*The Cost of Convenience*
By: Alpha20FP
20 September 2007

Do you do your shopping at the local grocery store? If so, you need to stop and reevaluate your shopping methods. I use to do all of our shopping at the local grocer. Then as I got more involved with purchasing and storing preps I decided to see how I could get the most out of my dollar. There is only 1 grocery store in my immediate area. I would have to drive a minimum of 10 miles in any direction to get to the next closest store which by the way all have higher prices. The closest Super Wal-Mart is 15 miles away. Better prices but a little extra driving and gas. I drive by a BJ’s Wholesale Club everyday and have been purchasing the bulk of my prep supplies there. These have better prices than most stores. Or…..Do They???

I made a list of 50 items that our family uses throughout the year along with what our yearly usage is. I created a spreadsheet to log each item. I checked the pricing at the local grocery store. Where there were various sizes of the same thing I was able to find out from the store manager (my neighbor) what size is purchased the most. I took into account total units of measure instead of individual containers. For example: Liquid Tide detergent. I used the number of 100 oz containers sold and multiplied by 100, same thing for the 200 oz. containers. Most people buy the smaller sizes because the “package” cost less. I did the same thing at the BJ’s. There I had to multiply to get the total unit measure also. Most of their items were like three 44 oz. bottles of Ketchup wrapped as 1 package.

After completing the chart I discovered that overall my savings were in excess of $1,300. Some items had larger yearly savings such as: Cat Food ($134.78), Snuggle Fabric Softener ($100.07) and Deep Park Sport Bottles ($94.80). Other items had very little savings: Wesson Vegetable Oil ($1.99), Prego Spaghetti Sauce ($1.65), and Betty Crocker Potato Buds ($0.99).

I also looked at the savings per unit of measure. Biggest savings were: Mazola Corn Oil ($2.79/gal), Colgate toothbrush 360 ($2.33/ea), and Sterno 2 hr Gel cans ($1.69/cn). Smallest savings were: Clorox bleach ($0.007/oz), Prego Spaghetti Sauce ($0.008/oz), and Comet Scrubbing Powder ($0.009/oz)

I found that the biggest savings came from the items that were packaged in larger qty such as a 20 lb bag of cat food versus 4 lb at the local grocer. I’d rather buy 10 of the 340 oz jugs of Tide instead of 36 of the 100 oz. jugs. Last thing I need is 26 extra Tide containers. I’m buying the detergent, not the plastic jug it comes in. The items with the least amount of savings were close to the same size container in either store. Only thing that differed was you would buy a 3-pack of 44 oz Ketchup bottles at BJ’s versus the single bottle that most people buy at the local grocer.

Even though some savings seem insignificant they are still savings. What you don’t save up front in the product you will save in time and gas making several trips to the local grocer.

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