Clark's Big Book of Bargains (2 page)

If you’re not a regular warehouse club shopper, you may think all you’re going to get there is a restaurant-size jar of mayonnaise. But it’s not like that anymore. They may make you buy two of a regular-size item—two supermarket-size bottles of apple juice, for example. But you don’t have to buy giant-size packages, like on an old
Seinfeld
episode.

Be careful about product sizes at your regular supermarket. The larger sizes of products used to give you the best value. But not anymore. Manufacturers figured out that people who buy the extra-large size just want more of it. They’re not necessarily looking to save money. So you’ll typically pay more per ounce—not less—by buying the extra-large size of an item rather than the regular size. That’s especially true of convenience foods. Take a $5 pocket calculator with you when you go to the supermarket, in case the store doesn’t have shelf tags with the unit prices. I know it seems tedious, but you can quickly divide the price per number of items and get a unit price, to see which size is the best deal.

If a product that you buy regularly is on sale, make sure to stock up. If your favorite soda is 89 cents for a 2-liter bottle, buy five or ten bottles. Then you won’t have to buy it when the price goes up to $1.29 a bottle. That’s a slam dunk.

Another way to save is to shop at one of the two discounters that are changing the supermarket business: Wal-Mart, which is well on its way to becoming the nation’s largest supermarket chain, and Aldi, a deep-discount chain that is spreading across the country. Wal-Mart’s supercenters, which are combination Wal-Mart stores and grocery stores, almost without question have the lowest grocery prices, because groceries aren’t as important to the company as getting people to buy items on both sides of the store.

Aldi uses a smaller store format, and while it sells both perishables and non-perishables, it limits the selection to a tiny fraction of what’s available in a normal supermarket. By doing that, it’s able to sell merchandise at a much higher volume, with lower prices. I visited an Aldi store recently and I was amazed at how low the prices were, compared to my regular supermarket. Milk was $1 cheaper per gallon. Bread was just 39 cents a loaf. Aldi sells a few brand names, but focuses on its store brands. And customers I talked with said they love the quality of Aldi’s store brands.

I went to an Aldi store a few minutes before 9
A.M.
, and people were lined up outside waiting to get in. The parking lot was full. I was floored.

Aldi shoppers said they estimate they could buy $100 worth of groceries at Aldi for $55 to $60. I saw a study that said grocery shopping at the big supermarket chains Kroger and Albertson’s costs shoppers 38 percent to 43 percent more than buying groceries at Wal-Mart.

You can save a lot of money by trying store-brand products, which, though more profitable for the supermarket, are usually cheaper, and the quality of store brands is very good in most categories. Here’s what I’d like you to do: Try the store-brand food, and if you don’t like it in a particular category, don’t buy it anymore and go back to the brand name. You’ve wasted your money one time on something that tasted lousy. But if you find a store brand you like, you’re going to save money every time you go to the store. That will save you more money than shopping in a warehouse club, buying with coupons, or any other method.

The price difference between name-brand and store-brand products is remarkable. Costco’s brand of facial tissue is 53 cents per 100 sheets. Kleenex brand is more than $1 per 100 sheets, even at Costco. So it’s double the money for the brand name. It may turn out the store brand of tissue or paper towel isn’t soft enough or strong enough and you don’t like it. So you don’t buy it again.

Don’t buy non-food items in a supermarket, period. In the non-food aisles, supermarkets are selling convenience, not economy. If you buy your toilet paper, soaps, detergents, or diapers for your kids in a supermarket, you’ll be eating up your wallet. That’s why Wal-Mart scares the daylights out of major supermarkets, because those have been massive profit categories for the supermarkets. Wal-Mart sells its groceries at a lower markup and it sells the non-groceries at a lower markup. Batteries are a good example. If you buy them at a supermarket, you should have your car keys taken away from you, because the markup on an item like that at a supermarket is astronomical. Buy them at a discount store, and buy generic alkaline batteries, which are just as good as the top brands and much cheaper. Costco, for example, had a box of forty-eight store-brand alkaline double-A batteries for about $10.50. The brand-name batteries were about $11.50 for twenty-four batteries. Buy them at a supermarket and you’ll probably pay $10 for eight batteries. You have to decide if you’re going to a supermarket for convenience or to save money, because they’re completely different things.

Supermarkets also charge more for convenience foods, but not always, and even if they do, that isn’t always bad. Something that’s cooked for you or chopped up for you may cost more than something you had to prepare yourself. But it may not.
Consumer Reports
studied prepackaged bags of salad greens, expecting to find it was a terrible rip-off compared to the cost of buying lettuce and carrots and chopping them up yourself. But the magazine found the salad bags were fairly priced.

It’s still far less expensive to buy a prepared meal in a supermarket than it is to pay for a meal in a restaurant. In 1999, the average family spent $2,116, or $846 a person, on meals away from home, according to the National Restaurant Association. Eating at restaurants accounted for more than 42 percent of their food dollars. Higher-income families, those earning $70,000 or more, spend more than half their food dollars in restaurants.

So many families today are very time-pressed and won’t cook. It’s easier to eat out than to buy the ingredients and make the chili from scratch, but keep in mind, you can spend a
lot
of money this way.

The same goes for take-out meals that are meant to replace a home-cooked dinner. Figure out the cost per person for the meal to see if it’s an economical choice. If a take-out chicken dinner for four costs $20, that’s $5 a person, which is pretty good. Or you might buy a pre-roasted chicken and make a side dish and a vegetable at home. It can be an affordable alternative to a home-cooked or restaurant meal.

So what should your game plan be for slicing your grocery bill? That’s up to you. There is no one strategy that will get it done. Try one of the things I’ve suggested, and see what you’re comfortable with. Formulate a plan and use it consistently. Your goal should be to get away from buying on a haphazard basis, with no thought or planning.

• Tips on Supermarkets •

• Shop with a list, and never go shopping when you’re hungry.
  

• Try using discount coupons, especially when stores double or triple their value. But don’t buy things you don’t need, or get locked in to specific brands.
  

• Buy at least some of your groceries at warehouse clubs, which have lower prices but less variety of merchandise.
  

• Shop at discount grocers such as Wal-Mart and Aldi.
  

• Try store brands. The quality is very good and prices usually are much lower.
  

• Don’t buy non-food items, such as paper towels or batteries, at a traditional supermarket.
  

• Don’t worry about paying more for prepared foods at a supermarket if they keep you from buying a more expensive meal at a restaurant.