Monday, January 14, 2008

Is this a good sale?


We have ONE grocery store in the area (Atlantic Save Easy)... it takes me about 2 1/2 hours to get to a different store, which is also a Save Easy - so might as well drive ONE hour further to get to the BIG grocery stores (bulk wholesalers, restaurant supply stores, Wal-Mart, and my favorite, Atlantic Superstore). But, how often do I want to go 7 hours round trip just to get to the grocery stores? OK, so it is borderline emergency when I start running low on Basmati rice, but otherwise... I pretty much shop at the Save Easy.
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I hate, hate, hate the way Save Easy advertises their sale prices. Usually the BIG price is in pounds (hello! this is Canada where everything is measured in metric, but pounds looks ever so much cheaper). The small print will tell you the kilogram price. But what really gets me is that they will also advertise the price of food in GRAMS. Which means I have to get out a calculator to even start to figure out the price of food.
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Thank goodness for http://www.onlineconversion.com/ - I can quickly figure out things that I never can remember - like 1 pound equals 453 grams. To get price of pounds into kilograms multiply by 2.2. Math is not my strongest point so I have to think a bit to work through these numbers and then triple check eveything, but if you see a mistake, don't feel badly in letting me know!
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So - can you see that bologna for .79 at the bottom left, $1.79 shaved turkey or chicken breast and $2.09 sliced cheese running along the bottom? All those prices are for 100 grams each. Looks like a good price, right? Let's just take a second look at that bologna, OK? That is .79 for 100 grams. Hummm ok - so I know that 453 grams is 1 pound. So .79 divided by 100 to get the price per gram (.0079) multiplied by 453 equals $3.58 pound multiplied by 2.2 is $7.87 a kilogram. The shaved turkey/chicken breast comes out to $8.13 pound or $17.87 kilogram. And that cheese? $9.46 a pound/$22.08 a kilogram. Why oh why don't they just tell you that up front? Well, we all know the answer right? Probably no one would buy it. I mean, doesn't $2.09 for cheese (100 grams) sound a whole lot better than $22.98 (per kilogram?).
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The row right above the bottom row has nice looking fish filets for $3.49 (400 grams). So for the fish...priced per 400 grams is still fairly easy... $3.49 divided by 4 is .87 per 100 grams divided by 100 to get price per gram is .0087 X 457 is $3.49 pound/$7.68 kilogram. So, that means the fish is all of .38 cents more a pound than the bologna. But doesn't .79 look so very much cheaper than $3.49. It is almost the same price! Who knew?
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And that shrimp - it is priced at $6.99 for 454 grams and it says that there are 31 - 40 per pound. Do we all remember that there are 453 grams per pound? Since this is priced at 454 grams, let's just call it $6.99 per pound too which is $15.38 kg. You think they could just put the price for this in pounds/kilograms so you don't have to look twice? You can figure .17 to .23 for each shrimp (all peeled, deveined and cooked).
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The sausage is priced at $3.49 for 300 grams ($5.27 lb/$11.59 kg). Everything else is pretty much priced by the pound with the smaller print showing the price per kilogram.
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I won't be getting those whole fresh chickens at $1.99 lb/$4.38 kg this week because I already have 3 big frozen turkeys in the freezer from the after Christmas sale - for a whopping .99 pound/$2.18 kg. I have a few turkey recipe casseroles I want to try out and I think that they will all freeze well so that is part of the plan for the week - getting one of those turkeys cooked and made up into various casseroles, soup, etc.
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Some of the other things on sale this week is Ragu speghetti sauce for 99 cents a jar and tuna fish for $1.99 a can, boneless blade roast at $2.49 lb/$5.49 kg, Atlantic salmon filets at $5.99 lb/$13.21 kg, 3 pound bag of carrots for $1.29, cantaloupes for $2.49 each and boxes of clementines for $4.77 (that would be for 2.3 kilograms).

3 comments:

Joyce said...

I feel so lucky to be a half hour drive from a big Superstore.

The Calico Cat said...

I am so horrible with sales - my grandmother would be the one to ask...

All I really know is that for Kosher meats you know that you are going to get taken for a ride... Trader Joes is routinly the least expensive (for fresh) & the closest to my home...

In the end you pay what the market will bear...

(How many cliches are possible in one comment? Boggles the mind, huh?)

Shelina said...

That is strange that the ads wouldn't reflect the culture. Definitely proof that they are trying to make things look cheaper. We have unit pricing here on the aisles - they tell you which product is cheapest by dividing it to the lowest unit - 10 cents per ounce, for example. But they do the same thing here, where they will divide it in different ways like pounds and ounces and uses, so you really can't compare.