Free tool

Should I stock up?

Every deal site will tell you the price is good. Almost none will tell you how many to buy, and that is the part that decides whether you actually saved.

The price

What it costs

What it normally is.
What the shelf says.
Anything else that comes off. Leave blank if none.
The number on the package.
Your household

How you use it

This is what turns a price into a number of jars. Estimates are fine.

How many your house gets through. Put 0 if you do not use it.
Months, roughly.
Weeks between sales like this one.
How many usable packages do you have? Leave at 0 if none.

Your real price

$2.49

$0.156 per oz72 percent below usual

This is a stock up price

How many to buy

3

That is roughly what you will use before it goes on sale again in about 10 weeks.

That saves about $19.50 against the usual price.

Before you fill the cart

Buying more than 3 won’t save you anything extra. It’ll be this price again in about 10 weeks, so the rest is storage, not saving.

Your own price book is the best source for the usual price, because it is the price at your shops rather than an average of everyone’s.

Why the number matters more than the price

A jar at half price is a saving. Twelve jars at half price, when you use one a month and it goes on sale every ten weeks, is nine jars of money sitting on a shelf until next year.

That is not a mistake anyone should feel bad about. It is arithmetic nobody does standing in an aisle, which is exactly what a tool is for.

Two things decide how many you need. How fast you get through it, and how long before it turns up cheap again. Whichever runs out first is your number.

Then one more thing decides how many to buy, which is what you already have. The answer is the gap between the two, and some weeks that gap is nothing at all.

The usual price is the hard part

This is only as good as the usual price you put into it, and that is different at every shop. Your own price book is the only reliable source for it.

Start your price book