Found a trick that cut my grocery bill by $40 a week without coupons

I was getting frustrated with how much I was spending on food every week even though I thought I was being careful. Then I noticed I kept buying the same expensive brand of pasta sauce because it was on the end cap at my local ShopRite. So I started actually looking at the bottom shelves for store brand versions and it saved me like $4 just on that one item. Then I did the same thing for cereal and canned beans and rice. Turns out the expensive stuff is always at eye level and the cheap stuff is right below your knees. Last month I tracked my total and I saved about $40 compared to what I was spending before. Has anyone else noticed how stores hide the budget options on purpose?

2 comments

2 Comments

julia_hayes4d agoMost Upvoted

A friend of mine tried this after I mentioned it and she was shocked that the store brand salsa was literally on the bottom shelf right next to the expensive one, same ingredients basically. She said she saved like $12 just on that one trip because she swapped out three different things she normally grabs. It really does feel like a game they're playing with where they put stuff.

the_brian4d ago

Yeah that's exactly what I found too @julia_hayes... I started looking down on the bottom shelf for things like pasta sauce and canned beans and it's wild how much cheaper they are for basically the same stuff. Last month I swapped out name brand ketchup and mustard for the store brand and I swear they taste identical but I saved like $4. It really does feel like they're hiding the good deals down there on purpose hoping people won't bend down to grab them. I've gotten to the point where I don't even look at the middle shelves anymore, I just go straight to the bottom row first.