We do most of our shopping at the New Seasons up the street. It's quite handy to have a store within walking distance, particularly one that has lots of good foods and quality produce. But I was curious to see how much extra we're paying for regular store items. Today I took my grocery list to Fred Meyer - I drove all the way to Tigard because the Burlingame location sort of freaks me out - and proceeded to load the cart with staple items like butter, milk, and laundry detergent. With New Seasons' shop online option and a sleeping toddler, I was able to do some price comparisons - product equivalents were used when an exact match wasn't possible. Here are the results:
organic whole milk: NS $3.59* / FM $2.99
unsalted butter: NS $2.99 / FM $2.50
laundry detergent: NS $7.99 / FM $7.49
organic cereal: NS $4.99 / FM $2.50*
Glad cling wrap: NS $2.99* / FM $2.50
chocolate chips: NS $3.49 / FM $2.50
organic string cheese: NS $0.79 / FM $0.79
nail clippers: NS $1.79 / FM $1.99
cage-free eggs: NS $2.49 / FM $2.89
*sale price
It's no surprise that, generally speaking, Fred Meyer has cheaper prices. I just didn't realize how much the savings would add up. The prices of most of the items are pretty close but if you are saving a little bit on nearly everything you buy, you are saving real money. I came out with a total around $38 at New Seasons' prices and a total of $29 at Fred Meyer's. The trick will be figuring out which items to purchase at each store to maximize the savings. Costco runs for kitchen must-haves like bacon and bacon will continue as needed.
4 comments:
thanks for this. I need to do my own comparison too. I was just telling some local (ie in my neighborhood) mamas that I was going to do this exact comparison (also throwing in Thriftway, my neighborhood grocery).
The Fred Meyer on Beaverton Hillsdale hw is almost done with its remodeling. I am hoping it will have an alluring brightly lit "eat me" produce section after that (before I found it rather dreary and in a cave-like setting -- not how I like to select produce.) That location is probably the same amount of drive for you as Tigard; not sure.
I did the same thing with Whole Foods and Trader Joes. Granted, not every single item was comparable, as most TJ's are store branded (but really just repackaged - for example the TJ's goddess salad dressing for $1.99 is really Annie's which normally sells for around $3.50).
I think the total at WF was about 35-40% higher.
And you just can't beat Costco Bacon.
Wow. Don't ever go to a WinCo. It'll totally blow your mind. The bin items are insanely cheap. It's so much less expensive when you don't have to pay for all the packaging.
I need to look into that $2.99 organic milk. Is that for a gallon?
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