I bought the reusable filter with my Keurig ($17.99 I think). Now, I buy whatever bean coffee I like, grind it myself and use the reusable filter. The cost per cup drops off substantially.
Cost of groceries
- Thread starter stinkynuts
- Start date
Live Niagara Falls and shop across the river at Wegmans Wal-Mart and Tops. Can't beat the prices and selections on many things and YES I do shop in Canada and I pay taxes etc.
If you want to save cash, you can always just look at your weekly flyers and price match. If you don't want to bother with that, then you have choices depending on your food habits.
- If you want fancier products, then you have to pay for it at Longos, Loblaws, Metro.
- If you care more about everyday staples, then go to Food Basics, No Frills or Freshco or Walmart
- Ethnic supermarkets often have cheaper produce/meat, but prepackaged stuff costs high (as someone said above which is 100% true)
- Costco is hit and miss with pricing, but what is guaranteed is that you have to commit to buying meat, yogurt or whatever that is probably 2-3x bigger than normal
- Convenience stores and drug stores usually cost the most
Each manor grocery chain has high and low end stores. So at the end of the day, all the common products are sourced from the same warehouses. And most food is sourced from the same vendors anyway, so whether you buy from Loblaws, Food Basics or Highland Farms, there's only so many suppliers.
It goes like this....
Loblaws: They run Loblaws, Superstore, No Frills, Zehrs, T&T (bought them a few years ago), Independent Grocer, Value Mart, Maxi in Quebec and some more I forget. Loblaws also bought Shoppers Drug Mart a year ago so their products will intermix at some point
Sobeys: They run Sobeys, Freshco, Price Chopper. They also bought Safeway a while back
Metro: They run Metro, Food Basics, Adonis (small chain of Middle Eastern stuff), IGA
With exception of truly unique foods sourced from specialty suppliers, the vast majority of food is sourced from the same suppliers. So a store's overall pricing actually has little to do with quality. It has to do with marketing and catering the shopping experience (dusty box your own stuff at No Frills vs. nicer looking Metro) to different sets of shoppers. Some will pay more for clean stores, bright colours and unique food. Some don't care, bring their own bag and look for the lowest costing staples at Freshco.
That's why each major grocery chain has a set of high, mid and low end store types. They want a piece of each consumer segment.
Also, for any store that charges you 5 cents per bag. Forget it. Bring your own nylon nags. The 5 cent bag was a government issued policy years ago. But they got rid of it not long ago. Some stores kept the 5 cent fee, some got rid of it. What people don't know is that the 5 cent fee was never a government tax of some kind to go towards environmental costs or anything. It was a poorly implemented policy where the 5 cents has always gone strictly to the retailers profits from day one. So when the law got loosened, some stores noticed people are still shopping and willing to pay 5 cents per bag so they kept it as a money grab. A plastic bag only costs a few cents tops, so for every 5 cents they charge they actually make money off you.
The 5 cent policy was greeted with open arms from retailers because they make money from consumers without needing to give any of it to the government:
- A 5 cent fee costs more than the bag itself = profit
- People buy $1 or $2 nylon bags = profit
- People use their own plastic or nylon bags = profit as they don't have to give away free bags that cost money
- Retailers get publicity by saying they saved millions of bags from land fills (which is good news), but it's really from the forced law from the government and wallets of consumers rather than the stores driving the initiative themselves
Behind closed doors, retailers couldn't be happier when the law was announced.
- If you want fancier products, then you have to pay for it at Longos, Loblaws, Metro.
- If you care more about everyday staples, then go to Food Basics, No Frills or Freshco or Walmart
- Ethnic supermarkets often have cheaper produce/meat, but prepackaged stuff costs high (as someone said above which is 100% true)
- Costco is hit and miss with pricing, but what is guaranteed is that you have to commit to buying meat, yogurt or whatever that is probably 2-3x bigger than normal
- Convenience stores and drug stores usually cost the most
Each manor grocery chain has high and low end stores. So at the end of the day, all the common products are sourced from the same warehouses. And most food is sourced from the same vendors anyway, so whether you buy from Loblaws, Food Basics or Highland Farms, there's only so many suppliers.
It goes like this....
