8 Ways To Avoid Sneaky Supermarket Tricks: Part 2

Healthy Eating Tips: Grocery Shopping

8 Ways To Avoid Sneaky Supermarket Tricks

Enjoy a healthier and cheaper trip to the grocery store with these easy tips. 

By The Editors of Prevention

You walk into a grocery store expecting to buy only the items on your list, yet you leave with a cart full of extras you may not really need—and a considerably lighter wallet. An accident—or lapse in judgment? Actually, the store setup is likely to blame. “You want to get in and out quickly, but the folks in charge want you to linger as long as possible, spend as much as possible, and ideally spend it on the highest-profit items,” explains Ali Benjamin, co-author of The Cleaner Plate Club: Raising Healthy Eaters, One Meal at a Time (Storey Publishing, 2011). How, exactly, do they make you stick around and load up on items you never meant to buy? Here are tips 5-8 ways to guarantee a healthier (and cheaper) shopping experience every time.

5. Shop Alone

Whenever possible, leave the kids at home. Even if they’re not begging for their favorite goodies, parenting while pushing the cart can drive you to distracted buying, so you miss the best values.

6. Beware Of Bulk

“Stores advertise pricing in a way that encourages you to buy in bulk,” says Janel Ovrut Funk, MS RD LDN, a Boston-based dietitian who writes eatwellwithjanelblog.com. “Just because you can purchase 10 jars of tomato sauce for $10 does not mean you have to buy all 10 at once! You can still get the sale price when only buying one jar. This can prevent you from overbuying and, in turn, overeating, especially when it comes to sale item foods that never should have made it into your grocery cart to begin with!”

7. Read Every Price Tag

Many markets have lower prices on staple items like milk, eggs, and toilet tissue so that you come away with the impression that the whole store is cheaper. But they mark up other items by 10% because you’ve already decided you’re getting a better value in that store.

8. Look Up, Down, And All Around

Impulse items are stocked at eye level on the shelves—so if you’re hunting for healthy choices, or even a lesser-known organic or all-natural brand (that doesn’t have the bucks to buy primo placement), avert your eyes from their natural sightline, says Ginzberg. “A store like Walmart marks down items on the end cap to draw you down the aisle too,” he notes. “Once you are there, they don’t have any reason to give you the best price.”