Frugal Framnett

When grocery shopping, that is.

I’ve always heard the theory that shopping the perimeter of the grocery store - buying the fresh foods and not the processed ones - is less expensive overall. Now that my spouse is following a specific meal plan, I’m buying almost exclusively fresh food, when I used to buy a mix of fresh, canned, frozen, and some processed food. And lo and behold, my first week shopping, I spent almost twice my normal grocery budget. Now, some of that was “start up” expenses, foods that I can buy in bulk and use over time, but a lot of it was things I will have to buy on a weekly basis (produce doesn’t last forever, after all). I expected this to be the case, but it begs the question - contrary to popular wisdom, is shopping the perimeter really more expensive?

Source: Why My Perimeter is More Expensive Than My Aisles – I’ve Paid For This Twice Already… (From financial imprisonment to financial independence, a penny at a time. This is one family’s story.)

In the comments section I already explained that she is inviting a question not begging it, but of course there is a larger thought here…

Most often too I notice you walk into the store and follow the suggested path and they walk you past some teaser items working on your impulses and then almost always the first section is the fresh produce.

Continue to follow the outside of most stores I go to and you go buy the deli section, the fresh prepared foods section (fried chicken, potato wedges, gravy, tips, stuff you can buy and eat as a meal), seafood, meats, bakery, and dairy. Only when you get to the end of that circuit do you start running into items that are not fresh, but often are frozen. The aisles are where I go to buy canned tuna, canned soups, baking needs and the like.

Now, I’ve Paid Twice’s contention is that now their food purchasing  primarily consists of fresh foods as opposed to processed foods their food expenditures have gone up, in contrast to the normal expectation.

I guess this all depends on what specific processed foods they used to purchase. I can imagine there being classes of processed foods that do work out to be more expensive than non-processed foods but also processed foods less expensive. I’ve Paid Twice notes the obvious that fresh foods in Midwestern USA winters (It seems I’ve Paid Twice is a resident of Ohio) are going to be more dear. After all, my garden plot is frozen very solid. That food has to be hauled from a long ways a way in climate controlled vehicles being run on expensive gasoline.

I just have this notion that people whose diets consist of highly processed foods such as “Lean Cuisine” prepared meals are going to find their grocery bills to be more expensive. But as people start to switch to a mix of processed and fresh foods the bills go down, but then a point is crossed. After all as I’ve Paid Twice notes fresh means having to make more trips, buy smaller quantities and one loses out on economies of scale.

Lorie and I purchase a mix of fresh foods and processed foods and do a fair amount of our own cooking. I just entered in our latest grocery expenditures and find currently our average weekly expenditure is $60.15. My last store venture was to purchase corned beef, a loaf of pumpernickel bread, a Brussels sprouts, soup, bananas, and this morning I purchase a box of clementines.