Price Comparisons

Thursday

I promised to pretend shop for my groceries at 'regular' stores, because there are people who have no access to budgetary godsends like Aldi and Costco. What is a realistic amount of money that someone without Costco or Aldi might spend?

We shall find out. Meanwhile, I have done sufficient comparison shopping to implore you to never ever ever buy groceries at Wal Mart unless it is an urgent situation (like Snowfall! Accumulation! Scary! on the news), because Target has some actual competitive prices on food items, but Wal Mart is another story.

And this is another situation in which You Need Less Than You Think can be useful. How much DO you spend on groceries every week? Do you even know? I didn't. When I checked my checkbook register, I was regularly spending more than $100/week, with the occasional $300 week. Now I look at those totals and think, WHAT was I buying?

Do you know the price of a gallon of milk? Dozen eggs? Pound of butter, bag of sugar, box of cornflakes? When you start paying attention to what each of your food items costs, you can know for sure whether the Great Value! sign is lying or not.

Item Estimate               Aldi                    Costco                    Giant
Milk, $3                                                      2.95                           3.99
Frz Veg, $7                                                 6.70/80oz                  7.17/106oz (32oz bag x3)
garlic bread, $4                                           3.99(olive cibiatta)       2.50(Italian loaf)
granola bars, $12                1.98               12.70(didn't buy)            2.49 (bought)
tortillas, $2                         1.98                                                      4.22
beans, $2.40                      2.38                                                      4.00
cheese, $7.20                    7.16                                                     10.76
salsa, $1.80                       1.69                                                        2.89
taco spice, $2                    1.05                                                        3.00
fruit, $4                              6.04                                                       5.69
red sauce, $2                     3.60                                                        4.00
Ovaltine                                                                                            3.99 (bought)
cream, $2                           1.49                                                       2.39
sour cream, $2                    1.29                                                       2.10
crackers, $2                         1.69                                                      2.69
yogurt, $2                             1.99

Totals:              Aldi                   Costco                                    Giant
                        27. 77                       $13.64                                  $61.88
                                                                                                          $6.48
Weekly Grocery Total: $6.48
                                         13.64
                                         27.77  =   49.88
  
There's a very good reason that this experiment was begun in March rather than earlier. December is holiday foodstuffs. January has family birthdays at each end. February is Pugsley's birthday month, and I will tell you that I spent $60 at the Italian pastry shop because he wanted a surprise assortment from Pedigrota rather than a cake. So it's March, and other than the odd wish to cook corned beef and cabbage in my slow cooker this Sunday (odd because I'm not Irish, and Gomez, who is, isn't fond of corned beef OR cabbage), there's no holiday food purchasing to be done. Oh, wait... When's Passover?

Hm. Better budget for some matzoh.