Rachael's Shopping Trip in central FL - Compared to mine from 9/15/2023

I sent Rachael a complete list of what I bought so she could go get the same things at her local deep discount store - Save-A-Lot.

This post is Rachael’s shopping in comparison to what I did on this blog post.

Now, in the area where she is, they do not have an Aldi or Lidl. So, that leaves this store. It is quite similar in feel to these other stores - they leave things in boxes, have a limited number of items and appeal to the budget shopper. Save-A-Lot as a chain isn’t as nice as Lidl, but it’s what is there.

So there’s that.

Anyway - here is what I bought - and this is what she bought.

mine - in Poland

hers - in Dade City, FL

 

So here’s her prices. Let me share with you what I paid - and see how she contrasted.

I’m going to put it all into a table format so you can see easily. I’d like to contrast per oz. if at all possible.

It is very hard when comparing as things are different sizes to start with.

All together, I spent about $40 and she spent about $65. If we dropped out the Pepsi, it would be closer - I would have spent $30 and she $47.66. She had to spend quite a bit more than I did on that. Now, not all sizes were totally the same. Let me show you the table I worked up. I figured it down to the ounce or lb. She paid less per unit on only a few items!

The only things cheaper per unit for her were eggs, dry cat food, and ice cream. I was actually surprised by the eggs - as I knew ours had gone up in the last year - but apparently hers came down dramatically!

But overall, it was difficult to compare as her bags of almost everything was bigger than what I bought. Her yogurt cups were bigger, cheese was over 2x as big, bigger package of meat, her bag of sugar was almost twice the size I bought — almost everything was larger.

So, taking the money spent and comparing it to mine isn’t quite equal without some extra work.

However, I spent quite a while on the table shown above - and that shows the actual difference per ounce or lb.

I could have figured out what hers would have been if she paid had bought exact same sizes as I did, but I don’t feel like that is entirely necessary. I think I’ve gotten the idea. Some things we have are dramatically cheaper - sugar, for example. Other things, not as much.

I realize by giving her nectarines to buy, I am asking her to buy something that is not local - whereas nectarines are in season here - so, less expensive. However, we have to pay a lot for watermelon, when I know sometimes in Florida, you can get them at a great price.

So, overall, I don’t think it was quite as bad as I had thought maybe it might be.

Of course the other variable in all this is the ever changing exchange rate. Right now it is very favorable for us as Americans. A few months ago it had dropped considerably - up to 10%. So, it’s a constantly moving target - this price check type of post!

I wasn’t actually going for sale items - I really had wanted to compare regular prices with regular prices. But, when it came right down to buying things, I wanted to spend as little as possible…so you know what I did - yes - I bought things on sale if possible.

I hope that this has been interesting for you - I know I was intrigued.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey! Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Becky Petersen5 Comments