The other day I went to Shaw's, and they had a deal on Hungry Man pancake mix- $1 for a 2 lb box after sale and coupon. It might seem cheaper to buy a 5-lb bag of flour for about $1.80, sift it together the appropriate amounts of baking powder, salt, sugar, and baking soda, and thus make my own pancake mix. BUT, once I looked at the box, and found that the store-bought mix was "complete", and didn't need oil or eggs- well, that, plus the convenience, made the difference. It was about the same price just to buy the mix, and a whole lot more convenient. You have to be careful not to buy more than you will use before it expires though, if you're not giving them away to a food bank. Just something to think about, when you go through the store.

10. Beware of bulk part 2, or why you should take a calculator to the supermarket. Just because an item is available in a larger size/amount, doesn’t mean it’s cheaper. To make sure you’re not getting swindled, check the unit price.

I totally agree. Call me a nerd but when I go grocery shopping, I get a kick out of figuring out which is the best deal. Although I don't bring a calculator (it keeps me on my toes), I always have fun deciphering between which is the better deal. 

with regard to #14: (disclosure: i work in the grocery industry) my understanding from talking with the people who design our stores is that the reason the meat and dairy are at the back of the store is because a) it's much closer to the loading dock and the dairy case can be loaded directly from behind with no risk of a skid being abandoned in an aisle by a busy employee and b) the meat processing area needs to be close to the meat case and you can't generally put that out in the middle of the store.  As well in terms of airflow and energy concerns it is better to have the meat case against a back wall than it would be in the middle of the store or near the front door (outside airflow = germs too).

There is obviously a benefit to having people have to walk through the whole store to get to the meat and dairy but it's secondary to keeping the foods safe from contamination and spoil.

(Well, also because we get lazy to cook sometimes.)

Dang, I didn't know about the end caps in the bookstore thing. I will remember to beware of that. Thanks for the tips! It's funny, because I used to enjoy grocery shopping, but now I hate it. And it never ceases to amaze me that we'll come home with $150 worth of food, and then declare there's nothing to eat for dinner. I guess we need to start doing #20!!

A person can also save by buying whole chickens. In my area, they are about 79 cents a pound. Once you learn how, it's not hard to learn how to separate the pieces, or you can just roast it whole. That is easy & delicious. Then you use the leftover meat the next day, and freeze the carcass. When you have about two carcasses, you stick it in the crockpot, cover it with water, and make broth. Add a splash of vinegar, to leach the calcium out of the bones. I'm told a bit of tabasco sauce clears up the flavor nicely, too. Add cheap chopped stewing carrots, a quartered onion, and celery leaves for flavor, if you want. I leave that on all day or all night on low. Then I put it in mason jars on a towel in the fridge (the smaller volumes cool off quicker). When it's cool, I skim off the fat and pour the jelly-like broth into ice cube trays, and when they are frozen, into ziplock bags. It sounds like a lot of work, but each step takes less than two minutes, most less than a minute, and there's tons of time in between each item. Another big money-saver is making bread in a bread machine. Good bread costs like $3/loaf, which is ridiculous- but you can make much better at home, for much cheaper. The cheapest I have found bread flour though is at Costco, like $10 for a big 50-lb bag. That 50 lbs of flour fits nicely in an unused tall kitchen trash contaner BTW. Don't know how food-safe that plastic is, but I don't know if the plastic would really leach, either.

These days, I find grated cheese often costs the same or only very slightly more than chunk cheese. You can also use it straight from the freezer so it keeps a very long time.

I hear ya! There's something about that cookie aisle... My downfall is #16.

Thanks for this posting.  Just this morning I fell pray to # 14.  Those Chips Ahoy are soo yummy.