Grocery Shopping for the Mildly Obsessed

And now, as Monty Python might say, “For something completely different….”

Given the recent discussion as to which topics are, and are not, appropriate for HD’s realm of finance and retirement, let me first give my defense of an article on the mundane topic of grocery shopping. It’s really pretty simple: For us at least, our weekly expenditures at our friendly local HEB are one of our most substantial fixed costs, probably around $8000 – $10,000 every year. Now with that out of the way…..

I’ve shared before the story of how I went from carefree bachelor to husband and father of four in very short order. In the early days of that new status, and with 2 of our 4 kids in the baby/toddler stage, the home front was a place of constant chores, including the dreaded diaper changes. So when an opportunity arose to get out of the house and go grocery shopping, I quickly volunteered. That was 38 years ago, and I still perform the role.

The list of things I’m not good at would fill a large book, but one thing I can do, practically in my sleep, is organize. In addition, on realizing that I now had four college educations to fund, my spendthrift bachelor habits turned on a dime and I became an instant tightwad (or “value investor” as I like to think of it). So the job of grocery shopping actually was a natural for me.

The first order of business was to create a standardized grocery list which could be used each week and was easily modified. Importantly, it also needed to follow the geography of the store. So I put together a Word document containing all the items we routinely buy, organized in columns in the order in which they’re located in the store in accordance with my usual shopping route.

The list is placed on the fridge and during the week we simply circle the items we need. New or different items are handwritten in the margins, in the appropriate place according to their location in the store.

The store, naturally, likes to throw curveballs and periodically rearranges item locations. But the order of the list can be easily revised to sync with the changes.

Shortly before the shopping trip, I add to the list (in red ink) all that week’s coupons I intend to use. HEB helpfully posts these online, so they’re easy to add. They can be “clipped” digitally using my laptop, and are automatically added to my phone. When I check out at the store, the cashier scans a bar code on my phone, and all the coupons are automatically applied.

Before proceeding I should note that, as to this article’s title, my wife would delete the “Mildly” qualifier. But I have a defense for that as well. I’ve long been a coupon clipper, but years ago I stumbled on a few websites—one was called “Krazy Coupon Lady” I seem to recall—and I saw what a true fanatic looked like. There was a whole universe of extreme coupon clippers who put me to shame. Through incredibly complicated maneuvering, they would walk into, say a CVS, and walk out with a huge amount of items for which they paid literally cents on the dollar. So, yes, I consider myself only “mildly” obsessed (“Take that, my dear!”).

I know there are those who check the weekly specials and coupons at several grocery stores, and will shop them all in order to get the featured deals at each. Again, being only mildly obsessed, I can’t do that—too much time and too many miles. Moreover, knowing your store, and sticking with it, has benefits. The principal one is that by knowing where everything is, you can move fast.

Another aspect to coupons is noting the approximate total when I complete my weekly list. The checkout stand is usually a hyper-busy spot, and I’m not going to be “that guy” who jams things up by raising a thorny coupon issue there. So I’ve learned to check my receipt before leaving the store. With some frequency, a coupon will be missed, so I then head straight to the customer service area, show the staffer what was missed, and get the coupon credited.

This is much ado about coupons, but I’ll offer two rationales. The first is obviously the cost savings. My online HEB account helpfully shows a running total of my coupon savings. For me, it’s several hundred dollars a year. But the other benefit is the sport of it. It makes the shopping chore a little more entertaining, at least for the (mildly) obsessed like me, to see how well I can do with them. On a good day, I may come home from the store and proudly tell my wife, “$28 in coupons today!” She just rolls her eyes.

For us retiree shoppers, there’s another factor often in play, as recently addressed in an article by Mark Crothers: absentmindedness. In that regard, habits can be very helpful crutches. For example, at our HEB, with its enormous parking lot, I always try to park in the same spot or very close by. My spot is far enough away that it’s usually vacant, and well, we’re all supposed to walk more anyway, right? But the payoff is I avoid that dreaded old guy phenomenon of wheeling the loaded cart out only to have forgotten where I’ve parked!

Once home, if there were HSA eligible purchases (QMEs) made, I mark them on the receipt and file it in my wife’s or my QME file, as appropriate.

Finally, and maybe this is where the “mildly” qualifier should in fact be deleted, I have one more habit my wife finds amusing. I tend to be a rather heavy emailer. I’ll write to a newspaper columnist, for instance, to compliment them on an article, or even to point out a mistake (which I’m sure they love). So when I find a grocery store item to be particularly good or bad, I’ll often email the manufacturer with my comments. While I enjoy the exercise itself, there is (of course, my wife would say), often a collateral benefit. They almost always respond, and will often include very generous coupons.

So, there you have it, a brief (oh yes, there’s actually more) description of my grocery shopping habits. If any fellow HDers are still awake after slogging through this and have their own methods and tips to add, I’d love to read them.