The MapleMoney Show » How to Spend Money Wisely » Shopping

How to Manage Higher Prices at the Grocery Store, with Bob Lai

Presented by Wealthsimple

Welcome to The MapleMoney Show, the podcast that helps Canadians improve their finances to create lasting financial freedom. I’m your host, Tom Drake, the founder of MapleMoney, where I’ve been writing about all things related to personal finance since 2009.

Grocery prices have been in the headlines lately, but it’s not a good news story. For various reasons, inflationary pressures are causing prices to rise for many household items, including the food in your fridge. Thankfully, there are ways you can fight back.

Bob Lai is my guest this week. He and his wife are dividend investors who also know a thing or two about how to manage higher prices at the grocery store. Bob runs a personal finance blog and has spent a lot of time researching changes in grocery prices for the past few years. He reveals which grocery store has the lowest prices and shares some ways you can lower your food bill.

According to Bob, not only does Costco have the lowest overall prices, but they’ve managed to curtail inflation better than most other grocery store chains. He says that the cost of a $60 Costco membership is definitely worth the money. Our conversation touches on the quality of produce between different grocery stores, and why Costco seems to lead in that category as well.

But saving money on groceries isn’t just about finding the lowest price. Bob shares some other ways he and his wife lower their food bill. For example, they bake their own bread and grow vegetables and herbs in their own garden. Bob says that cashback credit cards and loyalty rewards programs, such as PC Insiders, can help with additional savings.

Of course, it never hurts to shop when your favourite grocery items are on sale. Just make sure you go at the beginning of the sale and not on the final day, or you might miss out.

Do you prefer to invest in socially responsible companies? If so, our sponsor Wealthsimple will help you build a portfolio that focuses on low carbon, cleantech, human rights, and the environment. To get started with Socially Responsible Investing, head over to Wealthsimple today!

Episode Summary

  • Grocery costs are one of the top 5 household expenses
  • Is Costco really cheaper than other grocery stores?
  • Organic vs. non-organic prices
  • The problem with regular grocery stores
  • Why the price of groceries is not the only consideration
  • One reason why Costco’s produce stays fresh
  • Is pricing matching worth your time?
  • Other ways to offset grocery costs, i.e., rewards programs, cashback credit cards
  • Issues causing grocery prices to rise

Read transcript

Grocery prices have been in the headlines lately, but it’s not a good news story. For various reasons, inflationary pressures are causing prices to rise for many household items, including the food in your fridge. Thankfully, there are ways you can fight back. Bob: Lai is my guest this week. He and his wife are dividend investors who also know a thing or two about how to manage higher prices at the grocery store. Bob: runs the personal finance blog, Tawcan, and has spent a lot of time researching changes in grocery prices for the past few years. He reveals which grocery store really does have the lowest prices and shares other ways you can lower your food bill. 

 

Welcome to the Maple Money Show, the podcast that helps Canadians improve their personal finances to create lasting financial freedom. Do you prefer to invest in socially responsible companies? If so, our sponsor, Wealthsimple, can help you build a portfolio that focuses on low carbon, clean tech, human rights, and the environment. To get started with socially responsible investing, head over to maplemoney.com/wealthsimple today. Now, let’s chat with Bob:…

 

Tom: Hi, Bob:. Welcome back to the Maple Money Show. 

 

Bob: Thanks for having me, Tom. 

 

Tom: Thanks for coming back on. I wanted to have you on because you’ve done some interesting research in the past around grocery store prices, and this is something I’ve kind of always wondered about. I’m in the grocery industry, so I do have some information on this side. But for a normal person just doing regular grocery shopping it’s nice to see some of the research you’ve done where you can look at what we would say in the industry is an “average basket size,” what those items come to and how these different store brands work out. Also, another thing I want to cover with you today is inflation—how that’s affecting grocery prices over time as well. What made you start looking at this? What made focus on groceries as something where you can really take a deep look at the prices and see where you can benefit? 

