Check Out GroceryGuide.com
May 30th, 2008 | 
Author: Okay, this is another one of those posts totally unrelated to writing and editing. =) Money Saving Mom (who, by the way, has a new blog home at Typepad) mentioned a site on her blog today that sounded interesting – GroceryGuide.com.
GroceryGuide will show you all of the products on sale at your grocery store. And it will also match up the coupons for you (I haven’t been able to get this feature to work).
They rate the sale price from 1 star (okay sale price) to 5 stars (awesome sale price).
When you click on the “details” for a sale item, a couple of interesting features pop-up. First, there’s basic recipes using the sale item – how cool is that? And, my favorite feature, is a price history chart based on 19 years of tracking and trends. Then there’s also options to review the sale item.
Going back to the price history charts…One thing that I am having a hard time being convinced of is that food prices have risen as dramatically as the media claims. A local online newspaper claims that our local food prices have risen 35%. Huh? Not in my opinion.
Some items, like fresh corn on the cob ($4 or more per dozen), have definitely increased but that was last year’s price and it’s the same this year. Overall, the large majority of items just don’t seem to be skyrocketing like the media claims. In fact, I think the sale prices have gotten cheaper!!!
According to the price history charts, a lot of the items on sale this week in West Virginia at Krogers are cheaper or on the downfall. In fact, 2006 seemed a lot more expensive than now. For example, tomatoes in early 2006 averaged $1.19/lb. The price dropped off to 75 cents/lb. in Jan. 2007, rose to $1/lb., dropped off again to 75 cents/lb., and is now back to $1/lb. The slight spike seems to be somewhat seasonal (late winter/spring presumably in anticipation of fresh harvests). Even with the spikes, the current prices have not gone past the high prices in 2006! The same pattern holds true for most grocery products.
Again, I found the site fascinating and will probably use it as a reference when I plan my shopping lists. Check out GroceryGuide.com when you have a few minutes.
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