Grocery Shopping Makes Me Ask Questions About Prices

It is getting harder and harder to save money grocery shopping. When I got to the big box stores that have food and grocery sections, I still often have to have a calculator to find out which product or which box is the best deal.

But even when I’m trying to save money or find my favorite brands I get confused and ask questions, last week I even called those 800 numbers on the products to try and get some answers.   

Skippy is an example is how one store forced me to drive to a competitor. When Skippy Peanut Butter, a national favorite I would drive to Dierbergs to buy my favorite peanut butter. Then Walmart opened food centers, I could get Skippy there at a cheaper price. Now Costco sells giant jars of Skippy which are even cheaper.

Borden Cheese: The same was true with packs of Borden American cheese slices. Schnucks didn’t carry the product, only Kraft and a store brands. I preferred Borden because it contains more milk per slice than Kraft and is produced by the Dairy Farmers of America located in Kansas City. My wife grew up on a dairy farm so I have a prejudice.

The company Borden Foods, with powdered milk, ice cream and other food products is long gone. The only place you can see Elsie the Cow’s smiling face now is on cheese products. Elsie’s husband, Elmer can still be seen on bottles of Elmer’s Glue-All. The glue company is now Elmer’s Products, Inc.

I called Jessica at the Borden Cheese helpline and asked if she could tell me how much more milk is in a slice of Borden’s American cheese compared to its closest competitors. Jessica couldn’t.

“Sir, I’m at the call center in Minnesota (another reason to like this product…no call center halfway around the world) and I handle questions about how to get coupons and where to find stores with our product,” said Jessica.

I then inquired if I could bother her with one more question.

“Fire away Sir.”

“We all know the Elsie’s husband is Elmer the Bull, but what are her children’s names?”

“Sir, I don’t have that answer either.”

A little internet research showed Elsie was created during the depression in 1936. At the 1939 New York World’s Fair a dairy cow named “You’ll do Lobellia” took on the name of Elsie at the fair. She was so popular Borden used her for publicity across the country. She died in 1941 after the truck she was in was rear-ended in New York City as she was being driven to an appearance on Broadway. She was buried in dairy farm field in New Jersey which is now a subdivision, but her gravesite remains.  

Elsie’s kids were Beulah and Beauregard.  

Popsicles:  I love Sugar Free Popsicles. I can eat an entire large box of sugar free Popsicles and take in the same amount of a calories as there is in one regular Klondike bar.

I eat so many of them that I would buy the 24-count box at either Target or Wal Mart usually at $3.89 a box. the 8-count box for $1.25. I didn’t need a calculator to figure out that three 8-count boxes were cheaper than one 24-count box.

This struck me as strange since it was cheaper in packaging and handling for a box of 24 than a box of 8.

Then last week suddenly the box of 24 Sugar Free Popsicles were no longer in the freezer at Wal Mart or Target. It was replaced by a box of 20 at a slightly lower price of $3.49.

I was forced to do the math. A single Popsicle from the box of eight was costing me 15.6 cents. The same Popsicle from the box of 24 had cost 16.2 cents. A grape, orange or cherry sugar free Popsicle from the box of 20 was costing me a whopping 17.45 cents.

This has caused me to buy the boxes of eight. The problem is I now have three times the number of boxes of Popsicles in my cart and I have dramatically reduced the opportunity to use the 20-Item of less checkout lanes.

I called Heather at the Popsicle helpline and got the bad news. Unilever, the makers of Popsicles, is phasing out the 24-count boxes of Popsicles. Now you can only buy them in the 8-count, 20-count or 48-count (most likely at Costco or Sam’s).

Tinactin:  I was walking the aisle of the Walmart pharmacy department the other day and noticed on one side of the aisle was a can of 133g Tinactin powder spray for jock itch selling at $5.97 and across the aisle was a133g can of Tinactin powder spray for athlete’s foot selling for $4.92.

I read the ingredients and found there were exactly the same for both products. The only difference I could see was that one can was red (athlete’s foot) and the other was blue (jock itch). Why the cost difference? “Athlete’s foot” is 12 letters and “Jock itch” is only eight. The can with the extra letters is cheaper.

I called Courtney at the Healthcare Products, Inc. helpline. Courtney readily admitted the ingredients were the same for both products, but said it was Walmart causing the price difference. She said the suggested retail price for either can was $6.90.

So Walmart is charging almost $2.00 less than the suggested retail price for the athlete’s feet spray but only about $1.00 less for the jock itch spray. 

Apparently Walmart thinks you will pay more to spray the same stuff at the middle of your body than on your feet.