I like to go to two grocery stores a week for my groceries. One, Tony’s, has rock bottom prices on produce, deli meat, and cheese. In the other areas of the store, I find their prices higher, so if I do all of my shopping there, much of my savings is lost when I buy the rest of my groceries. The other store, Food4Less, has some low produce prices, but overall, I find prices for the majority of the items I buy to be relatively low.
My husband complains that I am probably losing the savings from shopping at both stores because of the high cost of gas. So, this week, when I went shopping, I priced out items at both stores and the amount of gas the trips took. Here is what I found:
The Cost of Groceries
If I bought every item at Tony’s, my bill would be $76.08
If I bought every item at Food4Less, my bill would be $106.75
(Note: Tony’s had chicken breasts on sale for $1.49/lb., so I stocked up and bought almost 13 lbs. Food4Less’s chicken breasts were $4.28/lb, a price I would never pay, but that explains the discrepancy in the totals between the two stores.)
By buying the sale items at each store, my grand total was $65.69. (You can see the shopping trip here.) By shopping both stores, I saved $10.39 off the price of shopping Tony’s alone and $41.06 off the price of shopping Food4Less alone.
But that is only part of the equation. I must also compute the gas I used.
The Cost of Gas
Our minivan averages 20 miles per gallon. I will compute the cost using gas prices in our area, currently $4.29 per gallon.
Tony’s is 2.8 miles away, and requires 1/8 of a gallon of gas at a cost of .53
Food4Less is 4.9 miles away and requires 1/4 of a gallon of gas at a cost of $1.06.
Two drive to both stores requires 1/3 of a gallon of gas at a cost of $1.43
Final Analysis
Shopping Tony’s alone: $76.08 + .53 in gas = $76.61
Shopping Food4Less alone: $106.75 + $1.06 in gas = $107.81
Shopping both stores: $65.69 + $1.43 in gas = $67.12.
Even after computing the current high price of gas, it is still worth my while to cherry pick the sales at my two favorite grocery stores. This week doing so saved me $9.49.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Great job! If you shop like that every week you should save about $500 with your current strategy!
for me it’s not an option to go to just one store, because of the way we eat, but I do consolidate my stops into one day, for a four week menu cycle, and then only go to one store, one other time half way through the cycle. not making a bunch of stops through the month has saved me a lot of money-both in gas, and by not being tempted to pick up all those extra things when you just run in for ‘one thing’
My wife does the same thing, she shops at three places. They are relatively close to each other so gas is not an issue. Eventually time could be an issue.
My husband worries about the time investment too, but I estimate that it only takes me an additional 30 minutes to shop both stores. On this particular trip, that would give me a “wage” of $20 per hour, which I consider worth my while.
Great analysis! That’s wonderful. You’ve motivated me to do my own and see what saves us the most, thanks!
I shop multiple stores as needed. We have 5 major chain stores plus two Wally-worlds (which I will only shop at in a world has come to an extreme end so basically NEVER and I don’t care how “cheap” they are – the stress isn’t worth it) within 4 miles of our house in Houston so it’s not a huge investment in distance especially since depending on which way I go home I drive by at least 2, usually 3. I mainly shop the “big 3″ – Randall’s, HEB, and Kroger. The other two chain stores seem to have cheap sale prices but it’s mostly processed food and I don’t speak enough Spanish for the one store!
Sometimes it’s not worth the time to go to another store – especially if it’s only for one or two items and the sale price isn’t that great – unlike your great chicken score.
Our local regular Target (also within the 4 mile zone) is expanding their grocery section so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of deals they have (won’t be a Super Target though).
Hi Melissa. I really enjoy these types of every day cost benefit analysis discussions. I recently did one on using a rain barrel. Thank you.
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