Grocery Price Tracking

OU812

Not a coupon or living frugally (I think) related post, but

Just wondering if anyone else does this. I began on our first shop of the new year (I'm a couple of weeks behind in filling in my spreadsheet) and now have data up to the start of this month.

I'm starting to see some very interesting data, including price increases & can extract dietary/nutrition information from it also based on how much spent on each category.

I'm going to try to keep it up for the year to see (1) how much we spend (2) what we spend it on (3) price fluctuations.

I just did it because I'm a bit of a data nerd, it's just in an excel spreadsheet, but I wanted to see how it would break out in charts.

We shop almost exclusively in Dunnes so I'd be interested in comparing data with others who shop in the other stores.

I might try to develop an app over time with the data to generate a shopping list & track pricing. I'm sure they exist in some sort anyway, but I'd be interested in trying my own hand at it.

Geuze

Clearly in DS key issue is to exploit the Shop and Save deal.

So only spend in multiples of 50, keep using your vouchers,

So of your bill is 100 pw, or just over, you pay just over 80.

OU812

Correct. It mostly works out like that too. Sometimes a little more than the €50 multiple

Dub_Jim_Royle

I don't know if you'd fancy making the .xls public and we could all input our prices from where we shop. I have an €80 receipt from Tesco here in front of me, would be interesting to compare vs Dunnes.
App would be fantastic idea. 1st willing tester here.

OU812 wrote: »

Not a coupon or living frugally (I think) related post, but

Just wondering if anyone else does this. I began on our first shop of the new year (I'm a couple of weeks behind in filling in my spreadsheet) and now have data up to the start of this month.

I'm starting to see some very interesting data, including price increases & can extract dietary/nutrition information from it also based on how much spent on each category.

I'm going to try to keep it up for the year to see (1) how much we spend (2) what we spend it on (3) price fluctuations.

I just did it because I'm a bit of a data nerd, it's just in an excel spreadsheet, but I wanted to see how it would break out in charts.

We shop almost exclusively in Dunnes so I'd be interested in comparing data with others who shop in the other stores.

I might try to develop an app over time with the data to generate a shopping list & track pricing. I'm sure they exist in some sort anyway, but I'd be interested in trying my own hand at it.

OU812

Yeah, I could do that Jim. Maybe a google document would work better as some people wouldn't have excel.

It'd be great to maybe have a live price tracking app, so you scan the barcode, it'll search the price list and then compile a shopping list from each store to give you the best value then you could make a decision wether it'd be worth your while to go to each in order to save.

It'd have to be crowd sourced data though as I know the stores won't allow a price scrape here in Ireland (tried to do it before).

James Delaney

OU812 wrote: »

Not a coupon or living frugally (I think) related post, but

Fair play - but I'd reccomend you keep app idea 2urself.
I wouldn't say Dunnes is the main supermarket - I don't really know their up 2date market share -taut S'Value took over 1st place recently - but LIDL & ALDI have bitten into all well established s'market share big time. Tesco suffering badly.

Gilma2010

I price track for certain things I buy regularly. Persil non bio 60 wash,I only buy when its 1/2 price. Twice a year max it goes on sale and I buy at least 4.

A price tracking app would be amazing, the UK ones are excellent but I haven't seen an Irish version. I'd be happy to contribute though, my main shop is Aldi with Tesco for topup shops and dairy free range.

tringle

Sounds like a great idea, I mostly shop in LIDL and do bulk shops every month or so for freezer and store cupboard. Im happy to test it too.

Maxthedm

This is a great idea, I wouldn't mind helping out too. I shop around anyway, getting certain things in certain stores that are the cheapest (or same price but better quality). Something like this would make it much easier!

keane2097

Geuze wrote: »

Clearly in DS key issue is to exploit the Shop and Save deal.

So only spend in multiples of 50, keep using your vouchers,

So of your bill is 100 pw, or just over, you pay just over 80.

Cliff notes?

rubadub

Gilma2010 wrote: »

I price track for certain things I buy regularly. Persil non bio 60 wash,I only buy when its 1/2 price. Twice a year max it goes on sale and I buy at least 4.

There is a site that detects changes to webpages. Tescos pages seem to have the same URL if there is a price change, I often use this to confirm if they have changed and when.

I have only used it on tescos competitor coupon page and it worked fine, it detected the recent changes to their rules and I got an email clearly highlighting what changed.

https://www.changedetection.com/

so you could enter that persil URL. However they could well change the URL at some stage.

Since this is the frugal forum I should mention I have used tesco own brand non bio liquid which is unusually cheap, I think they are price matching aldi or lidl.

This size seems cheapest at 7.46cent "per wash"
http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=274325219

juneg

James Delaney wrote: »

OU812 wrote: »

Not a coupon or living frugally (I think) related post, but

Fair play - but I'd reccomend you keep app idea 2urself.
I wouldn't say Dunnes is the main supermarket - I don't really know their up 2date market share -taut S'Value took over 1st place recently - but LIDL & ALDI have bitten into all well established s'market share big time. Tesco suffering badly.

Why dont Tesco run vouchers or promotions like the shop and save from Dunnes? Why dont they have a bit more incentive to bring in the customers?

