I’ve been reading the responses to our blog when we talk about grocery shopping. It seems that everyone has their favorite store. Reasons vary for your loyalties — whether it’s prices, location or just because that’s where you’ve always shopped.

Before writing the blog, I would do my grocery shopping every week. Basically I did my shopping at Hy-Vee because of convenience. Since then, I started doing my shopping every other week based on the Wednesday grocery ads. I still purchase eggs, milk, bread, and some fresh produce weekly. I find that this has been working out better for me. We have been avoiding those unplanned emergency runs to the store. I plan a menu for my family of 4 and shop accordingly.

So I decided to conduct my own comparison shopping experiment. There’s been great debate as to why we discuss particular stores and not others on our blog. Over the past six weeks, I’ve shopped at Dillons, Hy-Vee, and Checkers respectively. Now my lists have been different for each trip, but basically I’m shopping for the same amount of meals, and they usually consist of chicken, beef and pork. I’ll purchase produce on shopping day and frozen items. I did purchase paper products and Downy on my trip to HyVee (these items were not included in my other trips). I also used whatever coupons I had clipped from Sunday inserts and in-store coupons. But basically my experiment was to compare prices before coupons.

This is what I found:

DILLONS

My trip to Dillons on Oct. 8 totaled $151.01, or roughly $75 per week for groceries. On this trip, I did not use any coupons, but saved $26.31 using my Dillons card. Most everything I purchased was on sale in the Wednesday ad and/or gave me “plus savings.” I purchased chicken, tilapia, pork loin, shrimp, ground beef, fresh produce, frozen veggies and even razors.

I was very pleased with the outcome of this trip. Usually, $150.00 was what I spent on a weekly basis.

HY-VEE

I shopped at Hy-Vee on Oct. 22. This is my usual stomping ground. I spent $183.88. I used $7.10 in coupons. This trip also included chicken, ground beef, and pot roast. I also purchased fresh produce, frozen veggies and some paper products. I bought 3/20 packs of Coke products, which were on sale plus had an attached coupon.

I wasn’t expecting such a price difference between Dillons and Hy-Vee.

CHECKERS

My next shopping trip was on Nov. 5 at Checkers. I don’t usually shop at Checkers because of location, but after this trip, I may have to rethink my shopping efforts.

I spent $116.19. Again, I had a list for my two weeks worth of groceries. There were a couple of items I couldn’t find — Louisa cheese ravioli (they did carry the beef flavor), Eggo cinnamon toast waffles and raisin bread. I did get Tide powder detergent on this trip. I mention this because it’s a larger ticket item that wasn’t on any of my other lists. I purchased some fresh produce (including the 19 cent/lb. bananas) and ground beef, beef short ribs and sausage. I didn’t purchase as much meat since I still had some reserves in my freezer.

I love Checkers produce department. They have a much larger/better selection than Hy-Vee and Dillons.

I was expecting this trip to be very time-consuming because I’m not familiar with the store’s layout. But it didn’t take me any longer than my other trips, about 75 minutes.

This was a very eye opening experience. I had been doing my shopping based on store location. But by changing my strategy to shopping every other week, I don’t think I’d mind driving to Checkers to get my groceries based on the savings.

I’m also learning that store brands are just as good as name brands. I can experiment with different brands and get the same results. Another thing I’m finding, as I keep my freezer and pantry better stocked, my grocery lists won’t be as lengthy.

In the coming weeks, I will be doing more comparisons by shopping at Aldi, Target, and Walmart.

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