Perhaps the best news of the day is found between the pages of El Caribe, in which an article discusses 15 various ways to make a peso go further. The head of the Consumer Defense Foundation gave El Caribe 15 good pieces of advice on how to economize. Altagracia Paulino has the following suggestions, among others:
Eat before shopping; hunger will tend to make you buy more. Make a list and stick to it; impulse buying will cost you a lot of money. Watch out for ?Buy this and get that for free?; nothing is ever really given away for free. The 3-for-the-price-of-2 offers are also to be avoided, she says.
Compare merchandise; if all things are equal, you can buy the less expensive item.
Shop at the supermarket instead of the colmado (neighborhood stores); a full 75% of the population shops in the colmados ? and generally on credit. Any comparison will show that the prices there are significantly higher than at the supermarket.
Opt for local versus imported items; while it might be a question of taste, paying RD$10 for two more ounces of product might not make good economic sense.
Best days for shopping are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning. Avoid shopping on weekends, the peak shopping days, when the quality of products declines and there are less sales. Fresh produce arrives to the stores in the morning, so whenever possible, shop in the morning.
Beauty products. Buy a gallon of generic shampoo and save. Consider even washing the dog with the generic shampoo.
Watch it with cheap brands. Check the product before buying. While some generic products are good, others should be avoided. For example, watch it when buying cheap toilet paper, for example.