The Price Book- A grocery shopper’s companion

If you are new to the idea of keeping a price book then here is what they basically are; It is a book that you record the prices, unit size of the item, and what store it was purchased at, to know what you normally pay for items. Depending on what you work with best some people just handwrite the info into a notebook that fits into their purse, while others will make an excel spreadsheet and record the prices from their store receipt onto it. The price book helps to serve you in several different ways after you have recorded your recurring items into it. First of all, it will help you be able to spot when an item is truly on sale at another store or your normal one, or if the sale is just a percentage off of an inflated price that the item is never priced at, thus making it on “sale” for its regular price. Second, you will be able to identify when the store you shop at is increasing their prices. I noticed this several weeks ago at Wal-Mart while shopping there, only to see it confirmed on Yahoo’s home page the next week….

Some people’s price books only contain the items name, the price, and what store it was purchased at. This is fine and a good start to keeping track of prices and when an item is on sale. But I really do recommend keeping track of the unit size on here as well to make your pricing book serve you better. Since so many products come in different sizes and their sale cycles will change what size is on sale from time to time it’s important to know whether the peanut butter you got the other day and wrote down as paying $1.99 for is the same size as the 18 oz. jar of it that’s on sale this week. And since manufacturers have a habit of changing a products packaging, as well as the amounts in the package during the year, you will be able to quickly decide if the price is still about the same or if the new shiny packaging is costing you a couple of ounces for the old sizes price. Another bonus to this method is being able to figure out the cost per unit of an item if it’s not displayed on the store’s shelf tag prominently. The cost per unit can be figured out by dividing the price of the item by the unit amount ( i.e.  10 ounces, 5 pounds, 550 ml etc.) to arrive at something like ” this costs 37 cents per ounce”. Knowing this can help you decide which size of the product is the best deal which, contrary to popular belief, is a lot of times not the biggest size on the shelf. 

Starting your price book and logging in all the items you normally buy will take a little bit of time, but it is well worth this investment. You can keep track of the average price of an item at multiple stores and for multiple product sizes after creating it. Combining your price book with reward cards, coupons, manufacturer’s rebates, as well as sales you will get more for your money at the grocery store. And it doesn’t have to stop at grocery stores! With all the reward programs at pharmacies such as Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid, more and more people do a chunk of their shopping at these stores that goes way beyond getting their prescriptions refilled, over the counter medications purchased, and the in-store photo services. Keep a separate notebook for these stores or give them their own section of a notebook and keep track of the items you buy from which pharmacy and what the price was. Mark beside the item if it was a buy one get one free item and note the price you paid for the one. On your next trip to that store check and see what the price of that item is when it’s not on a BOGOF sale. Did the item cost more on the sale than it does now that it’s not on sale? Keeping track of these will let you know when to steer clear of certain sales at certain stores that have a habit of increasing an items regular price before they put it on sale! It will also shine a new light on some stores “10 items for $10″ sales where they put items that are already $1 on these sales to get you to buy more of them than you normally would. There are times that these sales are great deals, and armed with your price book you will be able to spot these sales easily!

Another way to help your price book help you is getting acquainted with your store’s coupon policy. Most stores will have copies of their policy available if you ask for one while some will direct you to the store’s website to print one off yourself. Since policies vary greatly from chain to chain it helps to know what store will let you combine store coupons with manufacturers coupons ( sometimes called stacking) on the same item, what stores will do double or even triple coupon days, and what stores will accept expired coupons, which some will actually. For instance, all the Kroger stores where I live will double the first 6 manufacturer’s coupons up to a value of 50 cents each. Another example would be Rite Aids coupon policy on buy one get one free coupons, if they are running a BOGOF sale on an item that week and you bring in a coupon for the same item that is a BOGOF coupon then they will accept the coupon and you get both items for free…

There will be an upcoming post about the big  pharmacy chains where we will be discussing  their rewards programs, coupon policies, and their prescription savings programs and compare them side to side.

I hope this encourages at least some of you all who havent created a price book yet to go ahead and make one. If you do put together one let me know how it goes for you and how much you think it is helping you save money. For those of you all out there who already have one I’d like to hear your opinions as well, especially anymore tips on creating one or if you put any additional information in yours that I don’t put on mine.

Have a great Thursday everyone! Friday is just around the corner!!

Jessi

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