Battle of the Grocery Bags

BATTLE OF THE GROCERY BAGS

GROCERY PRICES ARE SKYROCKETING!

I SHOPPED THE TOP EIGHT STORES IN THE ST. LOUIS AREA FOR THE SAME 35 ITEMS.

YOU’LL BE AMAZED AT WHAT I DISCOVERED.

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     “You have $21 worth of rewards. Would you like to use them today?” The nice cashier informed me as I was checking out at Dierberg’s grocery store.
     I had been saving my bonus rewards for the entire year and now that the year was about to end and the holidays were upon us. “Hell. Yeah,” I thought. “Merry Christmas to me!”
     You know the routine. Put in your phone number as you’re checking out and for each dollar you spend, you get a certain amount of bonus points. The more you spend; the more bonus points you get. Eventually if you spend enough money you get to use those points towards dollars off or discounts towards your total bill. Many grocery stores, fast food restaurants and even my medical insurance offers their own rewards program. All you need to do is give them your cell phone number, get their app and viola, you’re in the system and part of their “Rewards” program.
      The cashier took the $21 dollars off the tab.
     “That brings the new total to $45.21” she said.
      I looked at my purchase. Three bags of groceries with $21 dollars taken off and it still cost me nearly $50.
      The price of groceries, like everything else in the world, has become crazy. Am I living in an alternative universe or did my bag of coffee go from $10.99 to $19.99, my hamburger from $2.99 a pound to $6 a pound and my head of lettuce triple in price since last year? Let’s not even talk about the rollercoaster ride of the price of eggs, which was like investing in a volatile stock.
      I immediately thought of my girlfriend, Melinda. She’s frugal and cost conscious. She never shops at Dierbergs. Says they’re way too expensive. She swears by Aldi’s. Never shops anywhere else. She brings home, like, eight bags of groceries for $50. I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes.
      ‘Sure, I get a small portion of my money back by using the rewards program at Dierbergs,’ I wondered as I tossed my bags in the back seat of my Jeep, but how much would I actually have saved had I been an avid Aldi’s shopper all year long?
      When it comes to grocery stores these days, it seems like they’re all over the place. There’s a plethora to choose from: Schnucks, Dierbergs, Aldi’s, Walmart, Target, Sav-A-Lot, Rulers, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Fresh Thyme. I even have a Home Town Market a couple miles away from me that used to be an IGA. Remember those?
      With all of these grocery stores fighting for my business with their rewards programs, newspaper ads, and weekly sales I wondered where I would find the best value? Get the most for my money? Who would win the battle for the grocery bag filled with the most food for the least amount of money?
      I set out on a quest to find the answer to that question and find which store in the St. Louis area has the best prices in town. I began by making a list of 35 common items that one would buy on a regular basis. I decided on these:

BREAD:
Loaf of wheat bread
Loaf of white bread
Half dozen plain bagels

DAIRY
Gallon of whole milk
Gallon of 2% milk
Half of Gallon of Almond milk
Dozen eggs
Pound of Butter
Package of America sliced cheese
Package of cream cheese

MEAT/SEAFOOD:
Pound of hamburger
Pound of bacon
Pound of skinless/boneless chicken breast
Can of tuna

FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
5 lb bag of potatoes
Bag of apples
Head of lettuce
One Cucumber
Pound of bananas

BEVERAGES:
Coffee
Tea
Six-pack of Bud Light
2 Liter bottle of cola
Case of bottled water

BREAKFAST:
Box of Raisin Bran
Box of instant oatmeal single servings

LUNCH
Can of chicken noodle soup
Jar of Peanut butter
Jar of Grape Jelly

DINNER:
Box of Spaghetti
Jar of spaghetti sauce

SNACKS
Bag of potato chips
Box of Microwave popcorn
Box of granola bars.

      Each family and individual have their own tastes, choices and personal preferences and I’m confident I could have easily expanded this list to the top 100 common items to include other things like pizza, sugar and toilet paper, but I had to stop somewhere.
      There are also many other factors that come into place when picking the grocery store and the items of your choice. Convenience. Health. Organic. Variety. And name brands
      I put all that aside and went straight for the financial knock out: the cheapest price. Times are tough for lots of people. This Battle of the Grocery Bag mission was for those who may be financially struggling or those with big families. It’s for the college student, single parent or the frugal shopper like my girlfriend who are on a budget and just want to get the most out of their money.
      I decided to go to the 8 most popular grocery stores in the St. Louis/St. Charles, MO area:

      I would shop these 35 items, apples to apples (literally) and find out how much I was paying between each store. I excluded membership clubs like Sams and Costco (a possible later blog) and the discount stores that also offer a limited option of groceries like Dollar General and Dollar Tree. Of course I didn’t buy everything on the list. I simply went around to each store and took pictures of their price tags and, to the best of my ability, attempted to make them as comparable as possible.
      There were often discrepancies comparing item to item. For example, not all stores had the same size packages of regular coffee. I use a “cost per ounce” comparison, which almost all store labels include on their price tags. This is a very valuable piece of information when shopping for the best price. And one that every frugal shopper should look for.  
      Here are the final numbers on what you would pay if purchasing these 35 items at each store as of Jan 10, 2026….Drum. Roll. Please.

