Bigger isn't always better. . .sounds simple enough right?
When you are out shopping how often do you assume that "family size" packages are cheaper without really comparing prices?
As I eluded to earlier this week, the grocery purse strings in our house are cinched as tight as they can possibly go. Push came to shove today though and I had to do some shopping for essentials. One of my essentials included frozen fruit for my husbands daily breakfast smoothie. At first I grabbed a large bag of mixed frozen fruit, the bag labeled "family size". On a hunch though, I noted the per ounce price and headed down the aisle to the smaller bagged frozen fruit. And what did I find? The smaller bags were on sale and priced .02 cents cheaper per ounce than the bigger bag already in my basket. Score one for frugal shopping!
The take home lesson in all this though is:
- to check your prices and price per unit
- do not assume store brands are always cheaper, compare everytime you shop
- use your calculator! Store pricing labels do not always calculate the price per unit in the same units for the same items.
- Case in point, today I scored big when shopping for toilet paper. Using my calculator I realized that a 12 roll of name brand was cheaper than the store brand. The price tag was misleading at first glance though because the price per units between the two brands was different, thereby giving a different value.
- use coupons whenever possible to make your purchases even cheaper
I ALWAYS compare price per unit and like you said sometimes you have to compare yourself becasue they don't use equivalents. I too find it funny when the family size or larger packaging is more espensive because you would think it wouldn't be but there are more times than not when it is. Sometimes I've even noticed like a big box of graham crackers on sale was still more expensive than buying 2 smaller boxes. Way to be frugal!!
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