Act 14: If the Price is Right

I made a price book this week!  Woot!  Wondering what a price book is?  A book of prices.  End of post.

Just kidding :-)

I learned about the price book idea from reading Time Magazine's blog It's Your Money.  This blog has been a bit disappointing as it is mostly about ways to save money and not about money management and financial things in general.  I didn't know that at first.  But it did once give me a 30% off coupon to a shoe store so I finally got to replace my worn out boots, so I keep it around.  Regardless, it linked to an article one day about price books.  It talked about how people don't really know what they pay for their goods and don't comparison shop the way they should.  It recommended that each person make a list of items they buy regularly and pick 3 to 5 stores at which you might potentially shop.  Then print out your list and go price your items. 

I had a hard time keeping my list under control.  I think the article recommended the basket of goods be around 30 items.  Mine was 51.  I covered all your major grocery categories... meat, dairy, produce, packaged foods, and toiletries.  The stores I priced at were Hy-Vee, Jewel, Walmart, Target, and Walgreens.  For the purposes of experiment I eliminated Target and Walgreens from the results.  Neither of the ones near me sells produce or meat so the data just wasn't as comparable (no Super Target over on this side of the river!).

It was a little time consuming to price my items at the different stores, but really it ended up only being a couple of hours.  I wanted to upload my spreadsheet but I don't seem to be able to do that, which is too bad because it was pretty cool!  For each item the lowest price is highlighted in yellow and the highest price is in red font.  Unless you have a Mac, in which case Microsoft chose not to include support for conditional formatting in your software and you won't see any of my pretty colors.  Not that I'm bitter.  Doesn't matter though, currently none of you can see the spreadsheet at all.  Moving on.

The first thing I learned from viewing my results was this:  NEVER buy anything at Walgreens.  Holy crap.  Ibuprofen, allergy medicine, and body wash are $3 more expensive there than anywhere else.  Same item size and everything.  They were consistently expensive on all the products they had.  Convenience is not cheap.

The results were as I expected between the big three.

	# of Goods	Total Price	Difference ($)
Jewel	51	$224.73
Hy-Vee	51	$203.56	-$21.17
Wal-Mart	51	$186.45	-$17.11

 I should probably say that I currently shop at Hy-Vee.  I switched about a year ago when my roommate went there and discovered how much cheaper it was.  This kind of proves it.. $21 in savings is probably worth driving an extra half mile.  Turns out though, I could drive a mile farther down the road and save another $17 by shopping at Wal-Mart.  I kind of already knew that.  And it would be worth it.

Here's my issue:  have you seen their produce?  It's possible other Wal-Mart stores have better looking fruits and veggies but I am never impressed when I go in the store near me.  Not by the selection or the quality.  And after looking at it, I'm not all that impressed with their meats either.  Now it's a quality issue.  I buy a lot of produce and I want it to be good.  Great even.  I'm all for saving money but I'm not having financial hardships and at this point I'm not sure I want to sacrifice quality for $17.

 Being the analytical person I am though, I couldn't leave it at that.  There has to be a compromise.  What about shopping at 2 stores?  Experts recommend it to save money and get better deals.  Here's the breakdown:

	# of Goods	Total Price	Savings over Hy-Vee only
Hy-Vee Dairy, Produce, Meat	29	$97.88
Wal-Mart Grocery, Toiletries	22	$94.58
Total	51	192.46	-$11.10

I chose to buy produce and meat at Hy-Vee because of the quality issue.  Dairy is actually the only sub-category that was cheaper to buy from Hy-Vee.  The grocery category (packaged foods like bread, cereal, snacks, pop, etc) and toiletries come from Wal-Mart.  This setup would save me $11 over shopping at Hy-Vee alone.  Not bad.  Worth shopping at two stores?  I lean towards no, but I haven't had tried it either.  They're on the same road basically so the logistics are easy.  It would be the extra time and hassle that will ultimately make the difference.  

Maybe on weeks when my shopping list doesn't have much meat or produce on it, I'll head to Wal-Mart and save a few extra bucks that week.  Or maybe I won't change my actions at all.  The point of the exercise was to become a more educated consumer, and I have.  My behavior, whatever it is, is now a deliberate choice driven by actual data rather than just being driven by whatever store I happen to feel like going to that day.  Which is probably a lot more reliable!

Act 12 and 13ish: Planting and Graduation

Sorry for the slight hiatus from posting, but it got busy there for a bit.  I was working my butt off trying to get the house and yard ready for my family to come visit and a bunch of people to come over for my graduation party.  This was major spring cleaning time, including finishing up several house projects that just never quite got crossed off the list for some reason.  But now that's all over and despite some necessary after-visitors cleaning that hasn't been done yet, I'm back!

