I have a thing for price lists. You may have noticed. I’ve explained what a price book is, and how to make one (both a hard copy price book and a digital price list), and now I am going to tell you how to maintain it.

There’s really not that much to it, honestly. Like most maintenance, it’s just a matter of keeping it up. Perhaps this is more of a quick tip sheet to help you keep on top of your price list.

1. Bring your price list with you everywhere. That’s why I recommend using a small notebook or your smart phone to develop the list in the first place. In order for it to be effective, it must be portable!
2. Update whenever you see a new price. This is one downside of the digital version: those spreadsheet apps are notoriously difficult to edit from the phone. A notebook is much easier to adjust on the spot, especially if it’s written in pencil.
3. If you can’t update on the spot, save your grocery receipts. As soon as you get home, sit down with your list and compare your receipts with the prices on the list. Adjust as necessary. Make this a part of your grocery shopping routine; turn it into a habit.
4. Periodically perform research. It’s a fact of modern life, and the result of inflation and grocery store competition: food prices will change. It’s gonna happen! You might get in a rut of buying cheese at one store, when in reality, the same cheese has a cheaper regular price elsewhere. So every now and then, you will have to do a little market research - literally! - and update your price list. Take a visit to all the grocery stores you frequent, and walk through the aisles, noting prices of items you buy often, and mark them down in your list. Warehouses (like Costco and BJ’s) also frequently change their stock out to adjust to their customers’ buying habits, so keep your eyes peeled when you shop there for items that might end up being cheaper to buy in bulk. (For example, Costco recently started carrying organic rice milk for a better price than I had been paying elsewhere.)
5. Check out new grocery stores. In today’s changing market, you’re bound to have a new store open up in your area at some point. We just had 2 grocery stores open up in my town. (On my part, I’m totally excited about the Wegman’s coming soon!) And not just grocery stores: check out the discount stores, too, like Ollie’s, Big Lots, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and more. And don’t forget about international markets: in my area, we have Asian stores, Mexican stores, African stores, and more.

Do you have a price list? Do you find it difficult to maintain?

Read the rest of the series:

What is a Price List (or Book)?

How to Make a Hard Copy Price Book

How to Make a Digital Price Book

How to Maintain Your Price List

photo by lustfish

A price list is essential for anyone desiring to save the most money on their grocery budget, whether they shop at regular old grocery or get all their food from a local farm. As long as you have multiple sources for the same food, there is bound to be some competition and therefore, variance in price. I’ve already shown you how to make a hard copy of your price list, so today we’re going to move into the 21st century with a digital version!

The digital version requires all the same information:

• item
• brand
• regular price
• unit size
• store

Personally, I find a digital price list to be the easiest way to record local prices, because spreadsheets are a great way to organize a lot of information at one time. You can just glance through the list and see the information you’re looking for automatically! I also love that a spreadsheet will alphabetize each section for you, making it that much easier to find.

There are 3 main spreadsheet software options (probably more lesser known options, too, but we’ll stick with these for now):

• Microsoft Excel - Most people have this on their computers, so it’s an obvious choice. On the other hand, it’s expensive, so you probably won’t want to invest in it just for your grocery price list if you don’t already have it. You can buy the QuickOffice app (currently $9.99) that will allow you to view and edit (to a certain extent) your spreadsheet on your iPhone or Android.
• Open Office - I don’t have much experience with this, but unlike Microsoft, it’s free. No app for phones, though, as far as I can tell.
• Google Docs - my personal favorite because Google Docs has a free Android app ($4.99 for iPhone) that I can bring to the store, both to reference and to update when necessary.

As an example, you can see my own personal price list here.

You can organize your own spreadsheet in one of two ways:

1. with one sheet for each category (like Produce, Dairy, Meat, etc.)
2. with all categories on one sheet, separated by different colored bars

I’ve personally opted for the second one so that all the information is contained in one place. Either one would work just as well.

In any case, each sheet should have 5 columns labeled the following:

Item - Brand - Unit Size - Store - Price

It’s pretty self-explanatory, but just in case, here’s what each of those columns should contain:

• Item: the generic name for the item you are recording, for example, apples or chicken breasts. One thing I need to do more consistently, and re-organize my list to act accordingly: add any qualifying adjectives after the title. For example, if you record both organic and conventional prices, your list would have a line with the word “apples” followed by a line with “apples, organic“. Or perhaps “fish, farm-raised” and “fish, wild-caught“.
• Brand: record the different prices for each brand in a different line and differentiate it here. This is important! It will help you compare generic vs. name brand prices, AND it will help you determine if you can get a good price for an item using a coupon during a super doubles or triples event.
• Unit Size: record the size of the container in question. You can go about this two ways. You can use a lowest-common-denominator unit of measurement for each item - like an ounce, for example - and calculate each price by that unit. So you would divide the price of a 16oz container by 16, or an 8oz container by 8, etc. With this method, you can clearly see the bottom line: which package is cheapest. OR you can be lazy like me and just record each item’s size as it is and do the mental math when comparing prices.
• Store: record the name of the store (or farm or co-op, etc.) with the price you are noting.
• Price: record the price, either the actual price of the item in question, or the price-per-base-unit as mentioned above.

