Making A Grocery Product Price Book

Do you use a price book? If so what kind do you use? A tightwad like me may use a small binder or spiral notebook to track the price book information. Someone else may use tabs in their three ring binders to separate the price book pages. The hi-tech person will use a computer spreadsheet and of course the highest tech person will use their smart phone.
Whatever the form we use, the heart of the price book is the product page. Each page will track price information for a single staple product. Down the page, we list the date, store, brand, size, price, and unit price for that product. Over time, we will be able to identify the best price, recognize special sales, and track sale cycles for that product.
Let’s start our price book by deciding our method. Mine will be a spiral notebook I just bought at the thrift store.
Next we find all those itemized grocery store receipts we have saved. If you are not saving them you should. You never know when a refund will be offered and you need that receipt to qualify. On those receipts we will find the item, price, date and store where we bought the item.
Use a calculator to find out your unit cost. Lets say a can of tomato sauce is 40 cents and there is 8 ounces by dividing 40 by 8 we know we have paid 05 cents per ounce. At the grocery store you can usually find that same information on the shelf tag.
In the beginning we will be filling in many product pages but as time goes on and our price book grows we will be able to see what the sale cycles are for our stores.
Take your price book with you every time you shop. Let’s say you see a great sale on cereal but don’t need cereal. Record that price in your notebook. That way you will have an idea when the next sale will be. Once you have recorded the price at the stores you shop at you will only need to record a price if you see it lower.
Over time, you will have built a wealth of knowledge. You will be able to take the grocery stores on. Shopping for groceries is a game and we need to win at that game.
With your price book you will know when to buy salsa at the best price and which store to buy it at. You will know where to get the best cereal prices, the best price on canned tuna fish. That way when we see the best price, we know the store sale cycle we can stock up and fill our pantry and do it all the thrifty cheapskate way.

Thanks for stopping by.. lets keep saving together and remember never under estimate the value of a small amount of money.. Grace