 

Bob:: We all have to eat, right? Grocery expenses are probably one of the top five expenses for your household. Obviously, you want to make sure you’re eating healthy and not a lot of junk food and stuff. I think three or four years ago, I was just curious. I always knew places like Savon and Safeway would be more expensive compared to Superstore, Walmart, or Costco. And one day I just thought, “Hey, why don’t I just compare the stuff we buy regularly and see which store is actually cheaper and give out some sort of strategy in terms of where to shop.” Is Costco always cheaper or does it really depend on what you’re shopping for? A few years ago I went with my phone and just recorded 10 or 15 items that we buy regularly. Things like milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, apple, avocados—things average Canadians would get. We tend to buy a lot of organic stuff so I focused on the organic produce. It wasn’t a surprise to me but Savon and Safeway were the most expensive. They’re convenient. They’re usually pretty close to most people’s home. My premise going in was, is Costco going be cheaper than most grocery stores? And the result was, I would say, yes. Unfortunately, Costco doesn’t have everything possible because they’re a warehouse, right? Whereas I found Superstore actually offered quite a bit of what we had been buying. We found organics at Superstore had pretty good selection. That was maybe three years ago that I did that exercise. I went back and did it again about two years ago as a follow-up. Now, things we have been eating had changed a little bit. We shifted to eating more organic. We started eating less meat so I focused on a different few different items. We stopped drinking milk and were drinking plant-based milk. So I didn’t do cow milk. I did oat milk instead. What I also found was Costco started offering increasingly organic products. Not just organic milk but organic produce too. A couple of years ago, Costco started having more options compared to Superstore. Whereas Costco was basically the cheapest option for the items I was checking. I was curious what the inflation would be like comparing different stores. Between Walmart, Costco, and Superstore, which one has had the lowest inflation overall in last few years? I went back into these three stores and checked the items I compared. And because I save all my data (because I’m in an Excel sheet nerd) I had all the data from a few years ago. I just wrote down the prices and compared them again. And shockingly, I found Costco, for some reason, had been able to keep the inflation relatively low compared to the likes of Walmart and Superstore. That was the whole premise of this. It just kind of kept evolving over time. It was really interesting for me to go through this exercise. 

 

Tom: It’s interesting that you brought up Costco and organics because I was just thinking about this recently. I shop at Costco a lot, and one of the things I was starting to notice is that being Costco, you’re not going to get a lot of different options. They’ve almost gone to all organic with produce. All of the fruits and vegetables I see, most of them say they’re organic. There’s not even a non-organic choice so it seems that’s somewhere great for you to shop if you really want organic stuff. I’m just wondering if other stores with their non-organic options might still be cheaper than organics when you take any other benefits away and you’re just looking at cost. Take bananas for example. I know they can be really cheap, the non-organic ones. 

 

Bob: I did compare some non-organic stuff and  it turns out Costco is overall, usually cheaper. It’s also hard to compare because produce at Costco, overall, the quality seems to be a bit better. Their quality control tends to be a little bit better. I’m not trying to throw the likes of Wal-Mart and Superstore under the bus here. But at Costco (for the most part) when we get a bag of apples or lemons, they seem to be pretty decent quality. Whereas sometimes we buy stuff in Wal-Mart or Superstore, come back, take out the lemons and find out one is rotten. Things like that. It’s kind of frustrating because you have to take that into consideration. The other thing is that Costco is a membership only warehouse so you do have to consider the membership fee. I think the $60 for a basic membership fee is worth it, in my opinion, anyways. 

 

Tom: Yes, a long time ago, I used to always think of that math in my head. I think it was more like $50 at the time though. I would literally say as kind of a joke that I just paid for my membership because I knew I was saving around $100 on some big item for Christmas or something. Then I got the Executive membership where you get the money back and now I’m literally seeing what’s paying for the membership. The only thing I don’t like about the Executive membership is, sometimes when that check comes, when do the math in my head I think, “Oh, my! That’s how much I spent at Costco?” 

