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Dad Field Manual · Field card 07 · MoneyIdea · not yet tested

Grocery price detective

You're going to the store anyway. This time your kid gets five items on the list to investigate, a pencil and the small print on the shelf tag, and they come home knowing how to tell which box is really the better deal.

Time
60 min
Cost
$0
Ages
7 to 12
Where
Your grocery store

What you need

  • Your normal shopping list, with five items circled for the detective
  • A detective sheet: an index card or paper with five rows, item, choice A, choice B, winner
  • A pencil and something to write on, like a clipboard or a cereal-box back
  • A phone calculator for when there's no unit price on the tag

Store safety: read this first

  • No riding or climbing on the cart, on the sides or the front, and no pushing a cart with a younger sibling in it. Carts tip.
  • Pick a meeting spot by the registers before you split up, even for one aisle. Kids under 10 stay in the same aisle as you.
  • Grown-ups get the high shelf and the glass jars. Detectives point; they don't pull a heavy thing down over their heads.
  • Watch the aisle traffic. Stand to the side to read tags so carts can pass.

Steps

  1. Brief the detective at home. Circle five list items that come in different sizes or brands and give them to your detective.
  2. Find the unit price. Find the small unit price on the shelf tag, which shows the cost per ounce, pound or count.
  3. Compare two choices. For each item, write two unit prices on the sheet and circle the lower one.
  4. Solve the tricky cases. If a tag has no unit price, divide the price by the size on the phone calculator.
  5. Make the call. Let them choose which one goes in the cart and say why, not just which is cheapest.
  6. Close the case at home. Count how often bigger or store brand won, then sign their field card.

If it stalls

  • If they get bored after two items, stop at two. Next trip, do the other three.
  • If the small print is hard to read, especially on the bottom shelf, take a phone photo of the tag and zoom in.
Cases solved (of 5) · times the big size won
Signed off: can do this.Signed by Date