Most of us have a price point in mind for what we think things should cost.
For example, in my mind, a new car should cost about $20,000. (It doesn't.) Likewise, I find it hard to pay more than $100 for a pair of men's shoes.
When it comes to groceries, shopping for our family for a week seems like it should cost about $150. (Full disclosure: We eat carry-out restaurant food a lot, so grocery shopping is about basics.)
None of these prices represents real life in inflation-ravaged America anymore. But my mind is always trying to bring costs down to these thresholds. Which means I look for compromises.
For example, our last several "new cars" have been "new to us" previously owned vehicles. I also shop the after-Christmas sales for my favorite New Balance running shoes and look for bargains online.
Grocery shopping is a little bit more of a puzzle. Sticker shock at the supermarket means you have to bundle several strategies together.
(READ MORE: Turkeys will be scarcer and pricier than ever this Thanksgiving)
Sadly, couponing doesn't do the trick for us. I don't need 20% off of baby diapers or five cans of pineapple for $10. I need an edible loaf of bread for $2 and hamburger patties for a buck apiece.
Almost without realizing it, I have come up with some grocery shopping strategies that work for me. For better or worse, here they are. (FYI, I do most of the grocery shopping in the Kennedy house.)
-- Rediscover Baggies. When I was a kid, my mom would pack my school lunch using an assortment of Baggies. Nowadays, I pack lunches for our 16-year-old son and he may have noticed a return to the practice.
Buying a big "party size" bag of chips and dividing it into sandwich-bag-size lunch portions saves a lot. (Plus buying the "party size" of anything makes me feel festive.) You can do the same with sweet snacks. To our son, a Baggie full of jumbo marshmallows is just as tasty as a prepackaged portion of mini-muffins. Hail to the baggie.
-- Look for sports drink alternatives. The rising cost of sports drinks hits us hard. Both of our boys would consume a six-pack a day if we'd let them. If you ask me, that's a drinking problem.
The price problem is that even a small bottle of a sports drink -- G2, Powerade, anything -- is generally over $1 now as part of a six- or eight-pack.
Our 16-year-old, who craves grape G2, told me recently that he would try the powdered version. I looked on Amazon and you can get three canisters of powdered G2 (that together make 18 gallons) for about $25. Sounds like a deal to me.
You'll know that inflation is crazy high when half the kids in America suddenly have Kool-Aid stained lips.
-- Embrace the BOGO. It's hard to describe how excited I get when something I need is on sale: buy one, get one. My non-dairy ice cream was a BOGO deal at Food City recently and I skipped all the way to the checkout line.
-- Check those "use by" dates to cut waste. My wife and kids aren't big on brand switches. If I bring home anything other than Mayfield milk, it will sit and go sour before they touch it.
Better to look for portion bargains. A gallon of any dairy product is so much cheaper per serving than a half-gallon.
Also, I search diligently for advantageous "use by" dates. I'm not shy about digging into the back of the milk case to find product that expires in 10 days, not five (like the ones in front). Every time I pour a pint or two of expired milk down the drain at home, it hurts my heart.
-- God bless the MoonPie. And not just because they are made in Chattanooga. Designed as a filling snack for Kentucky coal miners over 100 years ago, the MoonPie still fits the bill as a low-cost source of calories.
Compared to a handful of cookies, which are now sky high, a MoonPie hits the spot, and they're affordable, too. Collegedale-made Little Debbies fill the same niche.
Email Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com.