What do you track in your price book?

[debtfreeme]

How did you create it? how and what do you track? Does anyone have a master copy they are willing to share?

[Ima saver]

I don't have one, sounds like a good idea.

[Tightwad Kitty]

What are the most often 20 - 50 items bought in your household?

Start with make this list up first.

After making up your list of most often use items, along size and price paid, put the name of the store in a code.

Then you need cross check each item with other stores and special prices from catalogues, sale leaflets in your local area etc.

If have kept your shopping dockets for the few months, this task will be easy. If not then keep the next month’s ones and your shopping list also!

The idea of a price book is buy each item at it's lowest price and know that this week's special is in fact a good buy or not! If it's lower, then you can buy enough to last for about 8 weeks between special. Toilet paper and can tomatoes are good ones that will keep for six months or more.

[laceshawl]

I have a column for recording the price per unit, Then I take my calculator with me so I can work out whether it's cheaper to buy a different size if it's on special.

[Tightwad Kitty]

Originally Posted by laceshawl

I have a column for recording the price per unit, Then I take my calculator with me so I can work out whether it's cheaper to buy a different size if it's on special.

I forgotten about the unit price, here I use price per (1000g) kilogram or litre. It's funny to look at unit price per kg. coffee $29.85kg or $18.50kg In paper goods, I use per sheet or < 50c per roll on special brand. In somethings, I workout < $1.88 per 500g instead.

[lrjohnson]

As a huge Amy D./TG fan, I am almost ashamed to say I don't have a written price book.

That said, for many items I buy I do have a max price in my mind. For example, I buy a lot of tuna if it is below 39 cents; I will not buy a single can if it is more than 50 cents. I stock up on cheese at $2 or less a pound. That used to be my max (except for "party" cheese like brie) but prices are up; I now accept $2.49 as okay per pound. Boxed cereal, I pay 99 cents for big boxes of corn flakes, etc. For fancier cereal, like the store brand grape nuts I just scored, I'll pay 1.49 a box. Pasta, 50 cents a pound max, try for 33. Canned vegies, 33 cents a can, willing to go to 38 cents for green beens. Bread, prefer 50 cents a loaf, and will way stock up at that price, been hard lately-even thrift store more than that, so 75 cents acceptable, 99 cents if all heck breaks loose and then only one loaf. Bulk foods like oatmeal, bran, bulgur, etc., my WinCo store has very low prices so I don't sweat it too much-I just make sure that the price beays prepackaged, which on flour and sugar it doesn't always. Shampoo-99 cents medium bottle, 1.99 for a large. Antiperspirant, 99 cents. Canned fruit, 50 cents a can. Single serving yogurt, 33 cents, and thats a treat.

So I kinda sorta have a baseline for some things. I have though that sharing receipts between some frineds over a couple a months could work, but then the receipt might say peanut butter but not always the number of ounces (my price point? ten cents an ounce I like, rarely see lower, wont pay more).

If anyone in Northern California wants to exchange I'm up.

Anything to reach my goal. (modified) minimum wage challenge

[baselle]

I use the free program Handy Shopper on my Handspring Visor.
http://www.freewarepalm.com/database...-english.shtml

Groceries, of course, but I make entries by individual store. So in my price book, I list the stores that I shop at - Safeway, Albertsons, asian grocery store, produce market, costco, etc. You can also select All Stores.

Inside each store, I list out the items that I normally buy. You can also put notes on individual entries (where I put the price history of item at that store), and you can tag entries. I tag mine Unfiled or Beat This. Beat This is the absolute best price I've ever seen for the item.

If I'm confronted with a great price, I check it at the store I'm in, but I also check globally by selecting All Stores, then Beat This, to see if this is a really good price or the best I've ever seen.

I get my data by receipts but also by the paper and online flyers, and sometimes I see them at the store itself.

[Tightwad Kitty]

There is another thread on ‘Saving Receipts and Price Book’ in General Discussion also!

I do like your extra inputs as I am just redoing my price book.
Also I am tracking the sale patterns over one year as I had kept 9 months of grocery catalogues in a box. So now it’s just to make up the chart of 20 items then track them for the whole year, this will be my next save money project.

[Ima saver]

Wow you guys go to a lot of work for this.

[baselle]

Originally Posted by Ima saver

Wow you guys go to a lot of work for this.

Not so much. Speaking for myself, I only go through the work if there is a really good price. And these days ... doesn't happen that often.

[Tightwad Kitty]

Hi Ima It's a must for me to keep track of good buy's and what's the lowest price on items that I use regularly only. Our pension is only a quarter of the average wage here. Luck for me that I am Debt free.

This week 2 items are the lowest they have been for 2 years. So I am stocking up on them. One I bought $20 worth of Chicken To-night Sauces and the other one was sold out but I got raincheck for it, now I can buy toilet paper in next 30 days for bulk storage.

[Ima saver]

Where I live, for years, there was only one chain grocery store and one mom and pop. Now we have a second grocery store, but the first one is still the cheapest. I do go to the second one once in a while and look for sales. I don't know if it would be worth the work since I am pretty much stuck going to the one grocery store.
I know wal mart has cheaper prices on some things, but it is close to 60 miles round trip, so I would not be saving that much.

[baselle]

Yeah, that's the reason the price book is so valuable to me. With all the places I go and buy food, I can't remember what a good price is. And you can find big surprises!

[Ima saver]

Will I did write some things down yesterday in the grocery store. When someone suggested writing down 20-50 of the most common items, I thought that was a low number but it was not. Of course, i don't cook much, but I did get some items priced and now will watch it more closely.

[Firefly]

I had never heard of this before but it seems like such a wise thing to do.

[Ima saver]

people look ar you a little funny when you are doing it, but that's ok.

[Tightwad Kitty]

Originally Posted by Ima saver

people look ar you a little funny when you are doing it, but that's ok.

When I writing information up inside a store, I use an old envelope with piece of cardboard inside it (to make it stronger) and makng it look like shopping list as some stores, think you are price checking for another store and not for yourself. I was a price checker and stock controller when I was working. Most of the information I use, I get outside the stores and just check other sizes of same item and prices and other brands in the store.

[acezz4e_tish]

i started wtih a list i made from the stuff the stores sell in the resteraunt sizes.. i wrote how many ounces and what something would have to be to be cheaper then the resteraunt cans. my best savings is the cheese, regular and jalapeno is 7.68 at walmart each. same stuff you get in that lil can for 2 dollars when you have a craving for them. you can bag that and freeze it and have almost 2 years to eat it its 48 of those lil cans at the average of 2 dollars, thats 96, thats just under 90 in savings.

[baselle]

Originally Posted by Tightwad Kitty

When I writing information up inside a store, I use an old envelope with piece of cardboard inside it (to make it stronger) and makng it look like shopping list as some stores, think you are price checking for another store and not for yourself. I was a price checker and stock controller when I was working. Most of the information I use, I get outside the stores and just check other sizes of same item and prices and other brands in the store.

I was nervous about taking notes when I first started, but now I'm not. Its not illegal. yet. The stores all know me as a shopper, not a mystery shopper.

[acezz4e_tish]

yes, our community is small, they know you by name, they know im doing what i do to go with my personal needs.