the coupon amount when comparing price per unit. Just today I was at Wal-Mart shopping for catfood.  Normally, it would be cheaper to purchase the 16 lb bag of cat food, but this time I had two $3 coupons.  It ended up being cheaper to purchase two small 3.5 lb bags of cat food with the $3 coupons rather than to purchase the large 16 lb bag with a $3 coupon. 

5.  Determine the need for the product.  Sometimes it is less expensive to purchase the larger item, but it’s not such a great deal if you’re not going to use the product before it goes out of date.

What tips do you have for comparing price per unit?

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