Unit Pricing, Store Brands, And the Math That Saves Money

Fast Fact And Why Stores Win
Jeff 0:04

Fast fact. A good aroma alters a customer's perception of quality. Research published by marketing experts Lindstrom and Cotler revealed that consumers are willing to pay 10 to 15% more for the exact same product if it is sold in a pleasantly scented room compared to an unscented one. I'm Drew Thomas, and this is Bank Chats. As as we started talking about it.

Drew 1:15

Yeah, we had a whole bunch of different topics and we didn't know how they were like fitting together. Like you know, what episode four specific like this one is in-store shopping, pretty much.

Jeff 1:24

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? The the thing is, uh, you we kind of said uh at one point, I think we said last last month that this was gonna sort of be a series that we were gonna do. And while it is, obviously, I'm I don't know if two makes a series, but you know, we're we're gonna say that it is. Yeah, yeah. Um there may be more coming after this. It's it really depends a lot on the feedback that we get. Um, you know, we would love for people to like, subscribe, all that kind of stuff, and and give us feedback in the comments and and text us and whatever. You know, there's the link in the if you're listening to us on a podcast, there's a link in the description where you can actually like text the show, yep, yep, uh, and give us feedback. So if you if you have feedback, if you have questions, either stuff that we covered before or stuff that we are going to cover in this one that you will then later have questions about because you can't have questions about what we haven't talked about yet, uh, let us know. Yeah, I guess is the point. Yeah, yeah. But today, like you said, we're talking we're talking in-store shopping.

Drew 2:24

In-store shopping, yeah. How to how to get the the the most bang for your buck and and what to look for for you know sales. And um, I think we're gonna we're gonna get into like kind of product placement and unit pricing and that kind of stuff.

Jeff 2:38

Yeah, yeah. So this is I I think that this is kind of interesting stuff because there is a real psychology to uh shopping, and there's a psychology to how stores encourage you to shop there and and stay there subliminally, like you don't even know, right? Yeah, right. Yeah, so what's how are we gonna start? What's the first thing that

Unit Pricing That Beats Sale Signs
Jeff 2:59

we're gonna talk about?

Drew 2:59

Okay, the first thing we're gonna talk about is unit pricing. So Drew and I went around to uh various uh stores and and took some little video clips to kind of show you, you know, a first-person view of what we're talking about. Yeah, so we're gonna throw in one of those clips or two of those clips right now, and then we'll talk about that after. So let's talk unit pricing for a second. Here we have 75 square feet of everyday Reynolds wrapped aluminum foil for 597. That comes out to eight cents per square foot. If we come down here just a little bit, we get the same Reynolds wrap at 225 square feet. Now it is more expensive, 1697, but that comes out to 725 cents per square foot. Now it's not a big difference, but over 225 feet, that does make a big difference. So sometimes it's better to buy a bigger than smaller.

Jeff 3:54

Alright, so this is this is where stuff gets really, really complicated. Take a look at this. You've got this brand of uh chip here, right? And they're offering this bag at eight ounces. Now, but you can see what this bag looks like, okay? Here, you've got the same appearance to the bag, same size, right? But look. Seven and three quarters ounces instead of eight ounces. Now, how crazy is that? Add to the fact that they've got two different sales going on with the two different size bags. So here, this is 53.7 cents per ounce. This down here is 55.4 cents per ounce typically. So if you're buying this bag of chips on a regular day without a sale, 429 for this bag, same thing up here, okay. Now you've got family size or party size versions of this, okay. Here you've got this as 13 ounces, right? And typically you're spending $5.99, right? Or $46.7 per ounce. So typically on an everyday, this is a much better deal per ounce than this, okay. However, you've got sales going on right now. So this sale is you buy four of these, and you buy four of these, and you get each one for a dollar ninety-nine. Or you can come over here and get these, buy two, get one free. So, which is your better deal? Well, as it turns out, over here, you're spending twelve dollars to get thirty-nine ounces worth of chips. That works out to be in just under 31 cents per ounce. Over here, you're spending eight dollars because you gotta buy four. So you're spending eight dollars to get about thirty-two, thirty-one ounces of chips, which is uh about 25, 26 cents per ounce. So this is your better deal uh today as opposed to this. Um it's crazy, absolutely crazy. You gotta keep an eye on this stuff. I mean, you gotta do the math to figure out which way is better for you.

Drew 6:13

What is unit pricing? Um, so on a on a usually on the um the price tag from the store, there's a a smaller um different color usually uh price that gives you the per unit price, whether that's per ounce, per pound, per foot, per whatever. Right. And that's a good way to um give you the opportunity to compare different products of the same class to see, you know, um one may be you know two cents per unit and the other maybe three cents per unit. So that lets you compare and contrast pricing for two of the same type of products.

Jeff 6:47

Yeah. Okay. And you can you can see that in some of the video too, I think, that that we've uh shared. Um, but yeah, what I think is funny about that in a way is that uh it didn't used to be that way. I mean, typically, and that's a relatively new development for a lot of things, you know, to actually have that per unit price right on the price tag for people.

Drew 7:07

Yeah, and that there's there's different laws with that too. Like it's not it's not a set in stone like every store has to have it. Every every state is different. Uh it depends on the size of your store, the number of products in your store, and that kind of stuff. But it's becoming more popular, yeah, definitely.

Jeff 7:22

Yeah, and uh grocery stores I think are are big on it, obviously, because there's a a a wide variety of things that you can buy in a grocery store compared to say if you're going clothes shopping or something like that. Right. And you know, normally um I guess maybe it's just a little easier when you're clothes shopping or or shopping for a computer or a TV or something. You're not typically buying multiple of the same item. So it's it's there's there's less of a buy three sweaters, get one free type thing, usually. Yeah, because maybe you don't need four sweaters, but you want four boxes of sweet, tasty, delicious treats of some kind of thing.

Drew 8:03

So it's it's good for bulk items and it's good for um meats and stuff too. So uh it that's like on a different um different um price tag. Uh that would be on the individual package usually. It's like, you know, hey, uh you're gonna buy ground beef for um I don't know, ten dollars, but the unit price is five dollars a pound. Yeah, so same same type of thing, yeah.

Jeff 8:25

Yeah. Okay. So um um so how about an example? Yes, how about an example?

Drew 8:32

So example that we that we found example that we found online. Um so container A is $4.99. Um container B of the same type of product is $2.99. Um, but it it container A costs more, but the per ounce is lower, so that makes it a better deal. Okay. Okay. There are drawbacks to buying in bulk too, like that. Um, you also have to take into account your waste. So it may be a better unit price or lower unit price, but if you're buying in excess of something that's perishable that you're not going to use entirely before it goes bad, um, that's something to look out for. And space um is another another thing to look out for. So it may be um cheaper to buy 24 rolls of paper towels from your local Costco, but you have to store those 24 rolls of paper towels.

Jeff 9:24

Right. Yeah, now now things you you're right about the storage. I completely agree there because uh if you have a small apartment or something, maybe you just literally don't have room to store all of this stuff. Right. The nice thing about things like paper towels, as your example, um, for me, is that they're not really perishable, right? So if you buy 24 paper towels, you're gonna eventually use them. They're not you're not gonna have to throw them away because they spoiled or went moldy, right, right. As a as if you bought like 24 uh loaves of bread or something along those lines, right? But the storage is is is a definite uh a definite thing to consider. You're I I agree with that. Um yeah, go ahead.

