Want to save money?
Ban your man from grocery shopping, new research says
“This isn’t about sexism, stereotypes or a fair division of household labour,” writes Vinay Menon. “It’s about realizing most men don’t know squat about squash.”
By Vinay MenonEntertainment Columnist
Vinay Menon is the Star’s pop culture columnist based in Toronto. Reach him via email: vmenon@thestar.ca
There is a gender war in Aisle 3.
With the cost of food now spiking toward Hermès levels, everyone is trying to save money. My wife swears by Costco. I mostly swear when she drags me to Costco. The Gitmo lighting. The orange carts the size of Mazda Miatas. The anarchist shoppers scampering in every direction like Pharaoh ants during an earthquake. The feared hernia as I hoist a tub of Busy Bee that contains enough honey to slather two coats on the CN Tower.
Why are there more olives in my pantry than in Andalusia?
Then as my soul escapes to the parking lot in a superstore imagined by Dante, I hear my wife’s voice amid the blur of a stampede for free pudding samples: “Rotisserie chicken is $7.99!”
Here’s an easier way to save money: Ban husbands from grocery shopping.
Per a MoneyWise story this week: “A recent National Bureau of Economic Research paper found that when men start working from home and, consequently, do more of the grocery shopping, households spend about 5% more on similar items. Elsewhere, a 2023 YouGov survey revealed that women tend to be more price-conscious than men about groceries.”
Is this why I was recently swindled out of $14.99 for grapes?
Eaters and readers, the gender grocery literature is damning. It is conclusive.
Women compare prices and have a hard-wired sense for how much cilantro should cost. Men are hard-pressed to explain the difference between figs and dates. Women are heat-seeking missiles who know exactly where to find everything on their alphabetized list. Men zigzag, double-back, wander aimlessly like Boer War ghosts and then impulse-buy Flamin’ Hot Doritos while forgetting the chicken thighs they were explicitly sent to retrieve for dinner.
Women are on a mission. Men are trying to get home before first pitch.
Now, as with all academic generalizations, there are exceptions.
I once saw this dad in Loblaws. His adorable toddler was in the cart child seat. This is what caught my attention: the dad had like an iPad he was wearing around his neck as if it was a clock and he was Flavor Flav.
This man was a walking headrest monitor.
Mesmerized, I followed him. His daughter was watching cartoons broadcasting from his chest and this hero was checking expiration dates, eyeing brands and bagging string beans like a champ.
It was all I could do to not ask him to be my best friend.
But iPad Dad was the exception. Most men at the market look like they teleported from Mars. So this new science is a permission slip to help families save money.
Men should be liberated from all grocery shopping until science proves they are not a financial liability. No, sir, bacon should not cost $18.
This isn’t about sexism, stereotypes or a fair division of household labour. It’s about realizing most men don’t know squat about squash. If “The Price is Right” was limited to guessing on foodstuff, no male contestant would get past Contestants’ Row.
Research shows women enter a market like chess masters. Men treat a grocery store like it’s a corn maze. The goal is to get the hell out.
This makes evolutionary sense. We are descendants of hunters and gatherers. Hunters can’t track cereal boxes or pasta sauces that all look the same. It is the gatherers who can compute cost-by-weight while blocking out the soft-rock soundtrack as the hunters sing along to “Sailing” while sailing past the deli counter and the black forest ham that was needed for school lunches.
Nearly 80 per cent of men forget to take the reusable bags out of the trunk. No wonder we return with artisan sea salt harvested by monks just because it had a really cool label.
Why should I go grocery shopping when science has concluded my wife is more fiscally responsible? Until inflation is tamed, men should avoid Sobeys, Farm Boy and Longo’s. Five per cent is not a rounding error in this economy — it’s a pathway to bankruptcy when costs are rising.
Is it really my fault if the weekly specials are impossible to find and the Nutrition Facts label is as indecipherable as the Voynich Manuscript? Shouldn’t my wife realize she is a superior forensic investigator in the fresh produce sector as I stay home and munch on overpriced smoked almonds before mowing the lawn?
Men grocery shop the way we assemble furniture: with impatience, confusion and an overconfident feeling the instructions are mere suggestions. We are unburdened by the tyranny of choice and that includes prices. We don’t care about bang for the buck. We are hostile to thinking clearly when trapped in the ThunderDome that is a modern grocery store.
Women are good at this — and that’s why they should do it.
Men, we just want to go home.
