Guide · Shop smarter
How to build a grocery price book that actually saves you money
Supermarkets rotate discounts constantly, and it is hard to know whether this week's "deal" is actually good. A price book - a simple list of what your regular items usually cost - gives you the answer in seconds.
1. Start with your top 15 to 20 items
Do not track everything. List the products you buy almost every week: rice, flour, oil, milk, eggs, lentils, soap, and so on. These are where most of your money goes, and where a small per-unit saving repeats every single week.
2. Record price per unit, not pack price
Pack sizes change, so write the price per kilogram, litre or piece. Note the store and the date. Old receipts and delivery apps are an easy source for your first entries - you do not need to visit shops with a notebook.
3. Update it for a few weeks
After three or four shopping trips you will see each item's normal range. That range is the whole point: once you know that your rice usually costs between 55 and 65 per kilo, a "special offer" at 70 stops looking special, and a genuine drop to 50 becomes a signal to buy extra.
4. Use it to decide when to stock up
When a regular item hits the bottom of its range and it keeps well, buy ahead. When it sits at the top, buy the minimum and wait. This alone often saves more than chasing coupons, because it works on the things you already buy.
5. Compare stores only where it matters
If you have two or three stores you actually visit, note their unit prices for your top items. Many families find one store wins on staples and another on fresh items, and a simple split beats loyalty to a single shop.
The Daymark grocery comparison calculator does the per-unit math for any two products in seconds - useful both for building your price book and for checking deals at the shelf.