 

Bob: Exactly. Before the pandemic, I think the most I shopped at Costco was around $300, $400.Then during the pandemic, I was shopping for my parents and sometimes my brother and there were a few times it was over $1,000. And that was just on groceries. There were no big items. It was literally something like five packs of chicken breasts because we just put them into the freezer. And when you get that bill you think, “Ooh, I spent that much money?” 

 

Tom: Yes, you start multiplying. Another thing you mentioned about Costco that I fully agree with is the quality of the produce. The problem with regular grocery stores that Costco doesn’t have is they focus so much on presentation. They’re bringing the produce into fridges at night. They pull it back out in the morning and it starts warming up so they spray it with water so it’s all shiny. And all of that is adding to the chances of mold and rot. You’ll see the staff come out and pull off the bad leaves. It’s all this touching, and water, and everything. With Costco, they pull out the produce on a big pallet, put it into the fridge and it stays there. Nobody’s touching it, nobody’s spraying it down or any of that stuff. That’s why the quality is quite higher there than anywhere else. 

 

Bob: My research from earlier this year, in 2021, Costco was definitely the cheapest. I compared things like avocado, oat milk, boneless cod. Some items I’ve eaten, Costco didn’t have like brie cheese, brown rice, diced tomato, flour, chicken breasts, lean ground beef, milk, apples and all that stuff. Out of everything, I think there was a total of 18 items compared and Costco was definitely the cheapest. And then Superstore was 21.6 percent more expensive than Costco. Walmart was 23.3 percent more expensive than Costco. But what I found was Costco’s meat, fish and poultry are significantly cheaper than Superstore and Walmart, so I excluded those and redid the calculation. And still, Costco came out ahead. The gap was narrowed a little bit, but still—Costco Superstore, excluding meat and fish and poultry, it was still 16.4 percent more expensive for Superstore. And Walmart was 19 percent more, which I thought was a very, very interesting. 

 

Tom: When you talk about these prices, is this all regular prices or did you consider sale prices? 

 

Bob: I only did regular prices. I didn’t want to do sales price because it becomes unfair. Obviously, there’s all these extra things like when we talk about the Executive membership for Costco. Superstore has their PC Insider program which gives you a 10 percent kickback if you buy the PC brands. While Walmart, I think they have some stuff as well. Again, it’s really hard to compare so I just wanted to do regular price. And everything is per unit, so everything is apple-to-apple. And I always looked for the biggest quantity to lower the per unit cost. For example, at Costco, I looked for the Kirkland brand. For Wal-Mart, I forget their thing—

 

Tom: Everyday something? (laughs).

 

Bob: Yes. There’s something every day. Obviously, we don’t use the same brand so we can’t really compare exactly. But again, Costco would probably be better because it’s a store brand. That gives you a better idea because a lot of people just want to get the cheapest one, right? 

 

Tom: And if someone’s concerned enough to look into it this deeply to save on costs, then you probably should be buying the store brand. My rule with store brands is, try it to see if you like it. Sometimes the store brands are the same or better than the regular national brands. And sometimes you try one and decide maybe you’re good with buying the regular national brand. But you don’t know until you try. Things like Kirkland or President’s Choice, are really great,, private label brands that quite often do beat the big national brands and cost less. 

 

Bob: Exactly. 

 

Tom: So with Superstore and Walmart, they’re not coming in as cheap as Costco with the numbers you ran. But when you start looking at sales, you they certainly can be cheaper. Maybe it just depends on how much you’re willing to play that game where you look up every flyer and go to certain stores. 

 

Bob: Right. And also, like Superstore, there are also cheaper options like No Frills. They’re still under a big-block chain so they’re cheaper than Superstore. You can do price matching. It’s just, how much time do you want to put into that? And is it worth your time? I just wanted to do an apples-to-apples comparison. If you just go in and buy stuff without checking the flyers and things like that and strategically buying the sales item, that’s what I wanted to simulate in my study. 