Drew 10:08

So I'm just saying so so the the lower unit cost is not always the the best way to go, depending on your situation. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff 10:15

Um now if it is you you you mentioned spoilage, right? So uh or uh so essentially that's like if I uh go to um um I don't know, Sam's Club or something along those lines, and I buy these gigantic uh boxes of cereal. Yeah, right. Yeah so I buy two gigantic boxes of Fruit Loops, and and compared to going to the local grocery store, the two gigantic boxes of Fruit Loops, I'm I don't know if I'm buying Fruit Loops, but you know is is is cheaper, right? But if I end up throwing away a box because it goes bad, yeah, it's not really cheaper, right? Right, because I really only bought one box for that price, not two. Right, right. Because I didn't consume it. Good, good, uh, good example, yes.

Drew 10:58

Okay, okay, all right, cool. Uh what else we got? Uh we can move on to segment two.

Store Brand Vs Name Brand Reality
Drew 11:04

Uh store brand versus name brand. Okay. So most stores have their own store brand, or a lot of stores have their own store brand, and they're usually cheaper. Um, so there was a consumer report did uh did a study um comparing store brand versus name brand. And out of that uh test of 19 brands, 10 tied, uh the national brand won eight times, and the store brand won once. Now when you say when you say one, you're talking about like the quality or the taste. This was a taste. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Um and and the one the um the store brand was a uh uh local to kind of this this region. Can you guess uh what what store that might be? Giant eagle. It was a giant eagle. Giant eagle. Giant eagle, yeah, broth, like uh chicken broth. Oh, yeah, who is drinks chicken broth?

Jeff 12:07

I don't know. This is along the lines in my brain of whenever you see dog food that says new and improved taste. Says who. Yeah, right. The dog's gonna eat it either way, yes.

Drew 12:18

Says who, yes, yes okay, but fair. All right, fine. Yeah. Um but I guess the the what the we can get at is that a lot of times the store brand is a lot cheaper than than the the name brand. Um and a lot of times the name or the store brand is made by producers of name brand as well. So they're producing the same factory.

Jeff 12:40

So now you hear that sometimes, and then or or there's assumptions. There's assumptions, yeah.

Drew 12:45

Yeah, because well, so the the the store brand can change the manufacturer, and I mean a lot of times they don't tell you who the manufacturer is, right? It's not on the label or anything like that, and they can change it on the back end, and you never know. But yeah, there are assumptions that certain store brands are made by certain name brands.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Yeah.

Drew 13:02

And do you want to play a little game to uh to kind of go through that a little bit? Do I want to play? Of course I want to play a game. All right, okay. All right, um, Aldi's Millville cereal is often made by who? Uh so that's the brand.

Jeff 13:19

That's the brand. The brand is Millville. Millville. Okay. Uh well, I'm guessing it's one of the big ones. So General Mills. You're right, yes. Okay. Aldi Aldi Mills. I only say that because of Millville, so I thought maybe General Mills was.

Drew 13:30

Oh, I didn't even think of that. Yeah. You're good. Okay. Um, Great Value Peanut Butter is made by Oh, Great Value Peanut Butter.

Jeff 13:42

Now, see, that's that's a that's a brand I can I have a small story on, but um we'll stick with yours though first. I I'm I JIF seems like it would be big. Um, but I I'm trying to think of colors.

Drew 13:56

And I think this color goes along with I don't know if you've I don't know what's okay what color are they? It's it's a red, I know because I buy I buy great value peanuts. Okay, fair enough. It's a red uh so maybe like Peter Pan? It is. Is it Peter Pan? Okay. So I'm trying, I'm trying to think of that too. You know. Um Great Value uh white bread.

Jeff 14:17

Oh, I'm gonna go with like well, like like Sunbeam or or or Wonder. Sarah Lee. Sarah Lee. Sarah Lee's often known to make great value white bread. So is it nobody does it like Sarah Lee or nobody doesn't like Sarah Lee? Oh. I don't uh because I there's some debate on what their tagline really is. Because you could think they both they both sound good, but I yeah, yeah. It's not listed anywhere. What the actual I don't know, it probably is.

Drew 14:48

I was just curious what your opinion was, because I have my opinion. I I honestly don't know the answer. Well, I I'm an I'm a store brand guy, so um, I apparently like Sarah Lee. Yeah. Okay.

Jeff 15:00

So uh that's interesting. I didn't know that. All right. Yeah. Um great value ice cream. Oh, great value ice cream. Uh you're an ice cream fan. I am, but I I, you know, I'm like a you're the bougie uh ice cream fan, huh? Not really. I'm looking, I'm like a convenience store Turkey Hill guy. Like I like, you know.

Drew 15:19

Well, it's it's close to Turkey Hill, I guess. Uh so Briars? Uh blue bunny. Blue bunny. Blue bunny. Interesting. Makes uh great value ice cream. Okay. Um Kirkland signature coffee.

Jeff 15:33

Oh boy. I I'm guessing maybe one of the big ones like Maxwell House or Folgers. Starbucks.

Drew 15:41

No way. Yeah. See, I I'm not a that's interesting. I'm not a coffee snob or anything like that. I mean, I I I brew my own coffee and I don't care what it is because when I put you know flavored creamer on it, in it, it just tastes like the flavored creamer.

Jeff 15:56

So yeah, that's that's fair. I mean, I use flavored creamer as well. Well, you know that. I mean, I I you know, and I'm I'm kind of like stuck on one, but I I do change it up once in a while.

Drew 16:05

But I go for whatever's on sale, and and it recently the coffee game, it's been all like pretty equal. Like the the name brand and and the store brand, at least for my shop, about the same. So I've been switching brands like crazy, I guess.

Jeff 16:20

Yeah, now see, like my wife tends to do the coffee um selection. Okay, and she she likes certain ones, and and to be fair, they definitely do taste different to me, even with the creamer. I can usually tell that there's a difference in the coffees. Yeah, yeah. My big thing is, and she's really good at this for me, like she usually tries to make sure that it's like the 100% Arabica, okay, just because otherwise I get like heartburn. Oh, okay. And I drink so much coffee. So you should try. So the 100% Arabica like really gets rid of the heartburn. Other than that, I'm like you, I don't really care what the brand is.

Drew 16:53

Okay.

Jeff 16:54

So yeah.

Drew 16:54

You should try cold brew coffee if you don't drink cold brew coffee. Okay. Um, because that so when you when you heat up um coffee grounds, that's the tannins come out, and that's what makes it bitter and gives you heartburn. Ah. So they say if you do cold brew and and then those tannins don't leach out into the coffee and it's not as bitter, and it doesn't give you heartburn. That's interesting. Yeah, so try to try it. I know you're not a cold coffee guy, but I'm not up at the market.

Jeff 17:19

Yeah, I'm not I'm not typically, but you know, I'd be willing to give anything a try. I mean, the United States is the only country in the world that drinks more iced tea than regular than hot tea. Uh I didn't know that.

Drew 17:31

Yeah, it's just a wealth of like random facts.

Jeff 17:34

I am a wealth of random facts. That is true. But it is true. The United States is the only country in the entire world that drinks more iced tea than hot tea. Huh. Did not know that. Yeah.

Drew 17:43

All right, so what else you got? Uh who else do you got? Uh Kirkland Batteries. Uh Starbucks. Close. Duracell.

Jeff 17:55

I mean Kirkland is Kirkland, right? Yeah.

Drew 17:58

Uh okay, yeah, interesting. And then the last two, I I mean, we don't have one of these around us, so I don't know if you're gonna know it, but um Trader Joe's pita chips.

Jeff 18:08

Uh yeah, they think the closest Trader Joe's is like in state college or something. It's like an hour and a half away or something like that. Um, but their pita chips I who makes pita chips?

Drew 18:18

Stacey's, yeah. Uh okay, yeah.

