BeckyEver heard of a price book? Well, today we’re going to dive in and learn all about them and how to make your own!
A price book is a tool you can use to track prices on your groceries and household items that you frequently purchase. It’s a way to track how much an item is on a regular basis and to note when said item is at its lowest price so you can stock up.
In all honesty, everyone would benefit from having a price book. If you shop for groceries and household items, you would do yourself a favor by tracking prices to save yourself some money. Not to mention, helping you aim better on what to buy during your grocery shopping.
Prior to meeting my husband, I was on my own journey to make my money last each month. I was living on my own and learning to become very savvy with my money. I started making a monthly budget, coupon-ed whenever possible and quickly came across a few blogs that taught me so much about money!
I originally found out about price books in 2012 on one of those blogs that showed me how to stretch my money! I followed a couponing blog by a local woman and she mentioned having a price book spreadsheet. This helped her track her weekly grocery purchases and narrowed down when there was a low price.
There are many variations of price books. Choose whichever one works best for you!
- Spreadsheet (my personal favorite)
- Small notebook; like Purposeful Pantry
- Phone app
- Recycled paper (staple a small booklet together using the blank sides of used paper)
A decade AND a baby later, and I’m getting back into the swing of using a price book through an excel spreadsheet and it’s been amazing the deals I’ve tracked to save my family money!
Let me walk you through how to make your own price book!
Make a Price Book/Spreadsheet
Making a price book is easier than it sounds! To start, list your categories. You want to list categories for items you purchase repeatedly. My price book spreadsheet categories are as follows: produce, dairy, meat, grain, snacks, breakfast, freezer, pantry, baby, baking/sweets and household.
If your categories get too full, you can always make subcategories as well. I originally had only a handful of categories, but later found it easier to break them down into smaller categories.
My price book might not look like the average one as I track more than one store. I like to buy my organic food items and produce from my local Kroger and purchase the rest of my food items at our local, less expensive Winco Foods.
I have one excel tab named groceries and in this tab I track groceries for both Winco Foods and Kroger (Fred Meyer). I have a second excel tab named bulk where I mainly track monthly Costco purchases that generally entails items for our baby and household (diapers, food pouches, toilet paper, batteries, etc).
When you finish shopping, keep your receipts and input how much each item cost you in its respectful category. Let’s talk about how to use our price book!
How to Use a Price Book
To track your purchases in your handy dandy price book, you’ll need to keep the receipt after every grocery run. Let’s pretend you want to track pasta sauce. I consider pasta sauce a pantry item.
Under the pantry category, I would type the grocery item, sauce-pasta (24 oz) and then across from there, in the next column (price), I would type in how much the item was, $1.25. When buying multiples of an item, I like to record how much I spent per ONE unit.
If an item is on sale in a pack, break it down per unit. Last week, my local Kroger had a 4-count bag of avocados on sale for $1.97. That’s $0.49 per avocado!!! Now that’s a deal! When I tracked the avocados in my spreadsheet, I tracked it as $0.49/avocado.
Try to track your purchases each week that you grocery shop. Over the course of a few weeks, you’ll start to see sale trends. You’ll begin to recognize a good deal when you see one too!
Once you have your regular items added to your price book, it’s only necessary to change the prices when you find a deal cheaper than the one you have listed. Remember, the goal isn’t to track every single item you purchase. One track the ones you purchase regularly. That’s why price books are great at targeting sales.
Pinpoint a Sale
One of the best benefits of keeping a price book is that you can pinpoint the sales and save some serious money when you’re able to stock up on items.
I’ve recently made it easier to track when I purchase an item during a great deal. Lately I like to BOLD items on my spreadsheet that I purchased during a sale. Then, when I see the item on sale again in the weekly ad, I can verify on my spreadsheet if I’m truly getting a deal.
Sometimes I need to buy the item regardless of a sale. However, if I know there’s a killer deal, I’ll stock up too!
It’s easy to make it complicated but remember-SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE. Start out small and work your way up.
So, there you have it! That’s how simple it is to start your own price book and begin to save even more! Which price book variation works best for you?!
