Like most students in grade school and high school, I used to wonder just how much I would use math when I got older. I remember watching my mom balance her checkbook, but other than that, I don't think I ever saw her add, subtract, multiply or divide anything.
These days, though, I've found math is crucial to getting the best deal. Before I started putting so much energy into stretching our dollars, I took note of one thing: price. I bought the same things again and again, which makes noticing a real sale easy. For instance, I used to buy body wash for $1.98; one day I went to the store and saw signs claiming the body wash had been marked down to $1.98. True, I didn't stand in front of the shelf watching the price continuously, so I cannot say with absolute certainty that the price never rose above $1.98, but if it had, it couldn't have been for very long because I shopped every two weeks.
Since I've been trying to be more frugal, I've paid a lot more attention to price per ounce (thanks to sound advice from the Coupon Mom), which has led to to yet another discovery: Package sizes sometimes shrink while the price stays the same (or shrinks, too, but not at the same percentage as the price). I've noticed this on two items I buy often so far, snack bars and formula.
(Note: At the grocery store Friday night, I saw that the price on a box of six is now just a little more than $2 a box, with two "free" bars inside, so once again, there is eight in the box in the $2 to $2.50 range, making it once again the cheapest option.)
These days, though, I've found math is crucial to getting the best deal. Before I started putting so much energy into stretching our dollars, I took note of one thing: price. I bought the same things again and again, which makes noticing a real sale easy. For instance, I used to buy body wash for $1.98; one day I went to the store and saw signs claiming the body wash had been marked down to $1.98. True, I didn't stand in front of the shelf watching the price continuously, so I cannot say with absolute certainty that the price never rose above $1.98, but if it had, it couldn't have been for very long because I shopped every two weeks.
Since I've been trying to be more frugal, I've paid a lot more attention to price per ounce (thanks to sound advice from the Coupon Mom), which has led to to yet another discovery: Package sizes sometimes shrink while the price stays the same (or shrinks, too, but not at the same percentage as the price). I've noticed this on two items I buy often so far, snack bars and formula.
- The snack bars used to come in packages of eight and ranged from $2 to $2.50 a box at the store my husband and I used to shop at most, making each bar 25 cents to 31 cents. Then the price began to steadily rise until it was close to $3 a box at that retailer and well over it at another. So when I saw the price drop back to $2.50, I was ecstatic -- until I noticed that each box now had only six bars, making them 41 cents each.*
- At a different retailer, I saw a box of 18 of the snack bars for $5.68, or 31.5 cents each, so I started buying them instead. But then, I noticed a box of 15 for $3.98, or 26.5 cents each, so I bought these instead. The bigger box now contains 14 bars, still for $3.98, making each bar 28 cents, still the cheaper option.
- At the retailer where we used to buy formula, we could get a package of three 16.6 ounce bags of powdered formula, or 49.8 ounces total, for the same price that now buys only two 23.3 ounce bags, or 46.6 ounces total.
(Note: At the grocery store Friday night, I saw that the price on a box of six is now just a little more than $2 a box, with two "free" bars inside, so once again, there is eight in the box in the $2 to $2.50 range, making it once again the cheapest option.)
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