Author Topic: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?  (Read 3585 times)

jnw

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Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« on: September 05, 2018, 11:16:02 PM »
Anyone use Handy Shopper on the Palm handled organizer?  I loved that app.  I'd know how much I was spending before I went to the store.  It was also useful to find errors checkout clerk made as well to get a refund -- sometimes several dollars.

I'd like an app like that one the iPhone but also with the ability to do a "Price Book".    I'd like to compare prices for an item across multiple stores and record a price history with entry date each time.

Anyone know of an app for iOS which does all this well?    Something that makes shopping quicker and allows me to compare prices between stores.  I'd liek to check off what I need to buy and have it tell me what to buy at what stores :)

Dr.Jeckyl

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Re: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2018, 07:12:31 AM »
I never heard of that. But it makes sense. I used to keep notes in my phone about prices so that I could compare. Occasionally, I'll still check prices when I'm in a store on Amazon or maybe Costco. But mostly, I just try to shop at the lowest priced stores like Aldi. I know that there are times that the local supermarket has things at a lower price than Aldi but overall I'm saving a ton of money by shopping there for the majority of my groceries. 

Trifle

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Re: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2018, 07:36:03 AM »
Posting to hear others' thoughts.  We use an Excel spreadsheet for this, but would love to hear about simpler ways.

misshathaway

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Re: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2018, 09:01:06 AM »
Anyone know of an app for iOS which does all this well?    Something that makes shopping quicker and allows me to compare prices between stores.

Nowhere near as cool and automated, but I have a Numbers unit price sheet that I keep in iCloud so I can use it on the Mac to record this weeks prices from my weekly grocery shop, and on iOS to view it at a store to unit price compare. This helped me to see that Costco is more often than not, more expensive on unit price compared to my local discount grocery.

jnw

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Re: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« Reply #4 on: September 06, 2018, 12:22:16 PM »
Yeah I find Aldi is best for most things myself :). I've been shopping there as my primary grocery store since 2010.   Anything I can't find there I get at Walmart usually.

However Walmart has a better deal on instant coffee at 49 cents per oz compared to aldi's 76 cents :) ... Amazingly

misshathaway

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Re: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« Reply #5 on: September 07, 2018, 08:43:22 AM »
However Walmart has a better deal on instant coffee at 49 cents per oz compared to aldi's 76 cents :) ... Amazingly

Yes! No store has everything cheap. I am very lucky to live with 2 discount groceries within a mile of each other. They trade off on staples like eggs, which one is cheaper that week. And sometimes the differences are huge. Like one of them has Peet's ground coffee bags all the time for 8.99 while the other has it at mostly 7.99 and sometimes a 2 week sale at 6.99.

VividPixels

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Re: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« Reply #6 on: September 07, 2018, 06:46:44 PM »
Posting to follow.

Long time lurker but this topic is near and dear to my heart. I'd love to know what's out there. I looked at a couple Android apps but they were... underwhelming

Trifle

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Re: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« Reply #7 on: September 08, 2018, 03:54:23 AM »
Yeah I find Aldi is best for most things myself :). I've been shopping there as my primary grocery store since 2010.   Anything I can't find there I get at Walmart usually.

However Walmart has a better deal on instant coffee at 49 cents per oz compared to aldi's 76 cents :) ... Amazingly
Yep, Aldi is our first stop each week, but we also hit two other grocery stores because they are cheaper than Aldi on certain items, or else Aldi doesn't carry it.  We are lucky that the stores are close together so it doesn't cost us much in time or gas.  Our price spreadsheet has been critical to figuring it all out!


jnw

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Re: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« Reply #8 on: September 08, 2018, 01:43:19 PM »
Could I see a screenshot of a section of your spreadsheet?  That way I could get some ideas.  Working on a spreadsheet now.

Trifle

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Re: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« Reply #9 on: September 09, 2018, 04:13:18 AM »
Sure, @JenniferW glad to try -- Here's a snipit from the spreadsheet.  This is from the 'master tab' that has all the things we ever buy listed by category.  Each week we skim through the master list to decide what things we need that week.   There is another print-friendly tab of the spreadsheet -- the actual Shopping List -- that is in the order that the things are in the stores to make the shopping easier.  That's the only part of this we ever print off.   


 
« Last Edit: September 09, 2018, 04:24:32 AM by Trifele »

misshathaway

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Re: Grocery Shopping / Price Book App? Remember Handyshopper?
« Reply #10 on: September 09, 2018, 10:01:12 AM »
This is a part of mine. I sort it by item when I want to predict when something will go on sale again. I sort it by date when I want to copy and paste last week's items and just change the price if need be. There aren't that many new items per week. I purposely kept it very simple so it would not take too much time to maintain. The unit prices calculate themselves when price and number of units is entered. MB stands for MarketBasket, the king of discount grocery stores.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2018, 10:05:01 AM by misshathaway »