Mom shares how grocery stores are overcharging customers in different ways: 'Save your money'

Buying groceries has generally become expensive. That is why people often look for alternate food items or invent some hacks to keep their monthly food bills low. Who would be better than a mom to share a perfect grocery shopping hack? A mom of five—who goes by @athriftystore on Instagram–keeps sharing interesting hacks. In a video, she talks about how customers are being overcharged for the same item. "Stop getting ripped off at the grocery store," says the woman while standing in the spices aisle. Then she picks up a small bottle of organic bay leaves, which cost $7.33 and then she shows another organic bay leaf bottle that does not have premium packaging and costs about $4.

The mom says, "Stupid expensive, right? Let me show you my deal." The woman then walks down the aisle and reaches the Mexico food aisle, where the same item is in plastic bags and costs way less than the bay leaves in glass bottles. "If you go to the Mexican or Hispanic food area, you get a whole bag of bay leaves, which are four times bigger than any of those jars," says the woman and it just costs about $1.44. "All about the packaging and here you go. So, we're getting overcharged over there," pointing at the last aisle and then saying, "Come here and it's a steal of a deal," concludes the person.

The video went viral, garnering over 1 million views and more than 48k likes. It is captioned, "How do they get away with this? 5 feet away, you can get the same product for pennies on the dollar. Did you know you could get them so much cheaper in a bag?" Many people in the comment section agree that customers are being overcharged.

@mai.94_ commented, "No, don't tell people! That's how avocados and quinoa got expensive. Haha, I've been gatekeeping." @isantafari said, "Exactly, also hibiscus leaves clove leaves, peppercorn and even avocado leaves. I go to a Mercado store run by Espanola." @beau_vintage77 shared, "It's so true! The East Indian section, here in Canada always has spices at a fraction of the cost." @losangelesmedium expressed, "If you look at the packaging of those spices, they all silicon dioxide some have lead. It's on the warning label. I used to do that until I realized I wasn't feeling well after cooking with those spices. I'll spend a few extra dollars on organic now. Or I will go to Sprouts, where they sell organic spices in bulk. You just pay for what you're going to use. It's worth it in the long run."

In another video, she talks about how to save while shopping for cinnamon sticks. "It's the Christmas season, so a lot of you are using cinnamon sticks. You get McComick for $4 and 18 cents for five sticks, you get the organic one for $4.36, and if you just come down here to the Mexican spices aisle, you can get 10 of them for $3.32."