The sales ads for Thanksgiving turkeys were a bit confusing this year. One store offered a free turkey with a $100 grocery purchase. Two others offered turkeys for about 26 cents a pound with a $25 grocery purchase. Which offer was the best?

As my guiding principle I remembered that if I spent money I ordinarily wouldn’t have spent then the bargain wasn’t a bargain.

With that principle in mind I rejected the offer that called for a $100 grocery purchase. Because we buy a lot of our items at Costco and Sam’s our grocery store purchases aren’t that large.

One of the other two stores is one I don’t visit. It’s a chain that I like but the store in our area isn’t very nice. That knocked that offer out of the running.

With that decision I had a winner. But I still had to buy $25 worth of groceries to get the good price. I made a list of all the grocery items we’d need in the next few days. I also added things that we’d need for Thanksgiving, like the oven cooking bag. I estimated that I’d need just a few more dollars worth of groceries to get to $25. I looked at the specials and noticed that the store had a great sale on canned beans. (When do you know you’re truly an adult? When you get excited about the price of canned green beans.) The price beat the Costco price by 15 cents a can. I had my list and was ready to shop.

When I got back from the store I’d met all my goals. I had a Thanksgiving turkey at a good price. I hadn’t bought anything I wouldn’t ordinarily buy. I even used a coupon from the Sunday newspaper. In short I paid $27 for $58 worth of groceries.

That’s what I call a satisfying trip to the grocery store.