Loblaws: They run Loblaws, Superstore, No Frills, Zehrs, T&T (bought them a few years ago), Independent Grocer, Value Mart, Maxi in Quebec and some more I forget. Loblaws also bought Shoppers Drug Mart a year ago so their products will intermix at some point
Sobeys: They run Sobeys, Freshco, Price Chopper. They also bought Safeway a while back
Metro: They run Metro, Food Basics, Adonis (small chain of Middle Eastern stuff), IGA
With exception of truly unique foods sourced from specialty suppliers, the vast majority of food is sourced from the same suppliers. So a store's overall pricing actually has little to do with quality. It has to do with marketing and catering the shopping experience (dusty box your own stuff at No Frills vs. nicer looking Metro) to different sets of shoppers. Some will pay more for clean stores, bright colours and unique food. Some don't care, bring their own bag and look for the lowest costing staples at Freshco.
That's why each major grocery chain has a set of high, mid and low end store types. They want a piece of each consumer segment.
Also, for any store that charges you 5 cents per bag. Forget it. Bring your own nylon nags. The 5 cent bag was a government issued policy years ago. But they got rid of it not long ago. Some stores kept the 5 cent fee, some got rid of it. What people don't know is that the 5 cent fee was never a government tax of some kind to go towards environmental costs or anything. It was a poorly implemented policy where the 5 cents has always gone strictly to the retailers profits from day one. So when the law got loosened, some stores noticed people are still shopping and willing to pay 5 cents per bag so they kept it as a money grab. A plastic bag only costs a few cents tops, so for every 5 cents they charge they actually make money off you.
The 5 cent policy was greeted with open arms from retailers because they make money from consumers without needing to give any of it to the government:
- A 5 cent fee costs more than the bag itself = profit
- People buy $1 or $2 nylon bags = profit
- People use their own plastic or nylon bags = profit as they don't have to give away free bags that cost money
- Retailers get publicity by saying they saved millions of bags from land fills (which is good news), but it's really from the forced law from the government and wallets of consumers rather than the stores driving the initiative themselves
Behind closed doors, retailers couldn't be happier when the law was announced.
Not sure about Keurig, but Tassimo's on sale work out to about 35-40 cents a cup. No, not as cheap as buying bulk ground coffee, but still a lot cheaper than Starbucks or Tims.
We're pretty picky when it comes to beef, we buy direct from a farmer we know. Costco has good pricing on cheese, shrimp and other items.
What's on sale is pretty much what I eat. Galen Weston said "Canadians don't mind paying more for fresh produce." Sure this coming from a guy who is price gouging us.
Dollarama has the reusable plastic pods for $2, the bigger reusable one from keurig warped the machine over time and everytime I close it catches and makes a noise. Get the dollarama one...
I love chicken wings and the simplicity of the frozen wings. However the companies have started selling seasoned wings as boxes of wings with dipping sauces. That eliminates the point of buying seasoned wings.
Also, the prices of the wings has now skyrocketed. My favourite flavour lately is the salt & pepper wings but my local Sobey's sell them for $17 a box. Are you kidding me?
Regarding PC products, I work at a major Canadian food manufacturer and we are contracted to produce a line of product for PC. Products may be produced in mainline factories, but the quality of the product still relies on PC's personal recipe for the product.
It is like if Coca-Cola bottled PC Cola. It may be produced on the same line, but the recipe for Coke as vastly different than PC. You pay for quality of the product, not the quality of the manufacturer.
Also, the prices of the wings has now skyrocketed. My favourite flavour lately is the salt & pepper wings but my local Sobey's sell them for $17 a box. Are you kidding me?
Regarding PC products, I work at a major Canadian food manufacturer and we are contracted to produce a line of product for PC. Products may be produced in mainline factories, but the quality of the product still relies on PC's personal recipe for the product.
It is like if Coca-Cola bottled PC Cola. It may be produced on the same line, but the recipe for Coke as vastly different than PC. You pay for quality of the product, not the quality of the manufacturer.
Costco has good pricing on almost everything, except that you have to buy in bulk. If you have a small family, this is very inconvenient unless you have a freezer, or split the items with a friend.
I buy items I use when on sale - cheese, toilet paper etc...there are some really good sale prices that come around every few weeks or so. Fruit and veggies are the worst for quality/freshness and price, so tend to pay more for those at a specialist not Food Basics etc. Metro and Sobeys in my area are always the highest priced.
I recommend checking out Rabba for meat prices- I find that generally they can't be beat! Just check it out on a Monday.
