How to Know which Grocery Deal is Better

Grocery shopping is something nearly everyone must do. It is a constant battle to make a good decisions at the grocery store, not only for good-for-us foods over junk foods, but also for the size and quantity. Often, in-store promotions will advertise a specific quantity for a “look good price”.  This is to lure shoppers to the store where they will do most of their buying. But buyer beware, not all sale prices are the best prices the store is offering. Just because it says Sale doesn’t mean it is the best deal. Here are a few tips to improve your purchasing power.

How to Improve your Purchasing Power

The most important thing to do when shopping is to look at the price/ounce. This is the bottom line for what you are buying. You can compare the smaller package that is on sale with the normal price of the larger package to find out which is the better purchase. Take a small calculator with you when you do your shopping, so if the store does not include the information on the shelf tag you can simple punch in the numbers to find out which is the better deal.

How to Calculate Price per Ounce

To calculate the price per ounce for a product take the total price and divide it by the total number of ounces in the package.
Price/Total Ounces = price/ounce
Cheese comes in 9 ounce and 18 ounce blocks. The price per ounce for the larger block is often a few cents cheaper, but when the products are on sale, the difference can be drastic.

How to Use Coupons to your Benefit

Coupons are often good for a specific size of product (or a specific size or larger). Taking the discount off a small jar may be more beneficial than taking the discount off a large jar. Here is a hypothetical example:
Peanut Butter is sold in many sizes. If you have a coupon for $0.55 off any jar 18 ounces or larger then this is how it may play out.

The 18 ounce jar sells for $1.99 and the larger 32 ounce jar sells for $3.50. The price per ounce for the smaller jar is slightly higher ($0.111/oz) while the larger one would typically save you a little in the long run with a slightly lower price/ounce ($0.109/oz). If the coupon is applied to both products then the situation changes. The price per ounce for the smaller jar is now lower ($0.08 and $0.09 respectively). The total savings per ounce would be 1 cent or 18 cents when purchasing the whole jar.

So, to get the best deal, take a few minutes to calculate the price per ounce before making your decision. The cents will add up and your purchasing power will increase with the more you save.

How to Calculate other Units of Measurements

If the price is not per ounce or it would not be a benefit to calculate using this measurement, you can apply the principle using different forms of measurements. For example, price/pound, price/square foot, or price/fluid ounces.  Each of these are calculated the same way as price/ounce. Simply take the total price of the product and divide it by the total amount of unit measurement.

How to Know if Bigger is Really Better

Sometimes the better price per ounce is associated with the larger package of a product. But, based on your personal needs or how quickly you can consume a perishable product, it may be a better decision to purchase the smaller product even if the price/ounce is slightly higher.  The reason, well simple, if you pay $3.00 for ten pounds of potatoes, but you only consume five pounds of them before they go bad, you should have purchased the five pound bag of potatoes for $1.99. The price per ounce is higher, but in reality you save a dollar by not spending more money on food you cannot consume quickly enough. The same is true for milk, fruit, or vegetables.

Happy Savings!

Do you have tips you use to save a few dollars here and there? We would love to hear from you, please feel free to leave comments or suggestions.