They're out to get you!

No, dear reader! Your grocer is trying to trick you!

What's more, they catch you while you're hunting for bargains -- comparison shopping, discounting, and clearancing. Usually you're not getting a bad deal with one of these tricks, but you're not getting as good a deal as you think, or the best deal that you could get.

• Unit prices are given, but the units don't match! One is per ounce, the other is per dozen. Hey -- they gave you unit pricing, right? This forces you to do your own unit pricing with a calculator. Usually the item that looks cheaper is actually more expensive. Or, they just price everything "per each," even though items are different sizes.
• Competing products separated at birth. Normally store brand has better deals on most products. But why are the store brand dog bones far away from the name-brand? Because the store brand is more expensive! It's generally a good bet that generic/store brand is cheaper, but not always, and not in this case! (Make no bones about it.)
• Deals are outta sight -- literally! Either so high on the shelf that you have to crane your neck, or so low that you have to do the limbo. Worse yet, the best deals sometimes aren't even in the same aisle as the more expensive versions!
• Marking up to mark down. Buy 1 six-pack of soda, get 2 free! Great deal, until you see that the price of a six-pack of soda has mysteriously exceeded the regular price of a 12-pack of the same soda!
• One of the sneakiest. This one even shocked me. Picture it. Clearance section. December 2003. Mops were going for "50 cents, down from $6.96." Great deal, right? Going to the OPPOSITE CORNER of the store I found that all of the cheap mops -- for 94 cents apiece! -- were missing! Plenty of much higher-quality $6.96 mops over there, though! So what was a 93% discount in the clearance section was actually just buy 1 get 1 free. And, I went across the entire store to find this out!