Maxthedm

juneg wrote: »

James Delaney wrote: »

Why dont Tesco run vouchers or promotions like the shop and save from Dunnes? Why dont they have a bit more incentive to bring in the customers?

In a way, they do. They accept competitor's coupons. So even if there's a "Spend €50, save €10" coupon you have for Dunnes, Tesco will accept it.

More info on this here

James Delaney

And therefore Tesco have less Advertising costs.

Shame on them for reducing the working t&cs of their longterm serving staff - paying them less per hr etc.

rubadub

James Delaney wrote: »

And therefore Tesco have less Advertising costs.

I have wondered about this. I reckon the papers could well pay aldi & lidl for the privelege of printing vouchers, seeing as how they will see a huge increase in sales of the paper.

OU812

Sorry folks, Haven't forgotten about this. I had to stop updating my tracker in early March due to time constrictions. I'm hoping to get it up to date in the next couple of weeks at which point I'll publish the first quarter/third of the year as a google document

pwurple

I'm interested to see this, to gauge whether we are spendy or if I can do some cutting back on groceries.

We cook almost everything from scratch, but we are going for more expensive ingredients than we could I think. Fresh salmon and cod rather than mixed fish-o-the-day... and because both parents work full time, slow cooking isn't an option except at the weekend. So meat is chops, steaks etc.


I track our grocery spends at a high level. We have a rule for purchases, all supermarket groceries must go on credit card. No cash, no laser. Credit card only. That way I can pull out all the spends and track them. Now, of course that scutters us when it comes to buying fresh things like fish and veg from farmers or markets, but I try to note those separately.

Since christmas, our monthly spend (Family of 5) is running at an average of €690 euro per month. Is that high, low, medium?

snubbleste

pwurple wrote: »

I'm interested to see this, to gauge whether we are spendy or if I can do some cutting back on groceries....
Since christmas, our monthly spend (Family of 5) is running at an average of €690 euro per month. Is that high, low, medium?

I'd say you can cut back far more without compromising on quality. Trick is to shop around, look for the offers every week - plan meals around them, freeze freeze freeze, switch to generic brands etc.
A single person can manage quite well on ~€27pw shopping bill imo, then a family should reduce that figure per person due to economies of scale, meals together etc.

zagmund

We're on a drive at the moment to optimise our grocery spending. This involves small & regular trips to more or less all the supermarkets as well as Asian markets, etc . . .

Our monthly spend for the first 3 months of the year was about €528 for 2 adults and 2 very hungry teenagers. That's down about €15 per month on the same period in 2015 and down well over €100 per month on 2014.

I had thought of an app similar to the one mentioned earlier, but decided that app development just wasn't going to be for me. Instead I have a small spreadsheet which contains many of our regular purchases and the prices for the various shops. In order to reduce confusion, I have the prices listed per unit (such as kg or litre) rather than 350g vs 375g, etc . . .

I just collected my receipts for a couple of weeks and wrote down the repeat items - yoghurt, flour, milk, cereal, etc . . . that are very, very regular purchases. Once they are all written down like that it's easy to spot which shops are price-matching others on which products (so I can buy them in any shop) and which they don't even try to match. Every so often I go around the shops and refresh the prices just to make sure I'm not working off old data.

z

pwurple

snubbleste wrote: »

I'd say you can cut back far more without compromising on quality. Trick is to shop around, look for the offers every week - plan meals around them, freeze freeze freeze, switch to generic brands etc.
A single person can manage quite well on ~€27pw shopping bill imo, then a family should reduce that figure per person due to economies of scale, meals together etc.

Interesting. Thanks for the tips.

Shopping around looking for offers is not something we can do easily when the two adults are working 60+ hours per week each and juggling children, so hunting through the odds and ends is for when we retire.

We use generic brands for anything branded. I don't give a toss about organic veg, ordinary does grand etc. We cook, we even grow all our spuds and onions in the garden, but dragging the family through a halogen lit supermarket is my idea of hell on earth, and it's not how I want to spend my limited time with our children. We shop online mainly, well after shops are closed and do a driveby collection on the way home from work. Milk is a killer and growing children seem to eat more than adults. We are going through 3 litres per day of the stuff.

Our freezer is small and is nearing the end of it's days, which is limiting.

I don't actually mind paying more for fresh good quality food... that's what we are working for after all. I'm aiming for a middle ground, rather than being Spendy, or Thrifty. Wondering if we are there already.

Godge

Maxthedm wrote: »

In a way, they do. They accept competitor's coupons. So even if there's a "Spend €50, save €10" coupon you have for Dunnes, Tesco will accept it.

More info on this here

But you don't get another voucher from Tesco when you spend one.

The clever thing from Dunnes' point of view is that you keep coming back to get another voucher.

As someone else said you maximise the value by spending just above the amount. I once spent €101.17 which is as close as I have got to €100.

keane2097

How long do you have to spend the voucher after it's issued?

Lazy Bhoy

keane2097 wrote: »

How long do you have to spend the voucher after it's issued?

The voucher is valid from the day after you receive it and then it lasts for ten days.

snubbleste

Lidl have done some work for you, OP.
http://www.lidl.ie/en/6641.htm