8 Ways To Avoid Sneaky Supermarket Tricks

Enjoy a healthier and cheaper trip to the grocery store with these easy tips

By: The Editors of Prevention 

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Photo Credit: Thinkstock
You walk into a grocery store expecting to buy only the items on your list, yet you leave with a cart full of extras you may not really need—and a considerably lighter wallet. An accident—or lapse in judgment? Actually, the store setup is likely to blame. "You want to get in and out quickly, but the folks in charge want you to linger as long as possible, spend as much as possible, and ideally spend it on the highest-profit items," explains Ali Benjamin, co-author of The Cleaner Plate Club: Raising Healthy Eaters, One Meal at a Time (Storey Publishing, 2011). How, exactly, do they make you stick around and load up on items you never meant to buy? Here are eight ways to guarantee a healthier (and cheaper) shopping experience every time.

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Skip The Supersized Carts

"We don't feel like we are done shopping until we have some sort of visual cue—like a full cart," says Benjamin. So the trick is to look at the cart like a dinner plate. "Choose the smallest cart you can," says Diane Henderiks, RD, a personal chef and culinary nutritionist in Oakhurst, NJ. "It's like choosing a smaller dinner plate—only here you'll save calories and money." Or, ditch the cart entirely. "Our studies from Project Brandwashed show that a typical family needs only what they can carry," says Martin Lindstrom, author of Brandwashed Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy (Crown Business). "I tell families to have kids help carry items."

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Bring A C-Note—And Leave Your Credit Cards Behind

Cash is king when it comes to avoiding impulse buys. "I know that I spend way less when I use cash rather than credit," says Benjamin. And the research proves her right—Lindstrom advises shoppers to use a 100-dollar note for grocery purchases. "We find it emotionally harder to break a larger bill, so we spend less," says Lindstrom. "We don't have an emotional connection with numbers on a credit card statement." (Search: How to save on groceries)

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Watch Out For "Health-Washing"

You may not read labels with as critical an eye in a store like Whole Foods as in, say, Super Target®, says Rabbi Issamar Ginzberg, president of Monetized Intellect Consulting, Inc, in Brooklyn, NY. "The atmosphere in Whole Foods Market® makes you feel like everything in the store must be healthy," he notes. "In Target®, you'll look at the calorie count on the same package of granola you buy without thinking in a 'healthy' grocery store."

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Listen To The Piped-In Music

Typically, the store manager is piping in music to keep you on her schedule. "Slow hours mean slow music—they want you to linger and buy; fast music at the busy hour means they want moving, moving, buying," says Ginzberg. "And it's not unusual to hear, say, Spanish music if salsa is on sale." Tote your own tunes to set your pace, but opt for pop or house music—really! "If you're using a music player and headset, it removes you from sensory stimuli," says Linstrom, "and if you play music you don't like at a fast beat, it will shorten your trip—and make you shop in a more rational way."

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Shop Alone

Whenever possible, leave the kids at home. Even if they're not begging for their favorite goodies, parenting while pushing the cart can drive you to distracted buying, so you miss the best values.

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Beware Of Bulk

"Stores advertise pricing in a way that encourages you to buy in bulk," says Janel Ovrut Funk, MS RD LDN, a Boston-based dietitian who writes eatwellwithjanelblog.com. "Just because you can purchase 10 jars of tomato sauce for $10 does not mean you have to buy all 10 at once! You can still get the sale price when only buying one jar. This can prevent you from overbuying and, in turn, overeating, especially when it comes to sale item foods that never should have made it into your grocery cart to begin with!"

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Read Every Price Tag

Many markets have lower prices on staple items like milk, eggs, and toilet tissue so that you come away with the impression that the whole store is cheaper. But they mark up other items by 10% because you've already decided you're getting a better value in that store.

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Look Up, Down, And All Around

Impulse items are stocked at eye level on the shelves—so if you're hunting for healthy choices, or even a lesser-known organic or all-natural brand (that doesn't have the bucks to buy primo placement), avert your eyes from their natural sightline, says Ginzberg. "A store like Walmart marks down items on the end cap to draw you down the aisle too," he notes. "Once you are there, they don't have any reason to give you the best price."

 

 

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