Am I wrong in thinking that the news is supposed to inform? The other day, I was looking through a bunch of articles in my usual quest to bring you the best, when I ran across two stories saying two very different things about how location factors into price disparities for groceries. The first article claimed that, in general, the more affluent the neighborhood, the higher the costs for groceries, citing a community-run survey as evidence. However, the second article stated just the opposite, reporting that groceries in lower income areas aren’t necessarily cheaper than in higher income areas and are sometimes, in fact, even more expensive. Huh. Well, at least the articles agree on one thing—that these price disparities exist in the first place.

Union Square is a perfect example. Conveniently located within a couple blocks of each other are Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Food Emporium. I learned very quickly and very early on which of these stores had the best deals for what kinds of foods, and I now make three separate stops on my weekly grocery shopping tour. However, if you’re not on foot like I am or if you don’t happen to live by a bajillion grocery stores, it’s probably better to go ahead and pick one store to do all your shopping in and stick with it. But how do you choose which one?

As The Simple Dollar nicely lays out in this post, you should price compare the things that you normally buy, and pick the cheapest resulting grocery store from those results. Here’s how:

1. Make a list of all the grocery stores that you would want to shop at. Don’t wander too far from home, ’cause gas is expensive too, though not so expensive that you shouldn’t think about going those five extra miles (ten miles round trip x 30ish miles to the gallon x $3ish per gallon = about a buck).
2. Then, make another list, this time of all the stuff that you buy the most—eggs, milk, toilet paper, whatever.
3. Now comes the hard part. Go to each of the stores you listed, and note the prices of everything on your list of stuff. And don’t forget to write down the package sizes too. If you want to make this less of a pain but somewhat less accurate, you can also just shop at each of these stores on separate trips and compare receipts, although prices can change over time.
4. Once you’ve added up all the prices, just pick the store with the lowest overall price. This is your new store: don’t be tempted away by sales or promotions unless they are on your basic items. Instead, consider sales to be “special trips” for that extra splurge you really want (mine: Veniero’s tiramisu).