Many of us are spending far more than we have to each time we visit the grocery shop and of course there are many different reasons for this. Many of us simply impulse buy things we do not really need, but this could be because of clever little tricks that grocery shops play on all of us. If you are aware of these tricks it can make it much more easy to avoid falling for them next time you do your shopping.
There are many of these tricks and almost all stores use them; from the little grocery shop on the corner to the major supermarket chains, they all want more of your money. The most obvious one of these tricks is offers such as ‘buy one get one half price’ deals. You only really need one of that particular item but because you see it as a bargain if you buy two, you go ahead and do just that.
That is not to say that these deals are always bad news; by all means if you really will use two of these items or could perhaps freeze one if it is a food item to use later, then these offers can save you money. Otherwise it is just a clever trick used by the shops to get you to spend more money than you had intended to by making you think that you are getting a bargain.
Another thing shops do to make you spend more money is put on time limited offers on a particular product. By doing this, they may make customers buy something they didn’t even want or need just because it is on offer that week. They usually limit these offers to a certain number of items per transaction, which they hope will make people return to get more of the product before the offer runs out, which might make them just pick up another few things while they are shopping anyway.
Even the way shops are set out is designed to encourage you to spend more money, for example a shop may stack the bread near where they stack the cheese in the hope that if you are buying bread and see cheese near by you will also buy the cheese perhaps to make a sandwich. Shops will also often move their stock around so that you do not get used to the layout, if you know where everything is then you might not simply happen to walk by something else that takes your fancy and pick it up as well.
Sometimes supermarkets will give out coupons for so much off your next shop if you spend over a certain amount of money. Sure, these can be good deals, but if you find you are a little short of that amount at the end of your next shop you will likely be tempted to spend a little more to get to the threshold for getting the money off. Stores may also use a slightly different version of this trick, where instead of money off your next shop they will put on an offer where if you spend a certain amount of money you can get a certain item for a reduced price.
If doing the weekly grocery shop each week always costs more than you intended, it may be wise to take a look at your shopping habits. If you always buy things on offer you may think that you are saving money, but if you end up throwing a lot of things away then you may just have fallen for one of the supermarket’s tricks. The best thing to do is to make a list of all the things that you really do need and do your best to stick to it, unless of course there is an offer on something that you will use that will genuinely save you money.