Five minutes before the shop — the routine that returns hundreds a month
Do not compare everything. Compare the right things, once a month
Every saving guide fails at the same point — it asks you to compare everything, and that never happens. So here is the opposite: the shortest list that still works.
Minute 1 — write the list before you check anything
A shop without a list is a shop the store runs on your behalf. Before any price comparison, the list is the strongest tool you have — it prevents the items that end up in the trolley because they were at eye level.
A list also makes checking possible at all: you cannot check the prices of a shop whose contents you have not decided yet.
Minutes 2–3 — check five items, no more
Not the whole list. Five: the two or three most expensive things in the trolley, and two or three you buy every single week. Those are the two categories where a gap is worth money — the expensive ones because a percentage gap is large in shekels, the regulars because they come back 52 times a year.
Everything else you can quietly ignore. The difference between ₪4.20 and ₪4.60 on a jar of spice will never repay the time you spent checking it.
Minute 4 — scan the deals, but only for what you buy anyway
The deals page is useful in one direction only: checking whether something already on your list happens to be discounted. The opposite direction — building the list out of the promotions — is exactly how people buy things they never meant to buy.
And if a product that keeps well is genuinely discounted, that is the one occasion where buying ahead makes sense.
Minute 5 — pick a branch, not a chain
The last decision is where to drive. Note that it is a branch-level decision: the same chain prices differently across its branches, so "I shop at Rami Levy" still leaves the question open.
And if the saving you found is at a distant branch, count the drive. A ₪15 saving that costs 30 minutes and fuel is not a saving, it is a hobby.