The Store Brand Is Not Always Cheaper
Everyone assumes the generic is the deal. Then you actually divide the price by the ounces and discover that the 48 oz store-brand olive oil at $11.99 costs more per ounce than the 16 oz name-brand bottle on sale for $3.50. Grocery pricing is designed to confuse you. Different package sizes, different units, occasional bulk traps where the bigger container costs more per unit than the smaller one.
This template does one thing well: it calculates price per unit automatically using a #{price} / #{size} formula, so you stop guessing.
The Calculated Field That Pays for Itself
Enter the price in USD, enter the size as an integer, pick the unit (ounces, pounds, or gallons), and the Price per Unit field does the math. No mental arithmetic in the aisle. No phone calculator app. The number is right there in the record, and when you have thirty entries for different brands of Greek yogurt, you sort by that calculated field and the answer is immediate.
The Date field timestamps each price observation. Grocery prices fluctuate weekly — tracking when you recorded a price lets you spot sale cycles. That $4.29 butter drops to $2.99 every six weeks? Now you know, because three months of dated entries made the pattern visible.
Photo the Shelf Tag, Not the Product
The Photo field is for the price tag on the shelf, not the product glamour shot. Shelf tags in most US grocery stores show the unit price in small print at the bottom — but the format varies by chain, the math is sometimes wrong, and sale prices override the printed unit cost. Snapping the tag gives you a verifiable record when you compare prices across Costco, Trader Joe's, and the local chain where the unit price labels haven't been updated since the last supplier change.
Five categories — Dairy, Meats, Produce, Toiletries, Groceries — cover the major aisles. The Brand field is free text, which means you're not limited to a pre-set list. When the store introduces a new private-label line mid-year, you just type it in and the comparison data starts building immediately.