 

Tom: Otherwise, you would be hopping all over the place. 

 

Bob: Exactly. You also have to consider if it’s worth you time to get two items from Costco, two items from Superstore and two items from Walmart? You time is also important. And also gas money, right? So that’s something to consider as well. 

 

Tom: Oh, for sure. I’ve got a No Frills near me. If I go into the store because I want to buy a few sales items and they’re out of stock because they’re on sale, it’s not really a sale. If you can’t buy the item, what are you actually saving? 

 

Bob: Yes. And I noticed that quite a bit with Superstore. I’ve gone in to get it while it’s on sale but they have no nothing left. Like you said, it can be frustrating. 

 

Tom: Yeah, I assumed Superstore was the same. I just happened to have a No Frills beside me. Hopefully, it’s just that company. You’re saving costs by having less staff because it’s “no frills” which is literally in the name. Having less staff though, maybe there is more in stock out back but there is nobody to bring it out. So it’s not always worth trying to save that dollar on whatever item you’re getting. 

 

Bob: Exactly. 

 

Tom: Obviously, Costco has its own issues too, with that, in that sometimes items are coming in by the pallet and then they’re gone and they never come back again. For example, you may have your favorite cereal or whatever any given week that you go in there, then all of a sudden it’s just not going to be there and it’s never coming back. 

 

Bob: Yes, they tend to try out different products. They could be there for a year and all of a sudden they’re not there anymore. We certainly have found that as well. 

 

Tom: What else do you do to offset these grocery costs? You mentioned the PC Insiders, do you get into Airmiles, PC Optimum? Obviously, the Costco Executive, cash back is in there as well. But do you get into all these different points in cash backs to make this a little better? 

 

Bob: We have Costco Executive membership, and we are also PC Insiders. I think both of them are very well worth the extra cost, especially if you shop there often. They’re definitely worth it. On top of that is the rewards credit card. Right now we’re using the HSBC Travel Rewards Card. I think it’s a 1.5 percent. I used to use the Capital One Aspire. That was the best card ever. It’s not worth it because they changed the earn right now. Some people use the cash back where you have something like 4 percent on groceries in tier one. Those are good too. You just have to calculate where your shopping is. Also, we travel hack, meaning we sign up for credit cards and then close them later. We like to have one card that’s kind of like the “everyday” card. It’s just too hard for more than one because you have to see where is good to use each of them. In this store you use this card and in that store you use another card. It gets too complicated. You can certainly get more points if you use a cash reward backed card or something like that. That’s certainly worthwhile. The important thing is to make sure you pay off your monthly balance in full, because if you’re paying the 19.99 percent or higher interest rate, it doesn’t matter how much rewards you’re earning. You’re at a loss there. 

 

Tom: Yes, there’s no point to worrying about if you’re getting 2 percent back or 4 percent back if you’re going to pay 20. 

 

Bob: Exactly. 

 

Tom: You’re not going to come out ahead. I’m a huge fan of that, too. If I go to Costco, I’ve got my regular BMO Elite, which is 2 percent back. And then I’ve got the 2 percent from the Executive so I consider that 4 percent back. Unfortunately, there’s not a MasterCard that really has a great grocery option. And if they did, Costco wouldn’t count I guess. That’s the other half of that. 

 

Bob: Costco isn’t considered as grocery store on there. Yes, that’s unfortunate. 

 

Tom: Yes. But if you are regularly going to Sobeys or Superstore or something like that, then there certainly are cards where you can get 4 percent back in that category. It’s not 4 percent across the board. But if you’re if you’re using it for groceries—that’s exactly what I do. I had another card—I just got rid of it. It had 4 percent on grocery. What else do you do personally with your grocery shopping? Is there any other way that you look to cut costs? Maybe I already know this in that you’re pretty much sticking to the items you buy. You don’t really want to get into the switching around to save a few dollars. 

