Grocery store psych-out

[Cressida]

I have a rule that I won't buy meat for more than $5/lb. So I'm at the store today and see sirloin steak for $4.99/lb, which is unusually low. I think, yay, we can grill steaks today.

Of course, you can only get that price if you buy like 3+ pounds, so the total sticker price was around $17. I thought, that's OK, I'll use the best pieces for grilling today, and freeze the rest for stir-fry or what have you.

Then I thought, but $17 is an awful lot and it will make the week's grocery bill higher than I thought it was going to be.

Then I noticed another package of sirloin that was about the right size for two steaks and was $5.99/lb, and I thought, oh I'll get that instead, it's not that much more per pound and I won't have to spend so much.

Believe it or not, I did not second-guess this decision until I was out of the store.

Will someone please facepunch me? Why do our brains play these games with us? Do any of you have any tricks, mantras, etc for negotiating grocery shopping without being a dumbass?

[Middlesbrough]

When it comes to steak, try to find a farmer or distributor who processes the meat to buy a quarter or half cow. You end up with everything but the fillet in most cases. If this cannot be done, find a "butcher" store. They generally only sell meat and are locally owned. You can buy a sirloin round and cut steaks the size you want! I learned this from my father, but I am sure there are YouTube videos on how to do this. Ends up being cheaper, and you have plenty available in the freezer all the time. I freaking love steak!

[Goldielocks]

Nope, no facepunch here!

Luxuries bought and eaten in bulk are not MMM even if cheaper.  They should be purchased and 100% enjoyed at the time.   You may not value the next 2lbs as much.

$2 more money, sure, but maybe you will not buy more steak for a while 'naturally' ?  Maybe you will have your regular meals instead.  And save $5 without noticing.

 And lighter loads are easier to bike so you are less likely to justify driving a car to save $2.  Bulk saving is a bit of a bait and switch if all costs are combined....   I am sure I can make up more justifications too, if you need them.

[Cressida]

Goldielocks, I see your point. Maybe it does seem a little silly to buy fancy steak in bulk and then not use it for steak.

I ended up with 2 portions, plus 8 oz of scraps that I will use later this week for stir-fry or fried rice. DH specifically said the grilled steak was very good. So maybe it turned out reasonably OK in the end, even if I did blow through my usual spending limit for meat.

[Thegoblinchief]

When I buy meat, it's mainly local pastured pork at about $6/lb. The equivalent beef is way too expensive until we have freezer space to buy a cow share.

My only face punch would be to evaluate the quality of meat you're buying for less than $5/lb :)

[Cressida]

When I buy meat, it's mainly local pastured pork at about $6/lb. The equivalent beef is way too expensive until we have freezer space to buy a cow share.

My only face punch would be to evaluate the quality of meat you're buying for less than $5/lb :)

haha, guilty as charged. I'd prefer to buy pastured/grass-fed/etc, all things being equal, but have decided on quantity over quality in general. DH eats a LOT.

I know, I'm part of the problem. :P

[Thegoblinchief]

Bone-in pork steaks are pretty damn delicious, and you can season them so many different ways. I've come to like them better than steak.

[AH013]

Funny, as I think the most conniving grocery trick to be the multiples game, which is almost opposite of your problem of buying the smaller size for the higher price.  I hate seeing offers like "3 for $5".  Do you actually need 3 of it right now?  No.  Will you still get the same price per unit if you buy just 1?  Usually yes (well, except you lose 1/3 of a penny).  But it works so often on so many people.  It's bad enough with shelf goods that will last awhile like 5 12pks of coke for $10, but I really hate seeing it played with produce like 2 pineapples for $5, or 20 ears of corn for $4 -- nobody is going to eat that much, and you could have just listed "Corn, $0.20 an ear", yet I see people bag up 20 ears, and unless they have 5 kids and will eat corn and corn only for the next 3 days it's going bad and they'd have been better to buy only 10/$2 or 5/$1.

Grocery stores think they're being clever to move more product, but I know a lot of consumers who get angry at the store (and themselves) for being tricked into buying twice or thrice as much produce as they wanted and watching it rot in the fridge.

[partgypsy]

Here's a weird thing. At least in the stores I shop at, the 3 for $5, there was a time I only wanted 2 and so did that shrugging off the extra price. However the cashier still rang it up with the reduced multiples price. Every since then, I've noticed they will still give you the multiple price, try it sometime.

http://business.time.com/2011/07/18/the-sneaky-art-of-getting-consumers-to-spend-more-at-the-supermarket/

[Jack]

I'm also guilty of buying "conventional" meat (instead of the pastured-organic-"fancy" kind), but at least I've mostly moved up to cryovac'd subprimals that I disassemble myself instead of "retail" cuts. (I got something like two weeks worth of meat for a family of 2 out of a $4?/lb whole beef brisket earlier this month.) One of these days I ought to go find a farmer to sell me a half a cow, but that's a lot more planning and effort than just going to the grocery store. (I have no idea how to comparison shop farmers.)

Here's a weird thing. At least in the stores I shop at, the 3 for $5, there was a time I only wanted 2 and so did that shrugging off the extra price. However the cashier still rang it up with the reduced multiples price. Every since then, I've noticed they will still give you the multiple price, try it sometime.

http://business.time.com/2011/07/18/the-sneaky-art-of-getting-consumers-to-spend-more-at-the-supermarket/

This is true most of the time, but not all the time. If I'm at a different store than usual, I ask.

[Threshkin]

This depends on where you live.  Here in Colorado we get the discounted price if you buy less just as you described.  But in Hawaii I kept getting told "No, you have to buy all X to get the discount." 

Even more annoying are the BOGO sales where if you buy one it is full price.

Here's a weird thing. At least in the stores I shop at, the 3 for $5, there was a time I only wanted 2 and so did that shrugging off the extra price. However the cashier still rang it up with the reduced multiples price. Every since then, I've noticed they will still give you the multiple price, try it sometime.

http://business.time.com/2011/07/18/the-sneaky-art-of-getting-consumers-to-spend-more-at-the-supermarket/

[ketchup]

My meat-buying is pretty far removed from my meat-cooking in my mind.  We mostly get meat either in bulk, or through our monthly meat CSA (everything we get comes frozen).  The rare times I do grab meat at a grocery store, if it's a great price I will stock up.  But that's only if it's a great price.  I won't stock up on $4/lb grocery store ground beef when my CSA gets me grass-fed for $5/lb, but you bet I'll throw 30 pounds in the freezer when Meijer puts it on fire-sale for $1.49/lb.

The most irritating part of meat-buying at the grocery store for me are the stupid amounts it comes packed in.  No recipe calls for 1.4 pounds or 3.7 pounds of meat.  It's incredibly frustrating when you're used to nicely packed 1lb increments of meat from the farm.

I also don't worry about buying extra "blowing up the budget".  I don't have a "budget".  I'm going to eat it eventually, so it doesn't matter which month I buy it in.  My by-the-year numbers matter a lot more than by-the-month, so if spending an extra say $45 on meat this week saves me $100 over the course of the next year, you bet it's worth it.

[hybrid]

The only gotcha regarding buying in bulk from my perspective is food spoilage. To the OP, yeah, you deserve a face punch. OK, maybe more like a love tap because you get the point already. If you are pretty confident you will eat sirloin steak sometime in the next month or two then eat what you need and freeze the rest.

We buy almost all of our meat and all of our non-perishables this way, mostly from Costco but also when there is some killer sale at the local market. Not buying in bulk is what you do when you are not in a position to part with extra cash at that moment, and it is sadly what a number of poor people often end up doing.