Like many food shoppers, I'm not loyal to a single grocery store. Depending on what's on sale, I may frequent Stop & Shop, Trader Joe's, Costco, Shop Rite and Expect Discounts, a discount supermarket with a large Latino customer base.

But with grocery prices ever rising, I'm forced to reexamine the price of everything. About a month ago, I started another price book, which is really just a list, organized by both store and food category (dairy, canned veggies, fresh produce, frozen, grains, beverages, etc.) recording the prices of those items I most regularly purchase.

Recently, I shifted my allegiance to Expect Discounts and spent less time at Stop & Shop. Fresh produce, for instance, was always cheaper at Xpect as long as you didn't mind picking through over-ripe fruit in their unrefrigerated bins.

I pored through the Shop Rite circular. I was quite surprised to see that in some cases, Shop Rite prices beat Expect's. Take ketchup. I happened to have just bought ketchup at Xpect, a 1 lb, 8 oz. bottle for $1.18. I thought it was higher than before but assumed that since everything was going up, it wasn't out of keeping with anything else. Shop Rite's price was .99 for a larger 2 lb, 4 oz bottle. Imagine that!

I thought i was getting a "deal" at Xpect when I found two pound boxes of pasta at .80 a pound, but Shop Rite had one pound boxes on sale at .74 a pound.

Not everything at Shop Rite was cheaper. I bought a two pound bag of pre-cooked frozen shrimp at Stop & Shop for $6.99, while the same item cost $9.99 at Shop Rite.

Until food prices stabilize (and that won't happen until oil prices do), keeping an accurate price book will continue to be a challenge.

Until then, I won't buy many food items until they go on sale. Pepperidge Farm Dark German Wheat Bread is just great, but once I learned it goes on sale at regular intervals, I'll wait until it's offered at one-third off. Then I'll stock up and buy four loaves, freezing those I'm not using.

I do the same thing with Lean Cuisine entrees. They're handy and easy to bring to the office for lunches, but their regular price of $3.50-plus is too high, so I'll wait until they go on sale at $2.50 each. If they don't go on sale, I don't buy 'em.