Saving on Groceries

Consumer Reports' May cover article entitled "Shop Smart & Save Big" is an informative piece on shopping for groceries. The entire piece is reserved for members, but here are a couple highlights they left open:

       13 ways to save arms you with a strategy when navigating the store.

       Great everyday products profiles items that are worth the money.

Another note of interest is the result they came to when comparing 30 products at warehouse clubs to "Savvy shopping" (someone who found the best deals on perishables/national brands, searched for coupons in newspapers and online, and used store bonus card): Warehouse clubs were 6% cheaper. And warehouse clubs were only 1% more than only buying store brands at the supermarket.

Warehouse prices being cheaper than supermarket prices should not be news to SMI readers. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that buying only store brands hardly made a difference.

What I'd really like to see is how warehouse clubs fare against grocery saving systems used by The Grocery Game and/or Little Miss Know It All.

If you use one of these systems, we'd love to hear how it's going. Until then, I'll continue shopping at Costco guilt-free.

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Matthew Pryor in his 8th year with Sound Mind Investing, now serving as Director of Operations. Visit www.soundmindinvesting.com to learn more.