Jeff 18:21

And uh Trader Joe's pistachios. Um the green bag? Like the the whoever makes the green bag that just says pistachios, wonderful pistachios. It's just it's just a black and green bag that says pistachios. Yeah, you know, so it's I I honestly don't know. That's terrible marketing on their part. I have no idea who the brand is. I just know the bag.

Drew 18:44

Yeah, it's green for some and it's black for others, and it depends on if it's shelled or not. Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, that's interesting. Pistachio eater, but I think we both see mine too.

Jeff 18:56

She loves pistachios. I I'm not really a pistachio person.

Drew 19:00

She eats so much that we don't buy the name brand because it would, you know, yeah. I'd have to sell something to afford enough pistachios.

Jeff 19:08

I'm I'm not typically a name brand snob either. And matter of fact, but but there are definitely times when I we have uh encountered things, and great that that goes back to that great value story that I sort of teased a minute ago. Um, so we were uh for a while there, we were really on a Pop Tarts kick. Okay. Uh we were eating like, you know, the because they were easy to just grab one and take it and you know, um, get your sugar high for the morning or whatever it was. And uh, but because we were on such a kick on them, we decided, you know what, we're we're spending way too much money on Pop Tarts. Let's let's uh look into a sort of sprawl brand, right? Yeah, yeah. So we bought now to be fair, this is going back several years, so they may have gotten better, but we bought the great value uh Pop Tarts. And there was a reason why they were cheaper, and it was because when you opened up the cellophane, right, and you looked at the uh like typically like a Pop Tart has uh I'd say maybe a 70% icing coverage on that pastry, okay, right? I mean, it's easy the the the the edges are are bland pay or like sort of blank pastry, but it's mostly covered. The great value ones had this like weird, like right down the center. I mean, it was probably about a 30 to 40 percent coverage. Oh wow, and the rest of it was just and I was like, Well, there's your safety.

Drew 20:28

I was gonna say, yeah, how much do you value the icing? Yeah, I mean, yeah. Uh if you're a filling guy, then that might be okay. But if you were in it for the icing, then you might want to shell out the extra. See, to me, like the Pop Tarts, like they're two, I mean they do make plain Pop Tarts that don't have any icing, but for me, I I need the icing. Yeah, yeah. And that's a marketing thing too, huh? Because that's the same price whether you have icing or not.

Jeff 20:51

That's true. That is very true. Yeah, yeah. Um, which sort of leads us into some of the other stuff that we were gonna talk about today, which is you know, understanding like your uh your your uh sizes and and how much you're getting with for your for your price, right? So um, so we're definitely gonna get to that. I I I I be honest, I'll be honest with you, I think I think I lost my my spot.

Drew 21:10

Where are we at? We are on oh yeah, I got one more, one more not fact, but I guess it is fact uh that um this this uh report also noted that um consumers were um as likely to so if if the price of uh name brand products came down to meet store product pricing, um over half of those customers uh uh mentioned that they would switch back to the name brand, which makes you know think that you know it's just a pricing thing. It's not necessarily a uh a preference for gotcha, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff 21:53

So um I'm trying to think of other examples of of of non name brand things that we've tried over the years that have been

Drew 22:00

Either good or bad. Uh one that sticks out to me that I actually prefer um quality wise over uh uh for um store brand versus name brand is chocolate syrup. Really? I'm a big I'm a big uh ice cream guy too. Okay. Um and I don't care what flavor it is, I'm putting chocolate syrup on it. Fair. Okay. Um great value chocolate syrup. I beats Hershey's, in my opinion. Really? Definitely why? I it has a more chocolate flavor that's not as processed flavor, I guess. Okay. Yeah.

Jeff 22:33

I was wondering if there was a lot of I was I was wondering if you were gonna say a particular taste, and and but you you may maybe it's what you it's not as sweet, I don't think.

Drew 22:44

Okay, it's more of a and because I'm a dark chocolate fan too, so it's more of a it's a cross between like a dark chocolate and a milk chocolate.

Jeff 22:51

Because I've I've I've seen things online where people from uh outside the United States uh you know, we we we eat a lot of Hershey's chocolate in this country. I mean, because it's it's in so many other it's not even just in Hershey bars, it's in it's used in in Hershey stuff and you know across the board. Yeah. And um there's a lot of people in other countries that can't stand Hershey's chocolate, and it's because there's a particular uh ingredient that they add to the chocolate, because in the United States we associate that taste with chocolate that nobody else does, and everybody else thinks that it tastes kind of like vomit.

Drew 23:31

Yeah, which is weird. I've also heard that that like Hershey's and other other manufacturers of chocolate do make uh a different variety in different countries. Like the the the like you said, the taste of American uh Reese's peanut butter cups is drastically different than Japan's Reese's peanut butter cups. Yeah, whatever.

Jeff 23:47

Yeah, the formulation's different, yeah, different, different palette and so forth. Yeah, yeah. Um okay, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

Yeah.

Jeff 23:54

Um you gotta you're gonna watch some of that stuff on the on the thing too. Like I'm trying to think of uh the other the only other example I can think of that we tried one time that was was less than was um so uh the without getting into like a ridiculously detailed explanation, right? My my my wife makes egg salad. Okay, right, usually around the times of year like Lent and so forth whenever we're eating less, you know, meat. Right. And so she makes egg salad. And her egg salad is fantastic. But see, my daughter doesn't like uh celery uh per se. Okay, she she doesn't mind so much the taste, but she doesn't like the texture or the like the crunchy stuff in the in the in the egg salad. So when she was younger, my wife figured out, hey, I could buy celery salt and add the celery salt to the egg salad, which gave it that celery sort of umami flavor without having the physical like you know bits of celery in it, right? Uh if you buy store brand celery salt, okay, it is like 90% salt.

unknown 25:01

Okay.

Jeff 25:02

Right? Okay and about 10% like powder celery or celery seed. Uh, you gotta buy the name brand stuff to get actual like celery flavor in it because I mean, yeah, it technically is celery salt, but there's no there's no regulation on what the ratio has to be. So therefore the the cheap stuff is like, well, it's way cheaper to get salt than it is to get celery seed, so we're just gonna make it mostly salt. Good to know. It was interesting, good to know. Yeah, so you gotta watch that kind of stuff too. You gotta kind of see like what's in it, look at the ingredients, yeah, and compare stuff like that too, store brand versus name brand to see um if it really is like a one-to-one type thing or not. Sure. Um uh medication's another one. Uh, a lot of times, like if you're buying like ibuprofen or um acetaminophen or any of those things, like it's really not that different. If 325 um milligrams of of of aspirin, whether it's made by a name brand or a store brand, is still 325 milligrams of aspirin. That's a really good example. So uh you gotta, you know, you could you can a lot of times you can save money on things like over-the-counter pain medications, things like that by buying the store brand versus buying the name brand. Uh if you don't care whether or not it has a special orange coating on it or not, for example, you know. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, there's that too.

Drew 26:25

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

Yeah.

Drew 26:26

All right. Next, next.

Food Dates And Cutting Waste
Drew 26:28

Um understanding food dates and preventing waste. Oh, see.

Jeff 26:33

Okay, now you're gonna get me. I'm gonna get you. Yeah, well, no, I mean I mean you're not gonna get me, but I'm just like this is good. Go ahead.

Drew 26:40

Okay, we'll we'll see how this goes. Let's watch the video. Uh the FDA actually only requires uh an expiration date on baby food. You can see here that they actually even have it uh stamped into the metal at the bottom of the can of the baby food. So um in the video I showed baby formula, and uh baby formula um is the only uh product that is required by the USDA to have a um a date on it. Um everything else is a best of used by or best of freeze by, sell by. None of the other dates on other products are for um food safety necessarily. Okay. For quality. Okay. Yeah.

