Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Day 261 and Grocery Stores

With the stock market in turmoil and the prices on everything going up, saving money where you can at the grocery store is more important than ever. The grocery stores work hard (and who can blame them?) to get you to spend as much money as they can.

A few weeks ago, Tom did the grocery shopping for me. To make it simpler for him, I organized the list by aisles so he could just go through Aldi's and find what was on the list. This reminded me of how when we first got married and I did most of my shopping at Jumbo's, they used to have a map of where everything was located. I could organize my list by that map and zip in and out of there in no time flat. I loved it! I guess they figured out they could make more money by moving things around and making us hunt for it. Because since they got rid of the maps, every time I turn around, things are rearranged. It's very annoying, and Wal-Mart does the same thing too.

Something the stores do that make you think you're saving money is those items on the end caps. They put items on them so you'll think they're on sale when often, they're not. Either the store has an abundance of them and needs to get rid of them or the manufacturer has paid for that spot. The thing that will help with that is being familiar with the prices.

Even just a sign on the shelf does not mean an item is on sale. A trick I remember from when I was in high school and worked at a grocery store was putting a sign on something that we had a back stock of to try and move it.

The trick is to be aware. Be aware of the ways the stores are trying to get you to part with your money. Be aware of your own temptations to part with your money. LOL.

Does anyone know of any other tricks of the trade that the stores use?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I do know that today I shopped at the Commissary and even there prices have went up. The economy is making it hard to live sometimes. One trick I do see is all of the prepackage stuff. Yes convience is nice but is it worth the extra we pay for it? Of course not.