That application can calculate the unit price of similar products sold in different sizes/qualities and tell which item is less expensive.

The shopping items can be in different unit, e.g. kg, pound and ounce.

Example:
1kg $10 vs. 1lb $3

And you can even input quantity like 250*6+100.

Say $10/oz . . . 128 oz/gal — $1280/gallon!

I don’t know where zohngalt (#44) lives, but here in Western North Dakota, ground turkey costs considerably less than ground beef. The fact that it’s healthier makes it an even better buy. At my store, the ground turkey comes frozen in little one pound plastic wrapped ‘logs’, so it’s convenient too. I use it anywhere that I can use ground beef: burgers, spaghetti, tacos, etc. My husband and I even think that our favorite flavor of hamburger helper tastes better with turkey than beef. These days, we only buy ground beef when it’s on sale. We’ve found that the best sales are on the bulk packages (usually 10-12 pounds) which we divide into single meal sizes (usually 1 lb) and freeze (so it doesn’t spoil and defeat the purpose of buying the bulk size!).

Word on the cereal aisle tripping you up. Special K was recently on sale, both the flavored varieties and the regular Special K for the same price. I figured the regular SK must have had more volume and the yummy flavored ones less volume, but I double checked and it was reversed. The Vanilla Almond came in a 14 oz package and the plain SK was in a 12 oz.

Someone mentioned Coke products for $.16 a can? I always buy the Kroger brand (Big K, I can’t taste the difference) when they have a coupon for 6 12-packs for $10 ($.07 a can) & deposit but I return cans every month and use the cash money towards that week’s grocery purchase.

I freaking love grocery shopping. It’s a super fun game that I always win!

Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out. For what it’s worth, though, it was goat milk, and it was awesome.

Check out http://www.milkismilk.com for more details!

Don’t pay more for milk claiming to be hormone-free when it is the same product as conventional milk!

I sometimes also compare the best ingredient and caloric content to unit price as well. So that maybe I’m paying a penny more per unit but there are 300 more calories and 5 fewer grams of sugar in each serving.

But then we actually had a discussion with our friends and their explanation made such perfect sense! Not only are they saving money on something that you literally flush down the toilet, but the single ply lasts longer in a house full of teens, and the big selling reason for us is that they have not had to call a plumber since they switched to the single ply – thus saving at least $100 a year on a professional plumber’s services.

We switched as well, and have enjoyed the same great savings as our old house has narrow plumbing that we never took into consideration!

It really makes great sense when you look at it that way. And I would tell my house guests the same.

We don’t have Copuons in Australia and the only way to know when items are on sale is to get the printed circulars (which run from a Monday to Sunday timeframe).

The majority of shoppers are loyal to one particular supermarket chain and don’t comparison shop for price differences. I live in the second largest city in Australia and one interesting thing about supermarket prices is that some suburbs have cheaper prices than others.

I keep a rough price list and because I’m not loyal to a particular supermarket company I take advantage of items that my family uses when they are on sale. I also do my fruit and vegetable shopping at the greengrocers and my meat shopping at a discount butcher. The reasons for this is that the supermarket prices for meat are much more expensive (usually 45 to 75% more) than the discount butcher and the same applies to fruit and vegetables.

Package shrinkage with no reduction in prices has also been occuring over the past few years.

Toilet paper is the worst for unit prices though, since they typically (at my store) use price per roll. However, all the rolls have different number of sheets. You can get around this though since each package will tell you how many rolls and how many sheets per roll there are. I use this information to get a cost per 100 sheets and then compare.

Example: A) 24 pack with 360 sheets per roll cost $6.95
B) 18 pack with 220 sheets per roll cost $4.81

Package A has 24 x 360 = 8640 sheets total
Package B has 18 x 220 = 3960 sheets total

Package A’s sheet unit cost is 695 cents/8640 = 0.0804 cents per sheet x
100 sheets = 8.04 cents per 100 sheets

Package B’s sheet unit cost is 481 cents/3960 = 0.1215 cents per sheet x 100 sheets = 12.15 cents per 100 sheets

You could just use the per sheet unit cost, but I find numbers that are more than 1 cent to be more meaningful.

One thing to be careful of with unit pricing is not to buy the bigger size because it has a lower unit price when the package is so large you won’t eat it all before it goes bad.

Shopping on unit price alone is great for paper towels and canned soup that will keep forever, but not as good on milk or other perishables.

Throwing out half the food that was 20% cheaper doesn’t make sense.

JD, another great post!

I alternate shopping between a damnhippie grocery store near my house and WinCo, and I use the notes function in my ancient and venerable phone to keep track of the price per unit of my staples (lentils ftw!) so I can remember if the cookies/lentils/pork shoulder were cheaper at one place over the other.

Unit prices are complicated when I try to use coupons. I have to re-figure the price with the coupon subtracted and then compare the unit price to all the other unit prices – ugh. Which is why I don’t often use coupons on food.