 

Bob: Yes. And we also have a pretty decent sized backyard garden so we grow a lot of our produce in the summertime. If you go on my blog, I’ve been showing pictures of our cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes and kale. We have a kale forest. In fact, my neighbors are coming over asking if they can grab some kale and we just tell them to go for it. We’ve got so much. We’re somewhat self-sustaining from that point of view so that obviously cuts our costs down a bit. We also have herbs like oregano and rosemary. We have those in our yard because herbs seem to be quite expensive when you buy them from the store. They’re something like $2 a bunch. You use some of it once and you end up having to buy more of them. If you have the place to grow, even if it’s just a little herb garden, that’s something to consider. Or growing in your kitchen if you can. That will save some costs as well. The other thing we do is buy bulk. I think the biggest complaint people have is that they’re not throwing stuff away quite often. But what we do is freeze stuff. We get a pack of chicken breasts, divide them up into small Ziploc bags or containers, and then put them in the freezer. That way we know they’ll last a certain amount of time. And also, planning your meals. For example, you buy a certain thing and say, “I’m going to make this, this and this,” and kind of plan it out. That’s also important. 

 

Tom: Yeah, I really like the idea of freezing everything. Another thing I do so that we don’t throw as much out is rotate what you’re getting. With the kids, we always want to make sure they’re getting vegetables and fruit, but maybe they’re getting watermelon for four days in a row. And that’s just because we’re not going to get a bunch of different fruits or a bunch of different vegetables on the same shop. Because then you really have a problem where you’re buying these big bulk items and getting more than you could possibly use. We do try to go all-in and maybe call it the “vegetable of the week.”  

 

Bob: We’ll buy a 20 pound bag of rolled oats. I’ll use that in the morning usually. And sometimes the kids like granola. We make our own granola with oats, nuts, seeds and that kind of stuff. There is some stuff you can make on your own. We make our own bread. Kudos to my wife. You could get a bag of flour from Costco pretty cheap and just do-it-yourself kind of thing. You can make dumplings or pierogies, things like that. The more you can do yourself rather than buying pre-made, I find that saves quite a bit of money. Obviously, it takes your time, right? 

 

Tom: But it’s worth weighing out. 

 

Bob: The more you do it, the easier it becomes. 

 

Tom: And again, back to freezing, you can batch a lot of this. The whole meal planning idea where you could make a stew that’s going to last you multiple meals, you bag them up and freeze them. 

 

Bob: Yes. We recently made dumplings, a couple hundred dumplings. And we just put them into Ziploc bags. Then when we say we don’t have anything to eat one night, there we go. Instead of ordering takeout and stuff, that’s another way to save money. 

 

Tom: I like having those meals ready to go in the freezer because not only did you save money by buying bulk, you saved yourself some time and prepped them all at once. And you’re really enjoying it when you really don’t feel like putting it together like a new meal. All you have to do is pull out of the freezer and microwave it. 

 

Bob: Exactly. 

 

Tom: We talked about Costco a lot, but is there ever a time where the bulk size is too much? I’m thinking of something I just saw recently. We don’t use a lot of table salt and it was a huge package of salt so I just got at the grocery store instead. I didn’t care about price because I just didn’t need multiple years’ worth of salt in one package. 

 

Bob: For the most part, we’re pretty good. The only thing I could think of is lettuce, Romaine, produce and things like that where if you can freeze it, they doesn’t really taste as good. That becomes more of a challenge. A big of spinach, you could probably finish within a week. But by the end of the week it’s not as fresh, right? Yeah, that’s a little bit more challenging. Take avocado, for example. You get a bag of five. The Costco avocados seem to be bigger avocados compared to other ones and they tend to all get ripe around the same time. Then you’ve got these five big avocados and you’re scrambling around trying to figure out what to use them for. Things like that become challenging so you need to plan it out, especially when it comes to produce. 

