Do you pay attention to the price per unit when shopping for groceries? Do you have a price book or list that you keep with you to track your "buy" prices? The price you are willing to purchase a product at because you know it is at it's lowest price. I am always intrigued when I occasionally see someone in a grocery store with a binder that looks like a price book. I am usually overwhelmed with
my coupon organizer, shopping list and 2 restless kids to consider toting an additional book.
There is only one item that I diligently track the per unit price of and that is diapers. I still have one child in diapers and we have gone the disposable route. I did cloth diapers when both of my girls were infants. I was given a set of infant cloth diapers as a gift, but when they outgrew the cloth I switched to disposable.
To save myself time and money, I have found that buying Luvs diapers at BJ's (a warehouse club) has been the cheapest for me. I tried BJ's brand diapers and I did not like them. I liked the price, but did not like the diaper. They smelled terribly of plastic and they bunched up. So I stick with Luvs, because they are cheaper than Pampers or Huggies and BJ's usually offers a $5.00 coupon off of a box. That brings the price down to $24.99 a box and my baby wears size 4. With 180 diapers in a size 4 box that makes the price per unit of .139 per diaper. I use that price as my gauge and if I find them cheaper elsewhere I will buy, but BJ's is where I usually shop for diapers. That box will last me a little over a month.
I was thrilled when I read at
Common Sense with Money about a Huggies diaper deal at Rite-Aid. I followed her instructions and I bought 5 packages of Huggies for a total of 150 diapers and a price of $57.45. I used 5/$1.50 Huggies coupons. I made 2 separate purchases and used a $5/$25 purchase coupon on each purchase. That brought my out-of-pocket expense to $39.95, but through Rite-Aid's Single Check Rebate program, I earned a $25 gift card for Rite-Aid and a FREE voucher for a package of Huggies diapers.
My final per-unit price will be .08 per diaper. I was thrilled.
Outside of diapers, I don't really track the per unit price of other grocery items. When shopping, I will look at the best price per unit on the items that I need on that particular trip, but I don't keep a price book. There are other items where I think a price book would be helpful, like coffee, toilet paper, chicken, turkey or cereal, to name just a few. These are constantly on my shopping list, so figuring out a "buy" price would help me know when I find a sale if it is a good time to stock up.
I have been working hard trying to reduce our grocery expense. Instead of a binder or book, I am going to write my "buy" price for our main grocery staples or essentials on a 3 X 5 card and keep it in my coupon file. I won't feel so overwhelmed and I think it will help me save some money by knowing when to stock up.
Do you track the price per unit when buying your groceries? Do you have a price book to manage your "buy" prices?Thanks for reading FamilyBalanceSheet. If you don't already receive FBS free updates, please click here to sign up.
Is zucchini multiplying in your garden? I don't grow it personally, but we get a lot of it in our CSA box. One of my favorite recipes is Chocolate chip zucchini muffins. The recipe is actually for bread, but to cut down on oven time in the summer, I pour the batter into muffin tins instead. The muffins take about 25-30 minutes to bake versus the hour for the bread and the recipe makes 12-18 muffins .
My watermelon. You can see the blueberry bushes on both sides of the plant.
The recipe was fairly straightforward, so I enlisted the help of my 3 1/2 year old. She was getting bored and I thought baking cookies would be fun for her. She eagerly helped me mix the ingredients and in a few minutes the batter was made and the first batch went into the oven.
