CHERRY PICKING

I remember when I was in high school and played pick up games of basketball, there would be times that someone would not play defense. Instead, they would be under their own basket and if someone rebounded the ball from the same team, all that they had to do was throw the ball to the player and he could make an easy lay up. This was called cherry picking. Why is beyond me. What it had to do with picking cherries, I do not know.

Do a Scroogle search typing in cherry picking sports and in a Wikipedia entry, you will find the mystery behind the phrase cherry picking. A cherry picker when it comes to stores is one who purchases only things that are on sale. Generally, a store will put an item on sale at cost or below cost to draw customers into the store in hope that the customer will also purchase other items at their regular prices.

Someone read a newspaper article regarding cherry pickers and according to the study, only one percent of people are cherry pickers. Why this is I do not know. I tend to think that people are unaware of how to save money when shopping. Most people probably could care less or it may be because it requires effort. For whatever reason, people end up spending more money than necessary. The stores would have it no other way.

My view is that I would rather save the money than give it to the store. Why spend money you do not have to? To be an effective cherry picker, one has to be aware of prices. It requires having a benchmark. My benchmark is Walmart prices. Walmart usually has the lowest price in town. I do the majority of my shopping at Walmart because they offer me the best price on the things I use. Living on a fixed budget requires me to be price conscious. I buy from those who offer me the best price.

Cherry picking requires getting the sales flyers and then perusing them for the best deals on items you regularly use. One good thing is that Walmart will match the price on these sales items. Generally, you can do one stop shopping at Walmart using the sales flyers as supplements. It is important to remember that any money that you save on price, you are also saving 8% on tax in Tennessee.

I just got through cherry picking Kroger. They are having a mega sale event. What I targeted was their Kraft Cheese. If I purchased 10 blocks of 8oz cheese, I got $5 off the purchase price. This made each 8oz bar be $1.50. An 8oz bar of Great Value Cheese at Walmart is $1.84. Therefore, I saved $3.40 by making this purchase ($.34 x 10). Add to this the 8% tax savings (.08 x $3.40) of $.27 and I saved a total of $3.67. This is money which I did not have to expend. This means that I came out ahead of the game.

Yesterday, I took the K-Mart flyer to Walmart and bought three heads of lettuce at K-Mart’s sales price of $.69. Walmart’s normal price is $1.38. Essentially, I got each head of lettuce at half price. Thus I ended up saving $2.24 on the purchase of these three heads of lettuce ($.69 x 3 x 8%). With these two purchases alone I ended up saving $5.91. There are many other instances I could tell you about this week, but I think that you get the point.

My system works over and over again. It saves me money on a continuos basis. Think of the money you would save not only over a week’s time, but over a year’s time, over a decade’s time etc. The real key to making this system work is to become price conscious. When in the store look at the prices of the items you buy. Either make mental notes, or write them down on a piece of paper. Ensure that you are getting the best price for your hard earned dollars. You will never be disappointed.