 

Tom: Yeah. Part of me feels bad when food is wasted. I don’t want to waste food, but strictly on a money standpoint, if you’re going to save by buying something half off at Costco compared to a grocery store, you can’t keep that in mind. If you’re buying it for half the price and you’re throwing out a third of it, you’re still up. It feels bad to waste it. But strictly money-wise, you’re still up. 

 

Bob: Yes. The other thing I didn’t mention on my blog is, I know this there’s flash food available in, I think, Superstore? Sometimes they have “soon to be expired” food at a really, really, big discount. If you don’t mind, that’s worth looking into as well. But with those (flash foods), you can’t collect PC Optimum points. That’s a bit of a downer. 

 

Tom: I know I complained about going into a store to get a sale item and it’s not there. One of the best ways to fix that is go the first day of the sale. Don’t, go the last day of whatever that flyer week is for that store because they’re more likely to be cleared out. But if you go the first day, everything is probably nicely stocked on the ends and everything. All the sale items are out, front and center, and you’ll probably enjoy your shop a lot more that you can actually find the items you wanted. 

 

Bob: Yes, exactly. During the pandemic it isn’t as bad, but Costco seems to be always, always, always busy so that the shopping experience may not be as scary. I always find people leaving their cart in the middle of the aisles. And I think, “What are you doing?” And parking seems to be sometimes challenging. I don’t see that with Walmart or Superstores, Savon or Safeway. That’s something to consider. If you’re really stressed out shopping at Costco, then maybe don’t go there. Or just find a good time to go. Don’t go during the meal times at noon or just before dinner. That’s always busy at Costco. 

 

Tom: Yeah, I always find that. If you can get there a little bit before rush hour or even when the store opens, if you’re not working that day or whatever, and certainly towards closing would be the third best time. But there’s something about the middle of the day—it can be busy. And certainly that 4:00 to 6:00 window is pretty dangerous for any grocery store. 

 

Bob: Now, I think you mentioned inflation. I saw a study last August that said they had the biggest inflation since 2003. I think it was 4.1 percent inflation. Now, obviously, that’s everything. Canadians, and I’m sure Americans as well, probably have noticed that the prices have increased in the last year and a half. 

 

Tom: What’s causing this? Did you notice when you saw this data? Is there something that’s driving these increases or is it just stores taking advantage of it? 

 

Bob: No, I think mostly it’s because of the supply situation. During the summer B.C. was very hot. I saw pictures of farmer fields a couple of years ago with much higher corn. It was taller than a person. But this year was half the size. So some of it was supply. Also, there are not as many people out picking this produce because of COVID. That’s another problem as well. It just seems that overall supply has caused some issues. In my study, again, I went in and compared the prices from a couple of years ago to three years ago to see how much prices have increased. At Costco I compared 22 items. On average, Costco’s increase was 3.7 percent. Superstore was 4.23 percent. And then Walmart was 10.94 percent. I found that really interesting. In fact, I was at Superstore the other day and found eggs. We usually buy two dozens of eggs—the big trays. They used to be around $14 and now they’re $15. They increased the price again. Then at Costco, it was still the same price for the same tray of eggs. So, even after I did this study, because this was back in earlier this year, prices have adjusted again. 

 

Tom: You’re buying mostly actual natural food. You’re buying, organic produce and meats and everything. That’s pretty consistent. But another thing people have to watch out for if they’re buying more packaged foods is a common way to make inflation less obvious… they just keep reducing the size of things. You’ll get a box of cereal or a bag of chips, and they’ll just keep reducing the size. A recent example, I just finally caught onto. I don’t know how long it was going on for, but a pack of bacon used to be 500 grams, and now it’s more often 350. I realized that because I think it was only getting something like seven slices of bacon in a package and thought that seemed a little low. But yeah, most of them are 350 now where 500 grams used to be the norm. I think Costco still does 500s. It’s like three or four packages together. But in the grocery store, you’ll see most of those 500 packs are now 350. And I would assume they’re probably the exact same price that they’ve been for a decade. 