Jeff 27:29

So that's good to know. Yeah. Um now that being said, you know, there was um you don't want to eat something that went moldy or rancid, right? Right. So you've got to look at the if if there's a date on it, it's probably there for at least some reason. Right. But some foods are gonna be more beholden to those dates than others, is I guess what you're saying.

Drew 27:51

Right, right. Now, yeah, and and the the one that really made me think was in grocery stores, you see a lot of like sale items on like meats and stuff like that, like big yellow um uh price tag, like reduced, you know, to 50% of whatever it is because it's reached that or it's close to that um sell by date. And I I never I mean, I I use the sell by date as a best buy date pretty much, but it's not that that's like that's for the the stores to know how fast they have to rotate through their products and stuff like that.

Jeff 28:22

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, now now what I will say though is you you have to be a human being in in some cases and actually use your senses. Yes. And and I don't necessarily mean just your mental like acuity. I mean like literally smell the stuff. Yes. Uh look funny, looks funny, taste funny, spit it out. Yeah, yeah. Don't eat it. Yeah, yeah, you know. Uh I don't care what the the best buy date is, you know, and um uh things like uh I so in today's world, we've gotten into a situation for a lot of people, and uh myself included, where we either uh have like people shopping for us and then bringing it out to our cars and throw loading it in the car, or we have people delivering our groceries to our house. Uh we're not in the stores as much shopping for ourselves because a lot of us just get road rage when we go into a grocery store.

Drew 29:13

See, I'm the opposite. I I'd rather yeah, I'm not a people person always. Um, large crowds kind of are like, you know, I get over it real quick. Yeah, that's one thing. I I always go into the store. I I never do the the the let someone else shop for you because I do want to look at the dates and stuff like that.

Jeff 29:29

Yeah. And if for for us, like a lot of times I will say, you know, um, okay, look, if it's boxed, if it's pre-packaged riceroni or uh cereal or something like that, I fine. You you you want to let somebody pick it out and throw it and bring it to my house and drop it off or put it in my car for me. Uh whatever, I I don't care. But um produce, meat, yeah, I'm a little more leery about. I I still there's still part of me that likes to go and pick out my own fruits and vegetables and things. Yeah. Um, because you know, you you're a little more persnickety whenever you look at something yourself, you know. Now, that being said, to your point about the best buy dates and so forth, in the United States, we throw out a ridiculous amount of perfectly edible food just because it doesn't look nice. Yes. So, you know, just because the apple has a little bit, I mean, you can eat around a bruise, you can you can cut off that piece of celery that maybe doesn't look the greatest, as long as the rest of it is edible. Why throw away a whole stock of celery just because there's one brown leaf on it?

Drew 30:32

Yeah. What one of these um articles said stated that 30% of the food that we throw away is perfectly still for perfectly good for consumption still. Yeah. So to your to your fact that you throw away so much edible food. Yeah.

Jeff 30:46

Yeah. And I would I would have to assume that that goes for packaged foods as well. The stuff that says, you know, best buy, yeah, best buy this date or best by that date. It really might just be a for best taste. You know, if you want these it's quality, yeah. Yeah, if you want these canned peas to taste as much like fresh peas as possible, eat them by this date. Otherwise, they're still edible, they just might not be as tasty.

Drew 31:13

Right. Certain certain canned foods are good for a year to and number of years past their best buy date. Frozen foods, I mean, it's the same thing. I mean, yeah, if something's frozen, it's usually good for years.

Jeff 31:26

Yeah. Yeah. Now that being said, once if if you like, okay, let's go back to your meat example, right? You you buy that uh that meat that has a date on it of tomorrow, yeah, right, and you take it home and you don't cook it that day. Yeah, right. You decide to throw it in the freezer instead. Yeah. Uh yes, that will slow down any kind of you know, contamination, spoilage, whatever, for a significant amount of time. However, when you thaw it out, cook it that day. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Right. That doesn't so that doesn't sort of reset the time, it just stops it wherever it is. So if it was gonna go bad tomorrow or or the day after, the day after that, like it's still gonna do that. It's just you're just slowing it down. So make sure you're eating it, you know, if it's frozen or something, relatively quickly after you thaw it. Don't just let it sit in your fridge again. Yep, yep. Um, whenever I I can tell you this story. Whenever I was so when my wife and I were first getting together, we were when we were moving in together, we were moving out of my apartment. Uh, or we were moving me out of my apartment, I should say. And uh so she was going through all my my cupboards and things like that, right? Yeah, and in the back of like my top cupboards or whatever, like she found like canned stuff that was like stuck to the shelves because it was stuff that I had been given probably by my parents or something when I first moved out, and then I just didn't eat it. Yeah, and then I kind of forgot that it was there. Yeah, don't eat that stuff just because the canned stuff lasts a long time, yeah. If it's literally leaking and stuck to your shelving, don't eat it. Just throw it away.

Drew 32:54

Yeah, if it's if it's swollen, if it's dented, that that's uh a telltale sign that it might not be good anymore. If it's something high in acidity, um it it'll go bad faster than something that was a lower acidity. Um the cans that have uh the easy open, like the little tabs, those go bad faster than a can that you have to use a can opener. Really? Yeah, well, air gets in it can get into that. Um where the you know, where there's the seal is the seal, yeah, yeah. Interesting. Okay. So yeah, just I mean, just like you said, just use your best judgment. If it looks funny, smells funny, throw it away.

Jeff 33:29

Yeah, but at the same time, you know, from a from a cost saving standpoint, a pricing standpoint, right? That doesn't mean that just because you know, if you take a a um a box of cereal out of your cupboard and you're like, oh my gosh, this is you know, the the the date on this box is um you know, two months ago, for example, and it's still sealed, it it's never been opened, whatever, and you you you take it out and you and you open it up, and it's not there's nothing wrong with it, and like there's nothing that's gotten into it. Um, it still smells good, it's still you know, okay, so the oat in the cereal might be a little more gummy instead of you know um crispy potentially or something like that. That doesn't mean that it's unsafe to eat, it just might not be as high quality, enjoyable, yeah. Right. So um, and sometimes that's you know, hey, you know, you gotta cut corners where you, you know, sometimes, you know, and and and just say, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna eat the the box of slightly stale, you know, cereal instead of going out and spending another six bucks this weekend to buy it again, have one bowl out of it, and then sit it in the counter uh and the cupboard and let it go stale. Yeah, yeah. Uh to your spoilage point.

Drew 34:35

Yeah, yeah. You know, um, and back back to the buying in bulk thing too. You you can buy in bulk on certain items and and preserve them by like vacuum sealing and freezing um to save save extra money that way. Yeah, I mean that that that totally makes sense.

Jeff 34:50

Um yeah, I mean, I you know, and and I get I mean, I guess you could, you know, you can go into the whole idea of like growing your own stuff too, but but it depends a lot on where you that costs a lot of money too, though. Yeah, I mean like and where you live, and yeah, yeah. You know, uh around here you can have a garden, you know, uh or whatever, but you're only gonna get tomatoes for a few weeks a year. You're not gonna get it, you you can't unless you're gonna get into canning uh and all that kind of stuff, you're not gonna be able to have tomato, you know, homegrown tomatoes 52 weeks a year in most places.

Drew 35:25

Yeah, yeah. It costs a lot of water, and if you use fertilizer, it costs a lot for fertilizer and pesticides if used pesticides. The one because I I garden and I have fruit plants and stuff like that. Uh that was one of the the big um perks over the summer when there was that stomach bug going around on fruits and and vegetables and the lettuce and stuff, yeah. So I I we knew that we were definitely safe if we ate everything out of our garden.