Now you can see at a glance what store has the best price on any item from your grocery list! Plus, using the spreadsheet features, you can organize each list in multiple different ways. For example, on Google docs, you can sort:

• alphabetically by item - Select the range you want to sort, and highlight it. Click on “Data” and then “Sort Range by Column A, A-Z”
• alphabetically by store - Select the range you want to sort, and highlight it. Click on “Data” and then “Sort Range”. Then choose column D (or whichever column in your spreadsheet contains the store names) in the window that pops up.
• by price, lowest-to-highest - Select the range you want to sort, and highlight it. Click on “Data” and then “Sort Range”. Then choose column E (or whichever column in your spreadsheet contains the prices) in the window that pops up. Select A-Z.
• by price, highest-to-lowest - Select the range you want to sort, and highlight it. Click on “Data” and then “Sort Range”. Then choose column E (or whichever column in your spreadsheet contains the prices) in the window that pops up. Select Z-A.

In the same manner, you could also choose to sort by brand or unit size. I imagine the other spreadsheet software options have the same sorting functions.

And there you have it: the 21st century version of a price list!

If you have an online price list spreadsheet, I’d love to see if (if you don’t mind sharing, of course!)! Just leave a link in the comments.

Read the rest of the series:

What is a Price List (or Book)?

How to Make a Hard Copy Price Book

How to Make a Digital Price Book

How to Maintain Your Price List

photo by woodleywonderworks

So a long time ago, I started a series on making and keeping a price list and got as far as one whopping post. Then life intervened and other things moved up in the priorities, and now I’m finally getting back to it. If you need a refresher, check out my first post in the series about what exactly a price list is. Today, we’re going to talk about how to make a price list the old-fashioned way, with a hard copy!

Why, in this digital age, would anyone want a hard copy? What’s the point?

There are a few benefits, namely:

1. You can carry it with you. If you don’t have a smart phone, this is the only way to take it with you to jot down changes or refer to it at a moment’s notice. Even if you do have a smart phone, they can be difficult to update, especially if you’re using a spreadsheet like Google Docs.
2. It can be easier to use than a digital format. Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but I actually prefer to browse through my grocery ads rather than using the online versions. To me, it’s just easier to flip through the actual pages quickly to see what I need, even though I have a pretty fast cable internet connection. The same principle applies to a price book. You can quickly flip through its pages to find what you’re looking for, whereas (if your phone is anything like my phone) it can take forever to get to the exact app, and then the app has to load, and then you have to go to the right spot on the app.
3. You don’t have to worry about internet access, wi-fi connections, or 3G networks. As long as you have your little book with you, you can use and update your price list no matter where the hot spots are.

Personally, I don’t have a hard copy price book because my fingers are far more comfortable typing than writing, but I will admit there are times when I wish I did have a hard copy to use as a reference or to update when I’m out and about.

Let’s get down to business then, and actually make a price list. You’ll want to start with a small notebook, something like this:

Of course, it doesn’t have to be the exact same thing, but what you’re looking for is approximately the same size: large enough to keep detailed records, but small enough to fit in your purse or pocket. You also want it to be relatively sturdy so that it doesn’t get beaten up by being lugged around all the time. You’ll also want it to have at least 100 pages.

Now you have a notebook. What do you do with it?

First you’ll need to organize it into sections. You pretty much have two choices, and you can go with whichever one works for you:

1. Alphabetically. Mark out sections by putting a big capital letter up in the top right corner of the page, about every 5 pages or so (Leave more pages for more popular letters, like “S”, and fewer - or no - pages for letters like “X” and “Q”.
2. Categorically. Mark out sections by writing in large letters at the top of a page some general food categories, like “Dairy”, “Produce”, “Meat”, etc. Leave about 10 pages for each of these sections.

If your page doesn’t have a margin where you can write the price, you may want to draw in one so that you can have all your prices in a neat column.

Now you need to fill in your price book. Whether you’re filing by category or alphabetically, you’ll need to create mini-sections, simply by jotting in some more specific categories of food, like “Apples” under “A” or “Produce, or “Milk” under “Dairy” or “M”. Beside the name of the item in question, jot down a unit (pound for apples, gallon or 1/2 gallon for milk, for example). All the prices listed below should be based on that unit.

In each mini-section, you will list the name of the store that sells it, and the regular price at that store. For example:

Note: these prices are not accurate as far as I know.

That’s all there is to it! Keep your price book with you at all times so that you can update prices as needed, or refer to it when you come across what you think may be a good deal.

Do you have a price book? Hard copy or digital?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

Read the rest of the series:

What is a Price List (or Book)?

How to Make a Hard Copy Price Book

How to Make a Digital Price Book

How to Maintain Your Price List