Are you tired of spending so much at the grocery store? These grocery price comparison blog posts can help you save money by showing which stores have the cheapest prices! Even better? You can get a FREE Grocery Price Comparison printable just like I use to update these posts!
Store-Specific Comparisons
Money Saving Tips on Groceries
Grocery Price Comparison Basics
Grocery price comparison is something I started doing years ago, even before we were a family of 5 on one income. Back then, it often started as looking at the weekly ads and seeing who was the least expensive in terms of the popular items they had on sale that week.
Now, I have the power of using not only their weekly ads but also their online prices to see where I can save the most money.
Doing this, I can also keep track of price increases and whether all stores are having this increase or only some. For example, this month while updating the blog posts below, I saw there was a large increase in the price of ground beef at Walmart and Target but that Aldi, while having a price increase, was still cheaper than the other two.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t do this for all of my groceries every week, but I do enjoy doing it for the grocery posts above to do your work for you on these items at least!
Grocery Prices in the News
I’m noticing more news articles and blog posts out there mentioning comparing grocery prices and linking my blog posts, which is pretty cool. Having sites such as USA Today, GoBankingRates, and AOL link back to my site is great in many ways!
Unfortunately, this means that more people are looking for the cheapest groceries on everyday items as many things continue to the rapid increase in price in recent years.
Fortunately, I have been tracking these prices for years and share not only historical data but also current data on different stores and who has the cheapest price for the grocery items. It’s nice to be ahead of the curve!
Grocery Prices Now
Inflation is causing people to look at their local stores food prices to find the best price out there. With the back and forth threat of higher tariffs, this is only going to increase.
Knowing how to find the best deal now will help you in the future as grocery prices keep fluctuating.
Whether you’re shopping at big box stores, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Target, Walmart, Aldi, or your local grocery stores, they all have different prices from week to week. I suggest picking a few that you prefer to go to and compare them on a regular basis for the better price, or just go with what works best for you.
How to Compare Grocery Prices
If you have your receipt, start out by looking at your last grocery trip to see what the prices were of your go-to items. If you don’t have a receipt, that’s ok, you can start by looking at the site if where you tend to buy groceries.
Write those down on the free printable you can sign up for here and you’re on your way to doing your own grocery price comparison!
Keep in mind: prices do fluctuate between in-store prices and online prices. Typically not by a lot but depending on if you’re stopping in-store or online, you’ll want to keep that in mind.
Prices also vary from region to region. Egg prices may be higher where I am than where you are, it all depends. Always make sure that you’re signed into your online account or at least have entered your zip code before you compare grocery costs online.
We started shopping online and having our groceries either delivered to our home or pick them up curbside many years ago when our twins were newborns. It just made life so much easier. We’ve continued this and really love it.
It not only saves tons of time on our end, we also don’t have the impulse purchases that would end up in our shopping cart if we were to go into the store and shop ourselves!
Sure, there is an annual fee for this service and I do tip with each delivery, all of which adds up, but I still think it’s worth it for our family.
Price Comparison Tips
Tips I’ve learned along the way when comparing grocery prices include:
- Ensure you’re looking not only at the overall price but also the price per ounce or unit
- Buying in bulk typically saves money overall, as long as you’ll use it all, but not always. Check price per ounce.
- Keep sale prices and extra coupons you may have, or the store may have, when comparing prices
- Stock up on things, within reason, when they’re on sale
- Don’t run all over town so you pay a few cents less on certain items. Comparison shop responsibly.
- Look at your favorite grocery store but also others around that you don’t frequent as often or new stores
- If you want to compare in store, bring your grocery list with you and jot down prices next to each item
- Often store brand items are just as good as name brand
- If buying name brand, check for digital coupons as there typically are more of them for name brand items!
- Don’t only look at the cost per item, also look at the total price of your shopping cart, depending on where you shop. This may surprise you!
Want more tips? Check out my blog post about how to save money on groceries every week!
Meal Planning to Save Money
On top of it all, only buy what you’re actually going to use. We shop once a week and only buy what we have included in our meal plan for what we’ll actually use. That way, food doesn’t go to waste.
Sure, there are snacks and staples such as milk, eggs, bread, and more that we don’t include in our meal plan but we know we’ll need every week.
Need help meal planning? Check out my blog post about How to Create a Budget Friendly Meal Plan here!
Budget for Groceries
Once you know the average cost of your groceries, you can start to create a budget line for groceries every month (or every week, depending on how you want to do it.)
You can look at past spending as well to see if you’re comfortable with your spending or if you want to decrease it.
We have a lot of food sensitivities in our home, including gluten, dairy, and soy, which means our groceries cost significantly more and we often have to shop from specialty stores. We include all of this in our larger-than-normal grocery budget.
Do we love how much we spend on groceries each month? No, not so much, but I do what I can to use online coupons and other things to cut costs wherever we can without compromising our health.
Are you gluten free too? Check out my blog post about creating an Easy Gluten Free Meal Plan on a Budget!