Jeff 35:50

So fair, yeah, yeah. Um I think I I don't know if I brought this up on a previous show or not, but do you remember the there's the concept of victory gardens? You had mentioned that War II and stuff. Yeah, I mean, so had no idea what that was, yeah. Yeah, but a lot of a lot of my grandparents and stuff, they all had gardens.

Drew 36:04

Oh, yeah, it's really kind of gotten less it's it's more of a hobby now, yeah, and less of a um a lifestyle, I guess. Yeah, yeah, I suppose. Yeah.

Jeff 36:14

So all right, how else can we try to save some money on groceries? Because honestly, they're they're getting expensive.

Shrinkflation And Hidden Price Increases
Drew 36:19

Uh uh watch out for shrinkflation. Okay. What's what is it? So shrinkflation is shrinking the size of your product without necessarily shrinking the price um per unit or in total. Yes. Gotcha. Okay. We see that quite often. Or sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's like right in your face, and it's a marketing ploy, you know. Yeah. Um, one good one is um gum now. Um back when you used to get gum that was in like the blister packs, you know, there would be like, I don't know, what, three rows of nine or of three. So we'll say nine, nine pieces of whatever. Now there's one less piece and and it's where your thumb goes, and you're supposed to pull it out from there, you know. Of course. Yeah. Oh, it's so much working. Now I can get my gum out of the package so much easier. Yes, or Oreo thins back in back when they first came out. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah.

Jeff 37:16

Um you know, one one of the uh things that I I noticed was we buy um because we're Western Pennsylvania and we're we're we've got Polish running through our blood, we get like Kobasi a lot. Yeah. And uh we noticed uh about a year ago that the brand of Kobasi that we typically buy, um, it comes like in like a an one of those like easy peel um wrappers that you're you know, like it's like the plastic wrappers. And you could obviously tell that the wrapper had originally been designed for a certain length of of like link. Yeah, right. But they had just used additional shrink like like sh like a vacuum ceiling and shrunk it down, and you could they had lopped off probably about you know 10 to 15 percent of each link, yeah, and used the same old packaging and called it same price, yeah, yeah, you know. Um, yeah, that gets you, yeah, you know, for sure.

Drew 38:13

You recorded a video, we'll we'll play that. It has a little bit to do with shrinkflation. Oh, yes, yes, let's.

Jeff 38:18

All right, so this is this is where stuff gets really, really complicated. Take a look at this. You've got this brand of uh chip here, right? And they're offering this bag at eight ounces. Now you can see what this bag books like, okay? Here, you've got the same appearance to the bag, same size, right? But look, seven and three-quarters ounces instead of eight ounces. Now, how crazy is that? Add to the fact that they've got two different sales going on with the two different size bags. So here, this is 53.7 cents per ounce. This down here is 55.4 cents per ounce typically. So if you're buying this bag of chips on a regular day without a sale, 429 for this bag, same thing up here, okay. Now you've got family size or party size versions of this, okay? Here you've got this as 13 ounces, right? And typically you're spending $5.99, right? Or $46.7 per ounce. So typically on an everyday, this is a much better deal per ounce than this, okay? However, you've got sales going on right now. So this sale is you buy four of these, and you buy four of these, and you get each one for a dollar ninety-nine, or you can come over here and get these, buy two, get one free. So, which is your better deal? Well, as it turns out, over here, you're spending twelve dollars to get thirty-nine ounces worth of chips. That works out to be in just under 31 cents per ounce. Over here, you're spending eight dollars because you gotta buy four. So you're spending eight dollars to get about thirty two, thirty-one ounces of chips, which is uh about 25, 26 cents per ounce. So this is your better deal uh today as opposed to this. Um it's crazy, absolutely crazy. But you gotta keep an eye on this stuff. I mean, you gotta do the math to figure out which way is better for you. I like me with some potato chips.

Drew 40:38

Yeah, but so in that in that in that video, you know what the same brand, um, but two different flavors had two different amounts of potato chips in them.

Jeff 40:46

And that's that's what that's what got me whenever I was recording that thing, and I'm like, you're talking a half, or I'm sorry, a quarter of an ounce? A quarter of an ounce. And obviously the bag looks exactly the same because it is the same physical bag. It's just that you know, when they inject those chips down into the bag, you know, on the machinery, it's it's a quarter of an ounce less for the flavored ones as opposed to the the the regular and same unit price, right? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I mean, it just um yeah, same unit price, but but if you again you go back to that those little like per ounce uh things that you saw in the video, the one was you know uh uh like a what a cent and a half difference right per ounce. Yep, yep. Um yeah, it's it's crazy. Ice cream is is another one that they've done the whole shrinkflation. Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh whenever I was a kid and you bought a half gallon, like you'd go to the store and you'd buy you like ice cream. It first of all was in a cardboard box and you had like a lid and it was like it wasn't like it was like just a like a folded cardboard box. Yeah. Um, so you had that, but it was literally a half gallon brick of of ice cream. Uh these days now, when you look, a lot of times the the the packaging looks a lot larger than it is because if you take the the package off the shelf and you flip it over, you'll notice there's like a there's like a half an inch um of like the outer shell that extends down past the bottom of the actual packaging.

Drew 42:16

Yeah.

Jeff 42:16

So that you on the shelf it looks like it's so high. But if you actually looked at the package, it's actually this high.

Drew 42:21

Yeah, and I'm sure that there's um some reason that they you know that they claim it's a good thing. Yeah, to make it look like it's more than I'm sure they have some reason that they claim that, you know, yeah, that it helps do something. Like um bottles is another another good one. The the dimple on the the bottom of the right. I can't remember what they call it. There's a technical name for it. If I find it, I'll pop it up. But it's um that that that hole or that dimple is getting larger and larger on bottles like bottles of wine or bottles of soda or not soda, but like um sports drinks, stuff like that. Sure, yeah. Um, that's supposed to be to strengthen the the structural integrity of the bottle, but it also takes out some of the liquid that should be in there, yeah, right, right.

Jeff 43:04

Conveniently reduces the volume of the bottle without making it look like it's different, right? You know, uh it's like that old magician's trick where you had to like you you poured the milk into the paper, into like the um the uh like newspaper and then couple of the newspaper and showed that the milk's on. And it you have to use milk because it's a double-walled glass, and if you used water, you could see that there were two levels. It was just it's it's you know pouring itself in. It's the same thing, you know. Um I I uh see that kind of stuff all the time on on packaging and and and stuff, and I think to myself, you know, you used to be able to get uh X number of, you know, uh and sometimes it is a unicut, like X number of waffles in a box or something like that.

Drew 43:45

And they they cut two of the waffles out and you know, um Did party size now or family size now is like the size of the the normal bag of chips or whatever that was five years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff 44:00

And and you can even see that in that video. You know, there's this the the party size version and the regular and you know you're you're talking uh what was it uh like a five what was it five to five and a half ounces difference or something like that to go to the party size, you know. So um you just gotta be careful of that stuff. Just make sure you're looking because in like in that example, in some cases the party size, if you if everything was the same and and not on sale, the party size would have been a better deal, but because it was on sale, it it wasn't. So you gotta keep an eye on it.

Drew 44:33

Watch your unit prices, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes buying two of of something is is cheaper than buying one of the bigger.