During the craziness, I did finally get around to planting the garden outside (and it finally got warm enough).  A friend recommended a method called square foot gardening, which uses raised garden boxes divided into one foot squares, with something different planted in each square.  It recommends a soil mix of 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 peat, and 1/3 compost.  This prevents digging up your own yard and the purchased soil is much less likely to grow weeds than ground soil.  So anyhoo, after reading up on it I decided to give it a try.  Steve built a beauteous 5 x 3 ft box and we got to work.  First was the transplanted tomatoes and peppers... 2 slicer tomatoes, 2 hybrid (cherry) tomatoes, 2 red bell peppers, and 2 pepperoncinis.  They're all between 2 and 5 inches tall and the pride and joy of my plant growing career (which consequently started with these plants).  We also planted seeds... 3 cucumbers and 3 green beans.

Of course it rained HARD for the two whole days after the planting.  It just beat the crap out of the poor little plants.  One slicer tomato looked really bad.  I'm not sure it'll make it :(  Only time will tell.



After all cleaning and planting was done, my family showed up my graduation weekend.  It was awesome that they all came, and it made the difference between me deciding to walk in the ceremony or not.  The University of Iowa offers their nighttime MBA program in several cities in Iowa, so I was able to take classes right here without driving to Iowa City or having to do it online.  It was convenient and a really good program, but because I wasn't ever on campus I didn't really feel as connected to the University.  If they hadn't been there, I wouldn't have felt the need to participate for myself.  Even during the ceremony it didn't seem like that big of a deal, until I walked across the stage and received my diploma.  See my name on that piece of paper was a much bigger deal than I expected it to be!  I may have even been a little misty-eyed :) 

Seeing my family was the best part though.  It's the first time they've all come to visit me and we had a blast.  And it doesn't matter how old you are... hearing your parents say they are proud of you is the best feeling in the world :-D


"The tassel's worth the hassle!"  ~Author Unknown

Act 11: Sweet Home Chicago

I spent this past weekend in Chicago and it was fantastic!  Good times were had by all.  A few things I did that qualify for this here blog…

1)      Rock Bottom Brewery’s RockFest –

This event was a beer tasting featuring 46 microbrews from Iowa, Illinios, and Wisconsin.  It was FUN.  The only “beer tasting” I’ve ever been to was the Sam Adam’s Brewery that I talked about in Act 2 of this blog.  This was totally different.  Big room, lots of people, and a tasting glass (kind of like a wine glass, but not exactly).  You got a sheet that listed all beers, the brewery and city they came from, and the brewmaster’s name.  There were tables with taps and you just went around and had them fill you up with whatever interested you.  A solid 3 oz pour I’d say.  Multiply that by 46 beers and you could be hurting!  You learn quickly how to do it though.   We had 6 people so we’d each try to get a different beer and pass glasses to try them all.  Then when you’re done (and I did taste every single one!), you can go back for a glass of a few of your favorites.

If you like beer, I’d highly recommend finding an event like this.  You have no idea what they can do with beer flavors until you do.  There were a few barrel-aged beers… one tasted like scotch and two others tasted like whiskey.  I mean almost exactly like them!  No burn though, because, well, beer doesn’t burn.  Another smelled (and slightly tasted) like a York Peppermint Patty, another was sort of tropical in flavor.  There was such a variety that you were bound to find something that you liked.  My favorite?  The Cinco de Mayo Vienna Lager brewed in Orland Park.

2)     STOMP

The idea behind STOMP is making music using your hands, feet, and everyday objects like garbage cans, lids, brooms, buckets, etc.  It was at the Bank of America Theater in Chicago this past weekend and it was pretty entertaining.  2 things really amazed me about the show.  First was the acoustics.  It didn’t seem like these people hand their hands mic’d, but man… they snapped their fingers and the sound filled the theater.  I can barely snap my fingers at all!  The second aspect that really grabbed me was how each person kept their own rhythm going no matter what else was going on.  There were so many different parts being “played” at once that I couldn’t keep them straight.  At least if you’re playing in a band, or even singing, you can hear your part to an extent (clarinets sound different than trumpets after all) but here the sounds were all similar and most of the time only one person was doing each part.  I wouldn’t have stood a chance!

 

3)     Cubs Game

Alright, you caught me.  Going to a Cubs game is not new… it was actually my 4^th time.  BUT, I’m saying t qualifies because of where I sat.  I usually somewhere in the 200s sections, but this time the tickets were a birthday present for Steve so I splurged for something better.  Section 111, about 15-20 rows behind the Cubs dugout staring directly at 3^rd base.  Close enough to see facial expressions.  It draws you into the game when you’re that close!  It’s easier to follow the action and get excited (not that I’m not always excited when I go to Cubs games, but still).  I have to admit, I’m in serious danger of becoming a “seat snob”.  Which is too expensive even for the 2 games/year I go to.  Let's face it though.  I'll still be happy sitting anywhere.

  It says there beneath the scoreboard that "The Cubs are gonna win today"... and they did, 10-5 :-)

"I give you Chicago.  It is not London and Harvard.  It is not Paris and buttermilk.  It is American in every chitling  and sparerib.  It is alive from snout to tail" ~H.L. Mencken