The Penny Is Still Alive In My Brain

For the past few years, for whatever reason, I've been using what I'll call the "Penny Gram Test". You won't find this brilliant pricing yardstick anywhere on the web since I made it up myself and have never told anyone about it until now.

I don't think I developed it because I'm frugal. It was just a desire to somehow measure or at least get my mind around what I am paying for groceries and snacks. Anyway you can take it for what it's worth, but I thought you might find it interesting. 

When you are in a store, contemplating the vast array of tempting food items, take a look at the weight in Grams. I use this weight as part of my decision making process on whether or not to put it in my basket. It doesn't matter if the weight is 1 pound (454 grams) or 8 ounces (225 grams) or what ever, but my secret gauge is how much it costs per the weight in grams.

I don't like chocolate or candies to cost much more than 1 cent per gram.

Currently I like the weight in grams to equal or exceed the cost in pennies. Therefore if a roast beef is less than 454 pennies ($4.54) per pound it's a bargain to me. A bag of candies is 100 pennies ($1) at the Dollarama and they offer 135 grams, I'm happy. If a giant sized chocolate bar weighs 300 grams and costs around 300 pennies ($3) I'll buy it, but not a box of chocolates which weighs the same 300 grams and costs 800 ($8). It even works for lightweight items like potato chips but not usually liquids. It won't usually work on "designer" brands or luxury foods like lobster either. It should work on alcoholic beverages (1.75 liters weighs about 1750 grams) but we'll never see $17.50 for a 60 ouncer of vodka in this country as long as the government monopolizes the price. (Ontario Liquor Board price is over 3¢ per gram) Robbers!  A lot of alcohol is less than a penny a gram in U.S.A.

There are of course other factors to be considered, like the quality and the pretty box, and whether or not I actually like the stuff.  This Penny Gram guideline seems to work for many food items and is useful in a place like Bulk Barn. If I go over my self-imposed limit of one gram = one penny that's OK too, but at least I know where I stand in relative terms. My simple algorithm has served me well for the past five years or so.

Try it next time you go shopping. If nothing else it will put the prices into perspective. It works for me.
.
.
.