As people find increasing opportunities to be frugal, I hear more and more stories about people who advocate price shopping when it comes time to buy anything. What do I mean by price shopping? I mean shopping at the place that offers the product you want at the lowest price. In some cases, where you are making a one-time purchase such as an electronic device, this can make sense. But, in the case of buying groceries, going to multiple grocery stores to take advantage of sales on different items is a complete waste of time and resources.

You might think you’re getting a deal by saving $0.20 on that can of beans, or even saving $1.00 on that jar of peanut butter. But was that really worth driving an extra 10 km? In most day-to-day scenarios, the price savings you will encounter on small ticket items at the grocery store are insignificant compared to the increased costs of traveling to and from the store, especially in today’s economy where gas prices are approaching $1.40-1.50 a litre in Canada.

What is the solution? Find the nearest grocery store to you, and buy everything you need there, regardless of what sales they have on at the grocery store 10 km down the road. Drive home and enjoy the rest of your day. I’m serious – you will not save anything by going to the other grocery store to buy what they have on sale.

The Proof is in the Numbers

Since you might not believe me, I’m going to prove it. I happen to have 4 grocery stores in reasonably close proximity to where I live (the benefits of living in a very urban area). Three of the stores are major Canadian chains (Loblaws, Metro and Sobey’s), and the last one is a locally and independently owned store. So I put together a list of 36 items that I or anyone else might commonly buy at the grocery store. And I went to all four stores to see how much it would cost me to buy those items.  Wherever possible, I made to sure to look for the exact same brand and for the exact same package size. When that wasn’t possible, I chose a brand that I would consider to be of an equivalent level. If something happened to be on sale when I was there, I put down the sale price. Here are the results:

I know what you might be thinking… Surely, if I bought the cheapest item at each store, I could maximize my savings and save a ton of money! OK, let’s put that to the test. If I were to buy every item where it was cheapest, my grand total would be $128.35, representing a savings of $9.76-$15.18 depending on where you were to do all of your shopping. I’ll admit, ten to fifteen bucks, that’s nothing to sneeze at. At the end of the day, the difference between the four stores was a paltry $5.43. Huh…doesn’t seem like there is that big of a difference between the stores after all. The conclusion to be drawn – shop wherever you happen to be at the time. At the end of the day, you might be down a few bucks depending on where you go, but you won’t have had to waste the time to travel to four grocery stores, walk through four times as many aisles and stand in four times as many checkout lines.

What is the cost of incurring those savings?

Let’s assume that to visit each additional grocery store, you have to drive an extra 5 km, for a total of 15 km of extra driving. To be conservative and to let this scenario equally apply to all Canadians, let’s say that gas costs $1.25 a litre. And let’s say that the average car consumes about 9L/100 km for city driving. That breaks down to a gas cost of $0.11 per km driven. That’s an extra $1.65 in gas just to get between all the grocery stores, so you can save $10-15 – which represents 10-15% of your savings. Don’t forget about the extra wear and tear on your car and the increased risk of getting into an accident (the more you drive, the more you stand to have an accident). On top of that, the emissions resulting from the burning of an extra litre of gasoline are now in the air, contributing to our growing environmental issues. Lest we not forget the cost of time. Now, I try not to think about my time in monetary terms, but there is an opportunity cost associated with price shopping for groceries. Going to all three extra stores might represent an extra half an hour in travel time (10 minutes extra per store), an extra 15 minutes in parking time (5 minutes per store), an extra half an hour in shopping time (10 minutes extra per store) and an extra 15 minutes in checkout time (5 minutes per store). That’s over an hour of my time so that I can save $10-15. Minimum wage in Ontario is currently $10.50 an hour. Is my time worth minimum wage? Or would I rather spend that hour and change with my partner/family/TV, maybe cooking a nice dinner instead of reheating the microwave dinner I bought since I spent all my free time driving from grocery store to grocery store?

This scenario won’t apply to everyone. Some people will be lucky enough to have multiple grocery stores within walking distance. In that case, the only cost is time. Some people have hybrid or fuel efficient cars, lightening their load on their wallet and on the environment. But some people drive even further for the same savings – the more you drive, the less you save. At $1.25 a litre, every 9 km driven could represent $1 lost. Keep that in mind the next time you think about driving to that other grocery store to save a few bucks. I’m all for going to sometimes extreme lengths to be frugal, but this is one case where I’d chalk up the money lost to the opportunity cost of using my time in more life enhancing ways.

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