Price Books

[talon]

My grandmother used a price book for all of her shopping. My mother didn't keep a price book, she kept most of it in her head. And I admit I did the same because prices were fairly steady for a long time.

The past few years (since about 2002) have changed that. Prices are volatile. Places that were once reliably less expensive are now some of the priciest places to shop. Merchants are more likely to resort to faked bargains than ever before, even merchants who were once trustworthy.

I remembered my grandmother's price book when I saw a notebook in Mother's effects that was a price book she'd started and abandoned.

For years, I'd kept a auto logbook that recorded all the gasoline, oil changes, and repairs I'd had done on the car from the day I bought it. I have the log books of cars I used to own, too, because I have never had a car I passed on to someone else. All my cars are driven into the scrap yard 20 years or more after I buy them. It's hard to open the first one and see that I paid a whopping 23¢ a gallon for gasoline when my current one records such prices as $2.69 a gallon. And yes, I know everything was cheaper back then, but it's a myth to say that the prices have risen in line with paychecks and things are still comparatively in line. Back then, I could fill my 12 gallon tank on less than an hour's wage. Now, it takes almost 3 hour's worth of wages to fill my 10 gallon tank. Even accounting for inflation and the so-called "cost of living" pay increases, that's more than triple what it once was.

Still, as long as we don't look too far back, having a price book is a good idea for saving money.

The best thing about a price book is that you don't have to alter your lifestyle. The purpose of a price book is to help you spot when the items you most commonly buy go on true sales. It's better than coupons because it's more reliable.

I know there are people who have successfully saved a ton of money by using coupons, but I'm not one of them. I can save a little with coupons, but I save really big with my price book.

I use a price book for everything - dog food, dish soap, gasoline, notebooks, pens, groceries, toiletries, accessories, plumbers. Most people shop most frequently for food, so let me share that aspect with you.

Check your favorite recipes. There are probably between 12 and 24 you use regularly. Among those recipes, you probably have 30 or 40 items you buy all the time. And among those items, you have maybe a dozen that are the most likely to be expensive. These are the ingredients that quickly increase your bill at the check out line. Those are the first ones you want to put in your price book and follow because those are the budget wreckers. Eventually, if you're like me, you might follow all your regular purchases, but start small. Start with the expensive items.

To do this, you'll need a small spiral bound or loose leaf notebook, something small enough to slip into a pocket or purse or shopping bag and a pen.

At the top of each page, write the name of the item you want to track. Make columns for Date, Store, Size, Packaging, and Price. Every time you are in a store that sells that item, make an entry. It doesn't matter if you actually buy it or not. This isn't a receipt book. It's a price book.

The difference between a receipt book and a price book is that the receipt book tracks what you actually spend and a price book tracks the fluctuating cost of an item. The goal of a price book is to help you determine when the best times are to buy things you most frequently need. A lot of food items are priced by seasonal availability, so learning when the stores you frequent are buying something that's in season, "in season" not necessarily referring to fresh fruit and vegetables, but also to the food manufacturing cycle. You probably didn't know there were cycles for when certain food products were made, but there are. Manufacturing plants gear up for processing different foods at different times of the year, and that's reflected in their prices - the end of the season foods are clearance and the new season foods are on special because they want the food moved quickly so they have room for the next food in the cycle. Your price book will reflect that so you can stock up when the food is at its lowest prices - and possibly also at its freshest.

You can't always rely on manufacturing and growing season cycles. Sometimes things go on sale because of holidays, the time of the month, or quarterly. Your price book will help you establish when the real sales happen and you won't get suckered in by those huge SALE signs where the price isn't really a sale price but a trick to make you think you're getting a bargain.

Since keeping my price book, I've noticed that some stores will get food in at a seasonal low price and they'll pass the savings on for a week or two without ever saying it's on sale, then the price will creep up, and then they'll post a Sale sign up that list's the price as lower than it was last week, but not near as low as it was when it was at a regular seasonal low. Whenever I see a Sale sign now, I automatically check my price book to see if it really is on sale or if I'm being tricked into thinking it's on sale. It runs about 3:1 - for every three times the price is artificially inflated to make it look like a bargain, there's that one time when it really is a bargain.

I stock up when it's really on sale.

One of the benefits of a price book is that you aren't tempted to buy something just because it's marked as being on sale. If it's something you frequently buy, you can wait until it's at the perigee of its pricing cycle. And if it's not something you'd normally buy, you could buy one as a sample, then you might start a price page for it and see if it becomes something you'd buy regularly.

A price book is a valuable shopping tool, and it's simple to make one that is customized just for you.

Maybe someone will make an app for that.