Jeff 44:39

Yeah. Yep. Um what else do what else what else uh sort of gets impacted by that? Um I would say things like probably like uh like well, okay. So the the other thing that they do a lot of times too is whenever you you look at things like uh toilet paper, they'll they'll say, you know, oh you get um you know 2,000 sheets of toilet paper. I don't know about you, but I don't believe in my entire existence on this planet have I ever taken a single square of toilet paper off of that, you know. I don't care if I'm blowing my nose. I don't use a single square of toilet paper. Yeah, yeah.

Drew 45:18

So you know, by really by single. It's a weird unit, yeah. It's weird, yeah. And toilet paper is a good one too. You have to look at uh single ply versus double ply. Ooh. Oh yeah.

Jeff 45:27

Um yeah, single ply toilet paper, probably not a good idea, but uh but um uh what uh what else is in there? Um anything else that you can think of that we should that we should mention when it comes to like the whole smaller package, but you know less in it?

Drew 45:45

No, package weight, item count, unit price.

Jeff 45:48

Yeah, yeah. Uh you mentioned the Oreo thins. The what the one that got me the one time, do you remember the um do you remember the time when we were gonna go back and pick on Hershey's again? Okay. Uh do you remember whenever they they put out the Hershey's Kisses that were the the ones with the Hershey's kisses that had like the um they were called uh air, they were called like arables or something like that? Where they had uh air air bubbles or something like that. It was like, oh, it's such a such a velvety texture and all this kind of stuff. It's like, no, it's less chocolate.

Drew 46:16

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or are Reese's um peanut butter cup thins. Yeah. Another one, yeah, yeah, with Hershey's.

Jeff 46:24

I'm like, I'm like, my gosh, like you're literally drilling holes in the in the Hershey's kisses, and you're selling it to me like it's some sort of a diet thing or some sort of uh a new texture of this. It's no, it's less or less in the package.

Drew 46:36

Girl Scout cookies is another great one. Yeah, I mean the the number of Girl Scout cookies. I mean, it's good for my my waistline because I fair I can't eat as much, or I have to buy more boxes, yeah.

Jeff 46:47

Yeah, but you're right, you know, especially the ones that what are the ones that one of my favorite ones are like the Samoas. Like I love those things, yeah, and they're called different things in different parts of the country, yeah. Yeah, um, but the um the those are the ones that they come in like a like a uh like a plastic um little little molded thing. Yeah, yeah. And I'm pretty sure that there used to be like three rows of the same number of cookies. Now there's two rows on the either end, they're the same number, but the row in the middle it has like four fewer cookies in it. Yeah, so it's yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

Drew 47:19

There's a there's a store brand that that is very close to to taste uh to Girl Scout cookies. Oh, really? Yeah, it's uh a Dollar General brand. Um if you ever want Girl Scout cookies on in the off season outside outside of Girl Scout season, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um that's a good one to look up. Yeah. Okay. All right, let's go on to the next one.

Eye Level Tricks And Store Layout
Drew 47:38

What do we have? Uh location. Um, so we have we have a clip of we're we're still in the the baby formula aisle, but um we'll we'll throw this clip up.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Okay.

Drew 47:48

One way that uh stores in general to try to get you to spend more money is if you put all the expensive products at eye level. Formula is a good example at least in the store. The products that are the most expensive are at my eye level $59, $42. If you go up above just a little bit, your prices either are $12 and down below you have $21. $21, $23. So if you don't need a big container of whatever, um look up and look down. So the the the the clip says that most of your higher price products are gonna be eye level, and it's it's actually after doing a little bit more research, it's the higher margin um products are gonna be centered. So not necessarily the your highest priced item, but uh the the items that you're the store is gonna make the most on. Sure is gonna be at eye level.

Jeff 48:50

Yeah, and I guess that makes sense. I mean, it's playing on the uh laziness of the average American, right? Because we don't want to bend down and pick something up off the off the floor or something like that. It's just easier if it's at eye level. Um that's interesting though. Yeah.

Drew 49:05

Um for me, it's so I buy eye level just because not not because I'm lazy, but it's like okay, maybe the top and the bottoms are not rotated as much as like everybody's buying out of the center of the the oh yeah, the the shelf. So I'm going to buy there because I know that product is constantly being turned over as opposed to the one that's collecting dust on the top or bottom, or whatever, you know.

Jeff 49:31

Yeah, well that and that kind of goes back to the whole Best Buy dates thing, too. Like uh I will definitely when I'm start shopping in a store, reach for like the way back in the shelf to grab the one behind it because you know the idea of rotating your stock, it's like, oh, this one's fresher. The the weird thing is is that I'll do the same thing with uh juice as I will with something like fabric softener. Like, like the fabric softener in the back with a different date does not make it any better whatsoever.

Drew 50:00

But well, so yeah, and and I'm a little bit of a germophobe too. So that for me, getting the back fabric softener is less people have touched that. Oh, yeah, that's probably true too. Uh let me read the label on this one. You know, I don't want to put that one down, you know. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, uh a uh article that we read um noted that NCAPs create perception of value. So I don't know if you've noticed that.

Jeff 50:24

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, for sure. You want to get rid of something, you put it on an end cap. Yes, yes. Um, high visibility, but also it's like, ooh, what's why is this special? Yep, yeah, yeah. Um the thing that gets me about end caps, honestly, is the fact that sometimes when something is on sale, they'll put it on an end cap so it's easy, easy to see. And then the end cap is either empty and you think, oh, they're sold out, but there's actually more in the regular aisle where the things are, or vice versa. You go to the regular aisle and it's empty and you're like, oh, they're all sold out. And then you find out like six aisles over in a completely unrelated area of the store, they have a stack of these things, whatever it is.

Drew 51:02

You know, oftentimes the stores will put um one specific product that they're trying to sell 20 feet or so into the store, but they won't put it in the first five to 15 feet because that's called the decompression zone. Yeah, you were retail, so you would probably know that. Like, that's crazy. The the um psychology of that, like stores will not put anything in that like first 15 feet because as you're walking in, your eyes are adjusting to different lighting, your ears are adjusting to different sounds, uh, your body's adjusting to different temperatures, and you're you're not likely to make any decision on any product in that first 15 feet. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. I thought I found that really interesting.

Jeff 51:43

I always think that like grocery stores, since that's kind of what we're talking about a lot here, you know, there's a reason why when you walk into a grocery store, the first thing you typically see is the produce. It's it's colorful, yep, it's fresh, it's not boxed, it's not prepackaged, it's considered health, it's perceived as healthy. Yeah, right. So you walk into the grocery store, and the first thing you're you're that you're presented with is all the stuff that you probably should be eating. But here's the thing it's also scheduled is set up that way so that when you go through that, you're like, well, I have to leave room in my cart for all this other stuff. So you kind of bypass a lot of the produce and you end up picking up more of like the canned and boxed and all that kind of stuff, um, which makes them more money. Okay, which is funny, you know. So because it's but that's it's that psychology, it's that idea of like when you walk into the grocery store, the first thing you see is not usually a pile of donuts, it's usually the the fresh tomatoes and cubers and things like that. Yeah, yeah.

Drew 52:45

Go go shopping with with a grocery list. Um that's that's one huge tip. Uh oh yeah. Don't don't just uh peruse that I mean, a lot of times when grocery stores especially move around, like they'll completely redo their store and and you know produce will be used to be over here, but now it's over there, or cereals over here, but now it used to you know it used to be over there. That's that's a marketing thing. I mean they want you to walk through their entire store and and purchase things that you possibly wouldn't purchase otherwise. Yep, because they want you to look. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff 53:17

And that that goes back to the uh that's one of the things that you know there's there's positives and negatives to everything, right? One of the positives to doing some of the online sort of having your groceries delivered or having your grocery pickups done as a and someone shopping for you is that you don't have that problem. Yeah. Uh you're you're literally buying what's on your list, you're going through the app, you're adding it to your cart, and then you're checking out, and you're not adding 20 to 30 dollars worth of stuff that you stumbled upon uh in the store to your cart. You're just buying what you wanted, which is a cost-saving measure. Um you know, like I said, positives and negatives to everything.

