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A cashier at Fred Meyer changed how I look at grocery shopping
I was standing in line at Fred Meyer in Seattle last Tuesday with a cart full of stuff I didn't really need. The cashier was this older guy named Rick, probably late 60s, and he just looked at my cart and said "You know, you're paying a dollar extra on half that stuff just for the brand name." He pointed to the store brand canned tomatoes I had and showed me the ingredient list was identical. Then he told me how he saved over $800 a year just by switching to generics for things like pasta, beans, and cleaning supplies. I honestly thought he was trying to upsell me on something at first. But he kept ringing me up and talking about how his wife thinks he's cheap, but really he just hates wasting money. Something about that five minute interaction stuck. I started looking at the unit prices on everything and now I probably save $15-20 a week without changing what I eat. Has anyone else had a random employee totally change how you shop?
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knight.felix29d ago
Brand names usually taste better though.
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grays1329d ago
The thing nobody talks about is how this changes your relationship with the store itself. Once I started paying attention to unit prices, I realized Fred Meyer and other big chains place the expensive stuff at eye level and hide the cheap options on the bottom shelf. Now I have this weird distrust of the whole layout. Like, they're not just selling me food, they're selling me a way of looking at the store that makes me spend more. Rick basically gave you the cheat codes to their own game.
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