 $  98.34          Aldi’s
 $104.23          Walmart
 $113.46          Schnucks
 $119.79          Target
 $126.10          Dierbergs
 $126.51          Trader Joe’s
 $154.83          Fresh Thyme
 $155.39          Whole Foods

      It’s amazing, isn’t it? Choosing the right grocery store can save you from 10% to over 50% of your hard-earned income depending on where you shop.
      There was another defining moment made while on my mission. The three most expensive stores, which are also defined as more “health conscious” i.e. Trader Joe’s, Fresh Thyme and Whole Foods were all extremely busy. I’m talking people bustling around the aisles, lines at the deli and at the check outs. Which just goes to show that many people don’t mind paying more money to eat healthier.
      My mission taught me several other valuable lessons.
      The lowest price items and best deals are always on the bottom shelf. Grocers aren’t stupid, they know people are less likely to bend over or get down on their knees to look at the price. So they hide the least expensive, off-brand items well out of eyesight to the customer.
      Another important tidbit I learned was to shop by the ounce and not just the label price. One box may look cheaper but it’s not recognizably smaller to the eye than the other one. For example, most of the healthy style grocery stores sold their bacon in 12 oz packages, which looks exactly like the one-pound package you’d find at all the other stores. It’s called “shrinkflation” or consumer manipulation. Your brain thinks you’re paying less/same for an item, but it’s really 25% smaller. It’s also a way to raise prices without freaking out the consumer. Week after week you grab the same package of coffee or bottle of cooking oil and the price always seems to stay the same, but when you look closely at the size, the contents have very discretely diminished.
      Another factor in getting the most for your dollar is shopping with coupons and buying items that are on sale. Neither of which played a part of my Battle of the Grocery Bag blog mission. During my research I came across many items that were on sale, but I used the everyday price in my comparison shopping. I also observed that in some stores where certain items were on sale, they were sold out and the space on the shelf was empty. Hmmm? Coincidence or possibly left that way on purpose so the consumer was forced to buy the items not on sale.
     As you can see by the image below, prices varied between each store and whereas one store may have been the overall most expensive, on an individual items basis, they came in lower than their competitors. For example, Fresh Thyme came in as the second most expensive store, but they had the lowest price on a gallon of whole milk. 

      Let’s rewind a little here. Remember that uneasy feeling I had leaving Dierbergs with my three bags of groceries that cost $50 and wondering how much I would have saved had I shopped at Aldi’s? Well, I can finally answer that question. I’ll do the numbers and hope everyone pays close attention.
     My 35 item grocery shopping list cost me $126.10 at Dierbergs and only $98.34 at Aldi. That is a 28% difference between the two.
     Let’s make this simple and pretend that I’m a small family of three and I spend $100 a week on groceries at Dierbergs. My yearly total spent would be 
    $100 x 52=$5,200
     Dierbergs rewards program works like this: For every dollar I spend, I get 15 points. When I get 1,500 points, I earn one dollar back in rewards. I spend $100 dollars, I get 1,500 points or one Dierbergs reward dollar. Which comes out to 1% of my purchase.
     So at the end of the year, I would get back 1% of $5,200 which is $52. 
      Now let’s grab a quarter and head on over to Aldi and do some shopping. I spend $100 a week at Aldi which comes to the same out of pocket total of $5,200 but according to the numbers above, Aldi is 28% cheaper than Dierbergs, so at the end of the year, I’m taking 28% off of $5,200 or $1,456.

      Dierbergs Rewards program discount $52.

      Money saved by shopping at Aldi’s because they’re 28% less expensive $1,456!!!

     There’s a clear knock out winner.

$5,200 worth of grocery bags filled with food from Dierbergs, is only going to cost you $3,744 at Aldi’s!

     The lesson learned from this mission is that if you’re on a budget and want to get the most for your money, re-evaluate your grocery store choice. Make note of my research found in this blog or do your own comparison shopping. Buy your most common items at your normal grocery store and the next time try their competitor.
     BTW, this is an independent study done on my own. I have no sponsors, nor do I receive any revenue from this blog. My only incentive is to help people and make them more financially intelligent. Thanks for your valuable time.

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