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Re: Re-reading Tightwad Gazette
As I have about 20 –25 brand name items on my list and balance is store brands or generic. I don’t have a problem with hassling and I only do one section at a time. 
When I writing information up inside a store, I use an old envelope with piece of cardboard inside it (to make it stronger) and making 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, we only did a few items at time and never more than one page at time.
Most of the information I use, I get outside the stores and just check other sizes of same item and prices and generic or other brands in the store. Now that our supermarket are going over to 15 –25 % store brands in each section this task will be a bit harder as they trying to win back Aldi customers and their profit margin is high too for them!
Read this article in Tightwad Gazette
‘Avoiding the price-book hassle’ Vol 2 (p558 CTG) for more information on price book and this problem of being hassle by managers.
Originally posted by pyotr
If you're ever bored, do what I did about 2 years ago, go into about 6 or more of your local grocery stores with a pre-pared list of specific items - my list was about 12 pages long (Excel format), on the left column was the item (generic sphaghetti 16oz, Mueller's sphaghetti 16oz, generic whole wheat bread loaf, Merita whole wheat bread loaf, etc.). The other columns were the prices paid at the various stores (ALDI, Harris Teeter, WinnDixie, FoodLion, BJ's, Walmarts, Target, etc.). It took me about a month to input all the data and it was maddeningly tedious but occasionally interrupted by spectacular hi-jinks.
At every one of the stores I did this in, after various intervals of time, the junior manager, then the senior managers came up to me, first asking me where I was from or who I was with, then asking me politely to stop doing what I was doing. At a Lowes grocery store, I was escorted out
. Many of the managers did not believe me when I told them I was just doing this to compare prices (one told me that he knew I was a spy and knew which store I was from ) The most expensive store seemed to care the least (Harris Teeters), that manager told me I was wasting my time and left me alone. In the end, I stopped bothering with the price book because I realized that ALDI's was cheaper for just about everything except milk, eggs, sugar, and flour. BJ's was good for milk and eggs, and FoodLion for sugar and flour. In rechecking these figures over a couple of years, these prices fluctuated somewhat but ALDI's wins easily all the time (except milk, eggs,flour, and sugar).
At every one of the stores I did this in, after various intervals of time, the junior manager, then the senior managers came up to me, first asking me where I was from or who I was with, then asking me politely to stop doing what I was doing. At a Lowes grocery store, I was escorted out
. Many of the managers did not believe me when I told them I was just doing this to compare prices (one told me that he knew I was a spy and knew which store I was from ) The most expensive store seemed to care the least (Harris Teeters), that manager told me I was wasting my time and left me alone. In the end, I stopped bothering with the price book because I realized that ALDI's was cheaper for just about everything except milk, eggs, sugar, and flour. BJ's was good for milk and eggs, and FoodLion for sugar and flour. In rechecking these figures over a couple of years, these prices fluctuated somewhat but ALDI's wins easily all the time (except milk, eggs,flour, and sugar). When I writing information up inside a store, I use an old envelope with piece of cardboard inside it (to make it stronger) and making 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, we only did a few items at time and never more than one page at time.
Most of the information I use, I get outside the stores and just check other sizes of same item and prices and generic or other brands in the store. Now that our supermarket are going over to 15 –25 % store brands in each section this task will be a bit harder as they trying to win back Aldi customers and their profit margin is high too for them!
Read this article in Tightwad Gazette
‘Avoiding the price-book hassle’ Vol 2 (p558 CTG) for more information on price book and this problem of being hassle by managers.
17: I am too radical in my frugal ways and I haven’t even started yet. If I live to be a 100 with what I got now, I will need to be verrrrrrry frugal indeed. 
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