BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — For the past nine weeks, we've been tracking the prices of five items at five WNY stores.
Our Price Tracker team has been watching the price of:
- 1 pound of ground beef (80/20)
- a dozen eggs
- a gallon of 2% milk
- white bread
- toilet paper
We've been watching prices at:
- Aldi
- Target
- Tops
- Wegmans
- Walmart
As you can see on this graph, the cost of eggs has gone up at all of the five stores.
Last week (the week of 5/16) the average cost of a dozen eggs at our five stores was $2.88.
Walmart had the cheapest at $2.46 per dozen. Tops - had the most expensive - at $3.29 per dozen.
So our team wanted to find out if there's anything you can do to save on the cost of eggs. It turns out - if you buy eggs in bulk, you can drop the price per dozen significantly - but you may be left wondering what to do with dozens and dozens of eggs.
We spoke with a chef at Rosina Food Products who says eggs can easily be frozen. They don't take up much space, and there's an easy way to store them so you can grab a couple at a time.
"If you're someone who has the freezer space, and you like two over-medium eggs every morning for breakfast, break them into snack baggies, put them in your freezer," explained Herb Stockschlaeder, the Director of R&D at Rosina Food Products. "The snack baggies tear right open, and you can put them in your pan from frozen."
If you can swing buying in bulk for ground beef as well, that's another way to save some cash.
For example, ground beef at Walmart last week cost $5.14 for one pound, but if you bought a 4.5lb pack for $19.62, your price per pound drops to $4.36. You can also find ground beef on-sale at some stores for $2.99 or $3.99 per pound - but you usually have to buy at least two pounds. Our expert says ground beef also freezes well.
"You can take your beef (after forming a patty) and put it in a ziplock baggie, and put it in the freezer," explained Stockschlaeder. "If you stack them up that way it takes very little space. Beef in the freezer will last quite a long time. If the air has been removed from the package, beef can last up to a year in the freezer."
No matter what you're shopping for, you want to make sure you have an idea of what it should cost so you don't overpay.
"Consumers aren't very good at what is the average price of an item at one store versus another," explained Charles Lindsey from UB's School of Management. Lindsey says the best way to do that is to price track yourself - or just let us do it for you!
