How To Save Money on Groceries

Next time I complain about spending too much on food, I'll know that I have no one to blame but myself.

Compare the price of the typical Wholefoods shopper's basket of goods, and nine times out of ten it will indeed be more expensive than the typical Safeway shopper's basket of goods. As a matter of verifiable fact, when you compare the prices on the same goods, Wholefoods is just as an inexpensive as Safeway.

Safeway and Wholefoods charge exactly the same for bananas. Exactly the same for a carton of cherry or grape tomatoes. Admittedly, Safeway's prices on yellow onions, Irish butter, and Cheerios are lower. But Wholefoods charges less for mineral water, Tropicana Premium orange juice, and sweet onions. The simple truth is that if you bought a big basket of the same goods from Safeway and from Wholefoods, the price tag would probably come out within a dollar or two - and it would be just as likely that Wholefoods would be cheaper.

Wholefoods is not expensive in the sense that it charges more for the same foods. It is expensive because of where its price targeting policies are focused: prices for the basics may be competitive, but the selection in Wholefoods is aimed at customers who have a different view of what "basics" are.

Source: Harford, Tim. The Undercover Economist. Oxford, 2006.