“Make a list and stick to it”: No! Make a list of essentials you know you’ll need, then purchase meat and veggies for upcoming meals according to what’s on sale. Even scrutinizing the sale circular won’t necessarily help you make a list, b/c sales items are often sold out, or those bargain cauliflowers will turn out not to be such a bargain b/c they’re half-rotted. Store and economy brands and sales are your friend for everything else.

“Bring a calculator”: OK, fair enough, but if you’re a careful shopper, you should be able to do the basic math quickly enough in your head that you don’t have to pull it out often, KWIM? Indeed, to the extent that relying on the calculator keeps you from getting nimble enough with math to quickly figure these things out, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.

Bundled prices: this is so obvious, I’m not sure it really counts as a tip, but I guess there is someone out there clueless enough to need it.

The bakery aroma trap, also often prescribed as the “don’t go to the grocery store hungry” warning. Yes, you’ll go crazy with impulse shopping if you’re hungry! OK, this has never happened to me and I have never been accused of being a paragon of self-restraint. A better reason is that you’re likely to be too impatient to shop wisely, but better to go to the grocery store hungry than not have enough victuals at home and end up eating an expensive carry-out meal. The candy bars at the grocery store are almost always cheaper than anywhere else, so while it would be better for your health not to, don’t sweat the $.75 Snickers bar.

Ron is right, though, one of the sleaziest things the stores do is use different unit prices for identical products on the “consumer friendly” labeling to make it harder to figure out what the better value is. Then you may really need that calculator.