Monday, April 8, 2013

You say potato...

My son Ivan loves baked potatoes. Loves them. One day he ate 3 in a day! Seriously. The kids loves a baked potato.


Of course they are loaded with  cheese, chopped ham and ranch.

After a busy day at 2nd grade, he asked me if he could, "please, please, please have a baked potato for an after school snack?"

Unfortunatley for him...we didn't have any.

So of course he asked me to go to the store and get him one. He promised that I only had to get him one. Just one for him.

Now, potato's are pretty darn cheap in and of themselves. You can turn them into so many different things. They are cheap, tasty and verstaile. How could you go wrong?! Hmmm, yep there is a way...So while I was at Ralphs I did some investigating.

First we have a single potato. Wrapped and ready to go into the microwave. Cost = .99each

Right next to these, were loose potatoes. They were .99 a lb.



Hmmm, it gets better...



A pre-bagged 5 lb. bag of potatoes was $2.49 each.  A lot more spud for your buck right?



BUT...a 10 lb. bag of potatoes? $3.49 each. That is 5 more lbs for a dollar!!! Five!

What the heck kind of math is that?! I think my 3 year old could figure out that the 10 lbs is the best deal.

When my husband was in school, I read every book I could find on saving money. I still have a lot of them today! One of the lessons I learned, and has stuck with me, is that you pay for convenience. The more the store/manufacturer does for you, the more it is going to cost you.

These potatoes are a good example of this. But there are soooo many others.

We need to be educated consumers if we want to get the most bang for our buck.

Be a smart shopper! I will try to show more of these examples as I find them, so be prepared.

So, of course you know I am going to ask...what is your favorite way to eat a spud?!



1 comment:

Julie said...

I always look at the price per ounce cost. Every once in a while it is cheaper to buy a smaller size, but it is very rare! Our kids are not potato fans. After many years of trying to get them to like them, I finally discovered that 3 out of 4 love sweet potatoes! So now we have switched almost completely to sweet potatoes. We eat them 1-2 times a week, usually baked, with a little cinnamon, brown sugar & honey for the kids... I eat them with just cinnamon. We also like them sliced as fries, tossed in a little olive oil and seasoned with salt & pepper, then baked in the oven.

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