Would You Help a Stranger Save Money?
My wife and I were grocery shopping with calculator in hand to keep a running total of the cost of the groceries we were putting into our cart. We were in the produce section picking the fruits and vegetables for the week, weighing each item and calculating their cost. I was weighing some tomatoes when the man walked by me, looked down at my calculator and smiled at me. A few minutes later, I was back at the scale with bananas and he happened to walk by again.
“If you have the time, they’re half the price at the convenience store next door,†he said.
While the saving only amounted to about a dollar, I appreciated his effort and willingness to help me save some money. Obviously the guy saw us keeping track of how much we were spending, and thought he would try to help us out.
It got me thinking, what if we all did things like this a little more often?
Imagine standing in the soda isle trying to decide whether a 12 pack of your favorite root beer is worth $3.99 when someone walks by and tells you that it’s on sale for half that at a nearby grocery store that you were heading to next anyway. Or what if you at the meat counter contemplating some fresh steaks when someone walked by suggesting you go to the local store on 5th street that was running a killer sale, and their meat was better quality?
What do you think, clever friends, do you share info on better prices with strangers in the grocery store?
Brought to you courtesy of Brock
Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children, Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.
I don’t tend to say much to anyone else at the store, but I love the idea! One thing I have been thinking about for a long time is putting together a website, like gasbuddy.com, for grocery store prices. Not sure if it would work given all the volatility in this industry.
@freemoneyminute – I think that’s a great idea. I know there’s some cell phone app that you can scan a barcode and it will display different retailers and how much things sell for – but I don’t know how local it is, or if it works for groceries. PLUS, having a place you could look BEFORE heading to the grocery store would be cool. Maybe that’s your million dollar idea!