Drew 53:57

So we'll we'll throw another clip up. Um I went I walked through one of these stores and uh I had a list, but I also used the the app that the store has. Um I'll I'll talk more after. In the video, you can use the app and find a location of the product in the store, and even better, you can click on the button and it'll flash the price tag where that product is. So you're not buying things that you normally wouldn't buy.

SPEAKER_02 54:32

Yeah, yeah.

Jeff 54:33

That that that is that's that's crazy. I mean that and that goes right back to that whole idea of you know, I think we talked about in the last one about, you know, can they change the price of the item because they know you're looking for it ahead of time? Yeah. Uh with those digital price tags that are on things even physically in the stores now. Um, but that is neat. I mean, like to help you locate what you're looking for, just yeah, kind of without buying extra things, yeah.

Drew 54:57

Yeah, kind of puts the horse blinders on you a little bit, you know. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff 55:01

Yeah. Um, yeah, there's there's all kinds of stuff that you know you can you can look to in in some of these um stores and stuff, and when you're when you're doing the shopping to try to find ways to save money or with just just how to shop smart. Like my my dad used to say about my mom all the time, she was not a she was not a buyer, she was a shopper. Okay. And the it was sort of a a compliment the idea that you know she didn't just walk in and blindly buy whatever was put in front of her, she thought it through and and you know, and and and I like to think that like my wife is kind of like that too. She will research things to death and try to find the best possible price and the best possible item, um, you know, more so online than than just being, you know, necessarily um the way my mom would have been whenever I was a kid, you know, like go to the store. But it's still the same, the same concept, you know, like don't just buy whatever somebody puts in front of you, like think it through.

Drew 55:53

Right, right. Yeah, I'm a little bit of both. Like uh uh for for non like for some for for non-groceries, yes, I I do the research. I'm I know exactly what I want and where it's at in the store. And I go in, I I make the kill and get out. Yeah. Um for groceries, it's a little different. We we do have a grocery list of things that you know we we run out of and we need to replenish. But usually on like uh a Sunday, we'll go shopping and I'll think, okay, I need to make um I need to buy enough for say three three meals. So I'll I'll run down a list of our favorite things and we'll decide, okay, we're gonna make this, this, and this on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Okay, great. I need the ingredients for this, this, and this, and we're not buying anything else uh uh unless it was on our list of things that we uh have run out of. Right. And then three or four days later, then we'll go back and shop and we'll get one, two, three more days of of groceries again. So that kind of helps us not overbuy or buy things that we normally wouldn't buy. Yeah, we we typically shop once a week.

Jeff 56:57

Okay, so it's not quite as as disciplined as yours, but it is it is broken down so that hopefully you don't think to yourself, oh well I'm gonna buy. The only time we really buy very far in advance is sometimes, and we're starting to we're starting to get into that time of year where you get a lot of holidays coming up and you get things. So, you know, there there are times where in the past we have tried to think ahead and you know, say you know, October, and it's like, okay, well, they happen to have um you know turkey stuffing on sale. So we'll buy a couple boxes of it, because we know it's gonna last at least a month in the box, right? So we'll buy a couple boxes of that, or we'll but we'll buy canned cranberry sauce because I I'm sorry, I'm from that generation where if cranberry sauce does not with does not like retain the shape of the can, it's not cranberry sauce.

SPEAKER_02 57:43

Okay, okay.

Jeff 57:44

Um, so we you know, we'll buy some of that, but that stuff then then keeps and it helps keep your cost down when you go to buy that like big holiday meal. If you can sort of farm it out for a few weeks ahead of time and buy, okay, we're gonna add the cranberry sauce to this order, we're gonna add the the the stuffing to this order, we're gonna add whatever. And then then you go buy your turkey and stuff like that closer to the to the well, because it can go either way.

Drew 58:09

I mean, certain certain products and certain stores, you know, the closer you get to that holiday, they're gonna jack the price up, or they could go the opposite and you get a sale so that they sell yeah a ton of that product beforehand.

Jeff 58:21

Yeah, yeah. Um, obviously we're not gonna buy like rolls or something like that, you know, two a month and two months in advance, you know, like you know, bread and things, but um, yeah, it's you know, you can so there's there's little tricks where even if you know you're gonna have to buy it, if you catch it on sale and you know it's not gonna expire within the next two months, just get it now and put it in your pantry. Uh going back to the beginning, assuming you have the room, right? Right. Uh, you know, that you can you can store it for, yeah,

Meat, Convenience Costs, And Ingredients
Jeff 58:47

you know.

Drew 58:47

So um, I found a few more things that didn't really fit into any of these categories that we talked about. Okay. Honorable, honorable mentions. Um uh so quality um of meat. Uh you have to be not careful, but there are three major qualities of meat, at least when it comes to like beef. You have choice, select, and prime. Okay. Which all sound fantastic but they're they're usually different price ranges. Sure. And so make just make sure when you're buying uh meat like that that the price is uh goes along with the the the dude what I'm saying, the the price and the cut the quality level theoretically of on par. Yes.

Jeff 59:33

Um, you know, going going with that, and I don't know, this might be in your honor momentum, but going along with that is uh hamburger is really, really big on this whole idea of like how much fat is in the hamburger. Yeah, right. Okay. So your cheapest hamburg is usually the stuff that's like 70% lean. Yeah. You know, so you know, that's fine, I guess, if you're grilling hamburgers outside and you want it to stay juicy and you don't mind the fact, but you're getting 30% fat. Yeah. So you're gonna lose you're gonna lose that. So you're gonna lose it. Yeah, so you're buying uh a pound of 70% lean uh lean hamburg, but you're really only getting 70% hamburger, you're getting 30% fat, as opposed to a pound of say 93% lean hamburger, uh, where you're only getting 7% fat, you know, which is you know, but it's gonna be more expensive. The the question that that becomes a much more difficult calculation to try to figure, okay, how much more meat am I really getting compared to fat and all that kind of stuff? But yeah, it's just something to keep in mind. Like usually when a when a when a store will put something like that on sale and you see something in their flyer that says hamburg for $2.99 a pound, it's probably not the good hamburger. Well, it's probably the lower stuff, you know. And like I said, then how are you cooking it? You know, how are you pre how are you preparing it? Right. Um, you know, uh uh whether or not something is is skinless or boneless. That's a good one. Yeah, that's another one. Sure, yes. You know, so if you can buy bone-in chicken for a dollar a pound versus boneless chicken for four dollars a pound, you know, maybe it's worth the can the inconvenience to debone your own chicken.

Drew 1:01:15

Yeah, right. I did a clip on that, we'll throw that up. Not shopping for convenience items because it can also be a good way to save some money for laundry detergent, for example. I can buy a bottle of laundry detergent that is 58 loads for 1197, which is about uh 21 cents per load. Or I can buy pods. Now it's not a huge difference, but that adds up over time. So in the clip, in the clip, yeah, um, so it was tide pods. It was it was tide pods versus the liquid. Yeah, yeah. So you're getting um a better deal if you're doing the liquid, but that you know, you have to take the time to to measure and and you know, not that it takes a lot of time. Oh yes, it's so difficult. Well, some people don't want to take that time to measure. So you throw a pod in, yeah. So yeah, I mean, um, K cups are another good one. Um, whether you want it, yeah. Yep, guilty. Yeah, so I mean, convenience items you're gonna pay more usually for uh celery was is another one that I've I've been guilty of. Yeah. Instead of buying uh the whole you know thing of celery, you buy the celery hearts that are already pre-cut and was, you know, but you're paying an extra dollar or two or whatever.