 

Bob: But that doesn’t surprise me. I think the reason Costco’s inflation was so much lower is because their model. They already have a really low profit margins to start with, and they get their profit mostly from membership. They have been able to keep the margin low and attract people via the membership. I think that’s why they have kept the prices more constant. Whereas you look at Superstore and Walmart, they do have to make some sort of profit margins. So when their suppliers started to increase their price, obviously, they have to pass that down to the consumers as well. 

 

Tom: Exactly. And this is turning into our love for Costco, but one of the things I like is you pay that membership fee, and just to really bring this around to finance, it almost feels like when you get a fee-only financial advisor. You’re paying a fee, but now you know they’re on your side. They’re getting you those items basically at cost, and it doesn’t feel like you’re the one being “marketed to” quite the same way or having prices creep up on. 

 

Bob: Yes, and just to throw it out there because I’m investor who invests in dividend stocks and index stocks, that’s why Costco is a great stock to buy. It’s not going anywhere. It’s always packed. People are spending tons and tons of money there. I think they opened a store in China last year, and apparently it was insane. There were thousands and thousands of people. They had to close down the store just to make sure people could get out of the store. It’s crazy. That’s why we invest in Costco. 

 

Tom: Yes. Well, it’s a good investment choice when you hear people like us talking about it in an almost “cult-like” kind of way—for our love of Costco. 

 

Bob: Yes, and sorry to cut you in, but one thing… We’re both in western Canada but there is a website called cocowest.ca. This guy goes in and takes all the “on sale” items from each week and he puts it on the website. That saves so much time because before you go you can say, “I really need this, this and this,” and go to his website to see if those are on sale or not. Also, you could plan your Costco trip. Because quite frankly, you shouldn’t be going to Costco every week. That way you can decide whether to go to Costco this week or wait until next week. And this guy, because he has been doing this for many years, there’s a database where you just kind of predict what’s going to be on sale next week. You can kind of look ahead and plan your shopping trip accordingly. 

 

Tom: I also love that site. I use it as a flyer, basically. But I can say for any grocery company, you can predict the sales almost perfectly. Sometimes you’re basically reusing a flyer from the previous year the next time. You have your seasonal things like Thanksgiving or whatever. They’re very obvious, but it’s all very predictable. A case lot sale for going to back to school—seasonal things like that, they stick to a schedule. There’s no need to recreate these ideas all the time. Thanks for taking us through these ways to save money on groceries and explaining how inflation’s playing into this. Can you let people know where they can find you online? 

 

Bob: Sure. So I have a blog called Tawcan.com. That’s where I have my articles and stuff. You can find me on Twitter @tawcan. And if you’re wondering what that stands for, it’s Taiwanese Canadian. I’m also on Instagram as tawcan. Just look me up. And if you want to talk about how to save money with groceries, I’m always game to talk more because as food gets increasingly expensive, we really need to have some strategies to cut down on food costs. 

 

Tom: Yes, and we’ll link to some of your research there on the grocery prices because it’s pretty interesting to see them side-by-side on the grid.  

 

Bob: Thank you. 

 

Thank you, Bob, for the great tips on how to manage the high price of groceries, including the best places to shop for price and quality. You can find the show notes for this episode at maplemoney.com/169. If you have a moment, head over to our YouTube channel and subscribe there as we’ll be getting back to releasing “never before seen” content soon. Either search for Maple Money or go to maplemoney.com/youtube and subscribe today. I look forward to seeing you back here next week when Joseph Hogue joins us recorded live from the FINCON stage to share how he hand-selects stocks to invest in. See you next week! 

My premise going in was, ‘Is Costco going to be cheaper than most grocery stores, and the result was...I would say, yes.’ Unfortunately, Costco doesn’t have everything possible because it’s a warehouse. - Bob Lai Click to Tweet

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