You didn’t mean to spend that much when you walked into the supermarket…so what happened?
Everything about the supermarket is intricately planned to make you spend more than intended. The produce and fish are laid out with the planning of a stage set. The music distracts you, keeping you in the store longer. You have to search through tens of thousands of products that you don’t need, to find the handful of items for which you came. Finally, at the checkout, you are tempted once more, to get a treat and a good read, and an energy shot.
If you feel like you’re spending too much money at the supermarket, inflation may not be the sole cause. Read on for just ten of the many sneaky ways that supermarkets get you to buy more than you wanted, and pay more for the things on your list.
1.How Fresh is that “Fresh Fish?”
Your supermarket’s fresh fish counter might be better named “thawed fish counter.” It is not unusual, especially for markets in landlocked states, for that fish to have been frozen, and then thawed for display.
Once they put it on display, it may be a few days before it’s actually sold. There’s an old adage: “fish and houseguests begin to stink after three days.”
Given that unpleasant thought, you’re better off buying frozen fish from the freezer case. The plants that process frozen fish are typically in coastal areas, right where the fishing boats come in. A good example is New Bedford, MA, America’s richest fishing port. In New Bedford, fish processing plants line piers that extend for blocks. One company there, the Pier Fish Co., writes website text worthy of Herman Melville himself, when describing their serious commitment to freshness:
The seafood business is unpredictable. The fish are wild and the oceans unforgiving. The time frame to catch, cut, pack and ship product is tight. Often, every hour matters.”
Pier Fish Co., New Bedford, Massachusetts
I love that. Can’t you just feel the wind in your hair?
2.It’s Cheaper to Leave the Kids Home
If you can at all avoid it, shop without your children. The market is quite ready to use them as pawns in their game to get you to buy more.
Ever notice how the brightest, cutest, most colorful packages are on the lowest shelves? Your kids do! The powers-that-be know if they can’t wear you down and make you buy more, your children can. The store layout is designed with that in mind.
Even if you can fend off your kids’ pleas, the mere distraction is bound to lead to less careful shopping. It can be difficult to do all the on-the-spot math needed to compare prices, when you’re trying to shepherd your kids.
3.Don’t be Tempted by Checkout Aisle Impulses
Store layouts are designed to tempt grown-ups, too. Not only do they place all those sexy little treats at the end of your journey, when you know it would be just the perfect thing to enjoy on the way home in the car; they also tempt you at the end of every aisle.
Endcap displays have items that, although they may be well-priced, are probably not on your list. Always keep in mind that the store is designed to get you to spend more.
Pro hack for being less tempted by the checkout candy stand: think of all the many, many gross, little hands that have been touching them.
4.Big Stores are not Always Cheaper
Have you visited all of the stores near you, even the ethnic markets? Getting to know other local stores and their stock can be an unexpected – and fun – source of savings. Here are some examples of items on which I save by hitting ethnic markets:
- Green Tea at Chinese markets
- Feta at Middle Eastern markets
- Spices at Indian markets
- Rice at Hispanic markets
- Breadcrumbs from Italian bakeries
5.Go-withs (sticks displayed near marshmallows, etc.)
As logical as it seems to reach for that package of birthday candles you happen to spy near the cake mixes, don’t do it! They are way overpriced. Ditto for the cards, cake pans, utensils, etc..
Again, this is where knowing all of your local stores comes in handy. Discount stores and dollar stores are much thriftier sources of non-food items.
6.Gluten Free Everything: is it really necessary?
If you are losing weight on a gluten-free diet, you know how expensive gluten-free products are. The good news is you don’t need them to lose weight. It’s more likely that your weight loss is not from eating special, gluten-free products; but from the healthier foods that have replaced carb-laden foods in your diet.
Whole grain products tend to cost less that the gluten-frees, and are also healthier, because they are less processed. Your body will metabolize them more slowly, producing energy, instead of going right to fat.
7.Use a Handbasket to Avoid Overload
Opting for a handbasket, instead of a big shopping cart can really help keep you from overbuying. I drive my husband crazy with this. Then again, he tends to overbuy when using a cart, too!
The handbasket fills up and gets miserably heavy pretty quickly. It helps you stick to your list, and leaves you with no place to go, but the checkout. You will also find yourself moving through the store much more freely and efficiently when you’re not dragging that cart around like a ball and chain.
In spite of my beloved’s annoyance at my attempts to curb our spending with a handbasket, an article from The National Geographic verifies my suspicion that carts make us buy more:
We’re not helped by the size of our shopping carts. Just having a shopping cart increases the chance of our buying more—which was the impetus behind their invention by grocery store owner Sylvan Goldman in 1937. Goldman’s original cart consisted of a modest pair of wire baskets on a folding frame. Carts have since tripled in size, and they’re still growing. According to Martin Lindstrom, doubling the size of the shopping cart leads shoppers to buy 40 percent more.”
National Geographic
If I see a good deal on something, however, I will head back to the front of the store to grab one of those big carts…or maybe I’ll just send my husband 😉
8.Watch for Subtle Bait and Switch Schemes
As you may know, a “bait and switch” is when a store lures in shoppers with a great advertised price on a product, and then push out a more expensive version of it in the store.
True bait and switch schemes are illegal, but stores have a variations of it which are perfectly legal – They will put a product on sale, and then move it to a different spot. When the shopper checks the place where that product is normally found, they replace it with something slightly different, which is not part of the sale. Often, it’s the same product, but in a different size, flavor, or version.
If you’re going to the store to grab a sale item, be sure to jot down exactly which version of it is included in the sale. If you don’t see the item you want, go to the service desk and ask for a raincheck. The raincheck will allow you to purchase the item at the sale price later on, when it’s back in stock.
9. Don’t be Fooled by the Ol’ 99 Cents Trick
An oft overlooked way of saving a huge amount of money is to simply keep track of your spending before you hit the checkout. You’ve probably noticed that most prices end in 9, especially .99. Stores do this to make the cost seem less than it is. For example, $9.99 looks so much cheaper than $10.00, yet it’s only off by a penny.
Develop the habit of rounding up all these nines to the nearest dime or dollar. To show how easy it is, let’s say you have four items, and their prices are 3.99, 6.98, 9.88, and .97. Those round up to $4, $7, $10. You can expect to pay around $22. This is an easy way to get a reality check of what you can expect at the checkout.
10. Energy Shots Pump Up the Jam and Siphon the Wallet
Another temptation found at the checkout are those perky, little bottles of energy drink. For about a third of the price, you can get a cup of coffee. To quote Web MD,
5-Hour Energy says only that one of its regular shots contains about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of the leading premium coffee — which for an 8-ounce cup at Starbucks would work out to 180 milligrams. (5-Hour Energy also comes in decaf and extra-strength.) Coke’s NOS PowerShot has 125 milligrams of caffeine, and Rockstar Energy Shot has 200 milligrams. A 12-ounce can of Coke, by comparison, contains 35 mg of caffeine. Some energy shots also contain guarana, a plant that produces caffeine.”
Web MD
Supermarkets often have a coffee bar with really good prices, cheaper than Dunkin, and certainly cheaper than Starbucks. Since the market gets a great price on any coffee they want, and they’re not paying for a separate cafe space, you get a surprisingly fine cup of coffee at a bargain price.
For an even cheaper hit of caffeine, stores often have a chilled beverage display which contains the house brand of cola, tucked among the name brands, at a very low price.
