Penny wise, pound foolish shoppers

"As Americans attempt to perform cost-benefit analyses of their
needs and behaviors, they are whittling pennies from cable bills only
to squander dollars on gas driving miles to discount stores, or on
coupon-spurred splurges for nonessential items, like Cheez Whiz or
organizing supplies. Pinched by shriveled retirement and college
accounts, battered by ballooning mortgage costs, rent and co-op
maintenance increases, and hedging against the possibility that a job
might vanish, some are practicing economies that may not deserve the
name."

The comments above are from Failing Home Economics, an article in today's New York Times. In it, reporter Penelope Green looks at the cost-benefit decisions of shoppers and where we often go horribly wrong.

The
anecdote with which she begins her article particularly struck me. It's
about a shopper who weighed time saved against money saved and usually
opted for the extra minutes.

That's typically me.

Even with grocery
shopping, which is my favorite type of consumerism (in all definitions
of the word!), nine out of 10 times I take the quicker route.

But
as noted in an earlier post, I still comparison shop and spread my grocery dollars among several local stores.

Typically, I alternate between the closer, usually cheaper store (H.E.B. for all
you Central Texas shoppers) and Randall's (the local manifestation of
Safeway). Most of our edibles come from H.E.B., but when the Randall's
weekly newspaper insert has deals that are markedly better or on
special, either the hubby or I detour there.

We try to do so when we have other errands to run out the direction of the Randall's outlet we choose. And we go with a specific list based on the advertised specials.

We try
to stick to just those items, but now and then, like the woman in today's
article, the convenience factor kicks in. And, again like the woman in
the article, failure to do so costs us.

What's your shopping style? Take a look at the New York Times piece and see if
you, too, are a victim of what one expert calls "incidences of feckless
budgeting and bad math."

Another person points to instances where many uf us
are "grocery wise, cable foolish." That means we travel extra distances
to save 10 cents on crackers, but pay each month for electronics options that
we never use.

Has your shopping style, particularly for
essentials, changed as the economy has worsened? How do you save?
Please share your tips with the rest of us. We all need as much wise
penny-pinching help we can get!

And here are some related blog posts you also might find of interest:

• Grocery prices getting hard to swallow

• Taking a bite out of your grocery bill (PDF)

• Express lane to financial embarrassment

• Still clipping after all these years

• Feeding frenzy

Here's to good, and cost-effective, grocery shopping, espeically for this coming Thanksgiving dinner!