One of the biggest price gouges I see in the grocery store is the price of snacks these days. Regardless of whether you prefer some healthy brain food for that pre-exam all-nighter or something salty while you’re watching this week’s episode of House, if you buy servings of snacks for a single night at the grocery store, you’re likely to get ripped off.

For healthier foods like blueberries, in the mid-winter the prices are absolutely atrocious and getting a good deal requires a little bit of planning ahead. Right now at my local grocery store it costs $3.99 for a tiny little plastic container of about half a cup of blueberries. If you snack on fruits even semi-regularly, you need to plan ahead when they’re in season. When I lived in BC, the town across the river from us was a big farming town and there were a number of fruit farms. My family would buy about 100 pounds of blueberries and then put them in ziploc bags in the freezer, where they lasted until the next summer. Even if you don’t have that fresh supply, you can get fruits relatively cheap at markets in most areas when they’re in season. This keeps you from having to spend a fortune mid-winter. Right now, a pound of blueberries costs about $8. In the summer you can usually get them for under $2 per pound. If you eat 50 pounds of blueberries in the winter, this planning ahead will save you over $300. Another alternative to spending this money in the winter is to purchase cheaper fruits: apples, pears, bananas and similar fruits are normally still found at relatively normal prices this time of year.

If you prefer something slightly more heart-attack inducing and filled with preservatives, you’re in luck! The prices on single portions of these items are still awful, but it’s much easier to save some money when making these purchases. Assume you like to eat a normal sized bag of chips every other day, just as a snack. These small bags typically cost around $1, usually a little bit more, for about 40 grams. Now this isn’t too much, but consider the price for a large bag of almost 300 grams of chips: $3.99. Yes, you’re paying four times what you did for the other bag, but you’re getting 7 and a half times more chips. All you need to do is split them into ziploc bags like with the blueberries when you get home to avoid splurging, and you’ve saved yourself some money. This works in a similar fashion with most snack foods: single sized portions are usually almost as expensive as the bulk sized bags of many different foods. Just remember that you can always split bulk food into smaller portions, so it makes sense to buy big, even when you live alone.

Regardless of your food preferences, you can always save money when buying snack. Grocery stores depend on these high-margin items, so use every advantage you can find to make sure you get the best possible price.

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