Jeff 1:02:32

Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, that's that's a really good point. I mean, there are definitely other things beyond that, beyond the meat, you know, that that that qualify. Sometimes the marketing and the the design and the display of the product uh is appealing. And sometimes that's really what you're buying too. Yeah, sometimes you're buying the the glammed up design. And that's you know, uh having been in marketing for such a long time, and there are a lot of people that sort of say, like, oh well, you know, what what what is it really that big of a deal to have marketing, right? You know, per se. Um, in some cases, maybe no. You know, maybe the argument is no, but I gotta tell you something. Most of the time, if you're buying a name brand over a over a store brand, it's because that name brand looks more appealing to you than the store brand does. Yes. Um, so especially going back to your point earlier of the fact that you know the same company is is making the contents of that package, you're buying the package. You know, your kids want two can Sam, not two can Louis. Right. There's there's it's it's just true. Yeah, yeah. Uh Fruit Loops over Fruit O's. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Um I we've been picking on Fruit Loops a lot. I don't know why. But but it's it's true. I mean, yeah, it's it's that whole uh the the the the cartoon characters looking down on the kids thing. You know, you're saying about the the eye level uh of um uh products and so forth. Next time you go to the store.

Drew 1:04:07

Yeah, I did I did look at that. I don't think it's as prominent as it used to be.

Jeff 1:04:11

Maybe not. Yeah, yeah. But it used it used to be that that if you went to the store and you were looking at the kids' serials, uh the kids' cereals, the the the pupils of the eyeballs in the animated character on the on the front of the box were angled down. And it was so that when the kids who are shorter than most adults, right, are walking down the aisle, they look up and they see the cartoon character looking at them and they say, I want that, you know, and and then the parents are like, Okay, whatever, I'll get yeah, you know, I'll stop picking out fruit loops, I'll get tricks instead of instead of tracks or something. I don't know, you know, whatever.

Drew 1:04:49

But yeah, interesting stuff. Yeah, all right. What else? Uh check ingredient lists. So you may be saving a lot of money on on certain items, but if they're uh if it has ingredients that you don't want to be consuming a lot of, um just be wary of that. Uh one big one right now that's been in the news a lot is um artificial dyes. A lot of brands are trying to cut out artificial dyes, and a lot of the cheaper brands have that artificial dyes that people don't want to be consuming as much anymore.

Jeff 1:05:15

Yeah, um the whole artificial dye thing goes back away a ways. Um, I know that craft mac and cheese uh are sort of somewhat famously got rid of all their artificial dyes and colors and everything a couple of years back. Yeah, yeah. And there were people uh online who said that it didn't quite taste the same, but it like it it it altered the taste of the mac and cheese. It probably did to a certain extent, and they oh it tasted better with the artificial dyes, but is it or people don't like change, yeah, and people lose that too, yeah, yeah you know. Um it wasn't it wasn't as neon orange anymore.

Drew 1:05:52

It's yeah, it needs to be it's more natural color, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh chips and stuff now are are big into that. There's there's brands that that are cutting out. Not all of the artificial dyes and some MMs was another one. Yeah, the red dye. Yeah. Red and blue and yellow. Yeah.

Jeff 1:06:07

Uh I'm always amused, and this goes for more than just uh groceries. I'm always amused by how many things are known to the state of California to be bad for you. Yes. But not anywhere else in the country.

Drew 1:06:18

I live in Pennsylvania. I can buy it. It's okay.

Jeff 1:06:21

But in the state of California, the state of California knows that this is wrong. Yes, yes. But uh worldwide too, there are a lot of countries that have banned a lot of these artificial dyes, colors, and flavors way before the US ever did. Yeah. Um, and so you gotta think there's probably a reason for that. Yeah. So yep. All right. Good deal.

Drew 1:06:43

Uh is that all

Your Next Shopping Trip Game Plan
Drew 1:06:45

you have? That's all I had.

Jeff 1:06:46

That's all you had.

Drew 1:06:47

Wow. But okay, so we can build your deal, Hunter. Okay, so what what are you gonna do next time you go to the store? Okay. You're going to compare unit prices. Yes. You're gonna try store brands. Yep. So uh take five items that you normally would buy, name brand, and swap them out for a store brand um for a month and see you know if you can tolerate it or if you prefer it or what? And maybe you can save a few bucks. Um, understand food labels and avoid unnecessary waste. So look at those dates and understand that not all of them are there to tell you that this is going to hurt you after the date. Right. Um but use your use your best judgment. Um, your your senses are your friend in this case. Yeah, and don't overbuy. And don't overbuy, right, right. Um, watch package size. Um, just because it says that it's a family size doesn't mean that it's a family size always.

Jeff 1:07:40

It's uh it's never family size. I we we I my portion control is terrible. I mean, the family size is just two people, yeah, in a lot of cases. But if you it the thing is the the family size is sometimes um uh placed on the packaging because if you look at the nutrition label, the serving size serving size is a certain amount. So they say, well, the serving size on this is uh uh you know one-sixth of this lasagna is a serving, yeah, quite unquote, you know. So therefore it becomes family size because you can serve six. Yeah, I got true. Yeah, the size that they recommend, right?

Drew 1:08:18

Right, or that they're using for nutrition. But I think American, as Americans, we we kind of usually go a little bit above the just a tweak. Just to tweak at least I do just a tweak, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um yep. Good. Uh no, and then the final one was look beyond eye-level products. So scan those, uh, scan those shelves. Don't just zone in on everything at eye level. Yeah. Look, look up, look down.

Jeff 1:08:42

All right. Awesome. This is great. Yeah. Um, happy shopping. Um, try to try to shop smart.

Important Financial Disclaimer
Drew 1:08:55

This podcast focuses on having valuable conversations on various topics related to banking and financial health. The podcast is grounded in having open conversations with professionals and experts with the goal of helping to take some of the mystery out of financial and related topics, as learning about financial products and services can help you make more informed financial decisions. Please keep in mind that the information contained within this podcast and any resources available for download from our website or other resources relating to bank chats is not intended and should not be understood or interpreted to be financial advice. The hosts, guests, and production staff of BankChat expressly recommend that you seek advice from a trusted financial professional before making financial decisions. The hosts of Bank Chats are not attorneys, accountants, or financial advisors, and the program is simply intended as one source of information. The podcast is not a substitute for a financial professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.

Jeff 1:09:58

If

Retail Psychology Wrap Up And Subscribe
Jeff 1:09:59

you've ever felt like your shopping cart has a mind of its own, remember it doesn't. But the store kind of does. The moment you walk in, you are stepping into a space engineered by retail psychologists. To spot it, look down and look up. That massive shopping cart? It's an optical illusion designed to make a normal amount of groceries look empty, so you keep filling it. That expensive name brand item, it's sitting exactly at eye level in the golden zone. While the cheaper generics are sort of hidden on the bottom shelf. Even the air is complicit. Subtle scents are piped in to trigger nostalgia, lower your defenses, and secretly trick your brain into spending up to 15 or even 20% more. Don't let them hack your wallet. The next time you shop, look past the illusion. Stick strictly to a written list and never shop on an empty stomach. Produced, edited, and co hosted by Jeffrey Metavish. If you haven't yet subscribed to the channel or the podcast, please consider doing so. It really helps. For now, I'm Drew Thomas. So long.