Price Match Myth Busting

Often when I encourage someone to start price matching at the grocery store, I'm met with resistance. People are, often, reluctant to add this step to their shopping routine. Here are some of their reasons why:

1. I only buy fresh ingredients, not pre packaged stuff that goes on sale.

Surprise! Most of the price matching I do is on produce. Even if you are making everything from scratch everyday, you're still likely to find the things you're buying on sale at least some of the time. Even the organic stuff! Yesterday, I price matched my groceries for a total savings of $9.65, but $5.70 of that came from the produce section: tomatoes, asparagus and cucumbers! Price matching isn't just for jars of mayo and boxes of Kraft Dinner.

Price matching my produce saved me almost $6 yesterday. Other frequently matched items for me are peppers, berries, celery, lettuce, carrots and avocados.

2. I don't have time to look through a dozen different flyers before I go shopping (or I don't get flyers delivered to my house).

Paper flyers are not required! Nor do you have to manually scan through every page of every flyer to get the best deals. Like most things these days, there's an app for that. It's called Flipp and it is fantastic. Once you have that on your phone, you can just type in each list item and the app searches the flyers for you! Then, you can find and "clip" the ad for the best price, and use it at the till to make your match. An extra few minutes with the app while you make your list, and you're all set!

10 seconds on Flipp could mean spending $1 on a head of lettuce instead of $2.50

3. I already shop at the grocery store with the best prices, so I probably won't save enough to make it worth my time.

The thing about shopping at the grocery store with the "best" prices, is that the company banks on the fact that you think they're automatically giving you the best deal. If you just assume you're paying the lowest possible price, then you could be overpaying. I do all of my shopping at Superstore, with the occasional last minute stop at Wal Mart, and I still am able to price match around $60 worth of savings every month! $60 per month is $720 in a year. I'd say that's worth my time.

These were shelf priced at $2.38 each at Superstore yesterday. And I got the last 2! Either everyone at the store was price matching, or people just assume Superstore has the best price on everything without checking. Even for winter pricing, $2.38/cucumber is obscene.

4. I don't want to be annoying at the till/I don't want to hold up the line.

What's more annoying? Knowing you're leaving and extra $60 of your hard earned cash at the grocery store every month, or taking an extra minute at the till to get the best price on your groceries? This is probably the reason I hear most often for people being unwilling to try price matching, and to me it is the most frustrating. The store legitimately has a policy that accommodates price matching, and you don't want to be annoying by using existing store policy? That would be like going to a restaurant where kids eat free and insisting on paying for your child, anyway, because you don't want to look cheap. Let yourself save your own money. There is absolutely no shame in it.

If you're organized at the till, holding up the line is also a non-issue. Often, I have the luxury of shopping in the middle of the weekday, so it's not crazy busy. But yesterday, I went in the afternoon. On a weekend. It was a madhouse in there. Still, I price matched 6 separate items, and I think I was in the line for maybe a full extra minute. Even with Superstore's new price matching computer system. If there is a line behind you, sometimes a 5 second price match can feel like a lifetime, but if you keep the savings in mind, I think you'll find yourself more comfortable with the process. Honestly, the first few times I price matched, I was a nervous mess, fumbling with my phone and flipping through saved ads at the checkout. But, the more I did it, the smoother my system became. (Keep your price matching items all together, and get your ads organized and ready to go before you get in line). Also, I continued to notice that nobody cared that I was price matching, anyway. I rarely notice what the people around me in the grocery store are doing or buying, and the feeling is mutual. No one even notices that I'm price matching. Time, and the line, marches on.

Pro tip: take screen shots of the ads you want to use, so you don't have to worry about the internet being terrible and taking forever to load at the till.

Yesterday, I saved $9.65 by price matching at the till. It took an extra 5 minutes at home to search through the Flipp app, and an additional minute at the till to show the cashier my ads. If I had dropped $10 out of my wallet at the till, you can bet I would have bent down and spent a minute or two trying to get it back. This way, the cash can just stay in my wallet all along.

Important price matching notes:

- The stores that I know for sure you can price match at are Superstore, Save on Foods, Wal Mart and No Frills. You CANNOT price match at Safeway or Sobeys.

- Different stores have different lists of stores they will match with. At Superstore and Wal Mart, I have never been turned away with an ad from the lesser known stores like Family Foods or Shop Easy, but I know others have not had the same experience. I think it depends on the store and the day. My advice to you is to just try again next time. Even if you can't match everything every time, you're likely to be able to match most things most of the time, and still save money.