Ice cream is a staple at our house. It’s mostly for my hubby. He loves it. And thanks to his amazing metabolism, he can eat half a gallon a night and still loose weight!
His favorite is Breyers. His current favorite is the Twix flavor, and I agree its super good. (Yes, I sneak in a spoonful or two or three . . .)
The thing is, Breyers retails for about $6.59 a half gallon. Since he goes through a gallon a week that would be $13.18 out of our grocery budget. Now, I love my husband but that is waaaaaay too much for ice cream.
So what do I do? I buy the brand on sale for the week. I wait to buy Breyers when it goes to rock bottom prices of about $2.00. I buy up. How do I know this? I keep a price book.
A price book is just a sheet of paper that I use to track prices. I don’t track everything, just items that are contingent to buy based on sale price. Let’s go with our ice cream example. I know the retail price and I know the lowest price it will go is $1.87 a half gallon at King Soopers. I can note the date. Over time you should start to see a sales pattern. This way you can know when to buy and when to wait. Breyers will go on sale at $4 +, but I don’t buy until it hits that low price.
This is really helpful when it comes to meat. Write in the type of meat and the normal price. Sometimes a sale will come up, and it seems good. But when you check your price book, you can see that about two weeks later the item will go down $1.50 more. Wait until then and buy up.
A price book just lets you know the best price to buy an item. If it’s a rock bottom sale or just a few pennies off.
Once again, I use a printable sheet from OrganizedHome.com http://organizedhome.com/printable-price-book.
You can write in the date of the sale, the price, item and store you saw it at. The form is easy to read and to use.
A price book might seem like a lot of time. It’s not. Take just a second to jot down a great sale. And by knowing the best price, you will know the best time to buy to save you the most money!