[Sca-cooks] Re: comparison shopping

[Liadan]

I have a list of common ingredients on my computer. Occasionally, I take
a copy with me and note what items are selling for regularly. Then, when
a sale is on somewhere, I can tell if it's truly a sale, or just seems
like one.

For example, I was nearly duped recently by a sale on Miracle Whip at 2
quarts for $5. But the regular price is $2.38 per quart. By the empty
shelves, I realized I wasn't the only one.

I'm a numbers person, so it amused me to graph prices of particular
items, say chicken, milk, eggs and doughy white bread.  After a couple
of years, I started seeing cyclical price increases and decreases. It
was interesting and annoying when I would see the price of chickens and
eggs increase dramatically after an Arkansas blizzard, and never return
to their original prices. Central Oklahoma gets most of their poultry
from Arkansas.

Liadan