How Beth cuts her grocery bill in half
FRUGAL SHOPPER | List, discount store help feed family of four for $80
(Rich Hein/Sun-Times)
Beth O'Neill prides herself on sticking to her grocery list and maintaining her reputation as a frugal shopper, and she knows the cost of lapsing from her strict regimen.
"When I stray from my shopping habit, I end up waiting until 4:30 or 5 o'clock and saying, 'Let's order pizza or have Chinese take-out.' And it starts adding up," she said as she guided a Sun-Times reporter and photographer through her shopping routine with 7-year-old daughter Katie in tow.
O'Neill, of Berwyn, keeps a strict schedule of shopping every Sunday, usually at Aldi, a discount grocer, while her husband, Tom, stays home to watch Katie and 5-year-old son Rick.
"I plan the week's meals [for the family of four] on Sunday and stick to what I need. I don't buy extraneous items," she said.
O'Neill figures that by shopping at a no-frills store, her total grocery bill of $80 in a typical week is half of what she would have spent at a full-service grocery store.
Al Rosenbloom, a professor of marketing and economics at Saint Xavier University, said research proves O'Neill is making the right choice in order to save money at a time when food prices are soaring: Corn is up 67 percent in the last year while rice is up twofold, and overall prices are up more than 5 percent in the last three months.
"Shoppers spend more money when they walk down store aisles aimlessly," Rosenbloom said. "Marketers have ways of enticing you to buy with attractive packaging and emotional appeals."
During the shopping trip at Aldi grocery store in west suburban Lyons, O'Neill bought 16 items, including:
• 16-ounce bag of Home Style chocolate chip cookies, $1.99.
• Loaf of Loven Fresh whole wheat bread for $1.49.
• Broccoli, 39 cents a pound.
• Lunch Mate thin-sliced deli ham, $2.69.
• Box of Crispy Oats Honey Nut cereal, $1.79.
• Dozen Goldhen Grade A large eggs, $1.39.
• 26-ounce jar Mama Cozzi spaghetti sauce, 99 cents.
• Can of extra-fine green beans (private label), 85 cents.
O'Neill said the green beans were as high in quality as ones she had discovered at a Trader Joe's store.
It's useful to shop for what's called "private label" merchandise -- goods that major manufacturers produce for sale exclusively at certain chain stores. Stores sell their private labels at discounted prices.
Shoppers tired from a long workday take note: Aldi shoppers bag their own groceries and return their own carts, cutting down on the store's labor expenses.