Best Price from Two Supermarkets

You live midway between two supermarkets. Each supermarket competes for your business by pricing, but not in the same items.

This week cans of corned beef might be cheaper at the first supermarket while cans of sardines are cheaper at the second supermarket.

What is your best strategy, at minimal mental cost to you, to get good prices on any commodity while visiting each supermarket once per week?

I think that the answer is to purchase one of each item from both stores on the same day.

Let’s say that fruit is ripe, you but citrus fruit at store “A”, and now need TWO bags of sugar to make marmalade.

You but one bag of sugar from store “A” and you buy another bag of sugar from store “B”.

The average price of today’s purchase of sugar is $2.49 dollars, which is better than buying both sugars at Store A, and worse than buying both at store B.

If you focus on just one store you have a chance of winning big, but then you also have a chance of losing big.

By splitting your purchases into two equal parts, you will, at least, always benefit from any purchase.

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