By Linsey B. Knerl

I am always amazed at how simple it can be to save 20-30% on everyday purchases. No, you won’t need a coupon, special invitation-only savings event, or a tiring haggling session to get it. You just need to try another area of town.

Many people I know have their “favorite” stores. This is understandable, as many outlets (including Target and IKEA) offer reasonable pricing for mid to high-quality home furnishings that are actually well designed. But what if you are just in the market to pick up some earth-friendly countertop spray or a laundry hamper? Bed Bath & Beyond might not be friendly to your pocketbook in this area…but who will be?

I was recently shopping in San Francisco with a friend who was transitioning from living with his parents into his very own bachelor pad. Brooms, laundry soap, and plastic storage containers were on the hit list, and several places we visited offered a variety of options. After I recovered from the initial shock of how much things actually cost on the West Coast (compared to my uber-affordable market in Nebraska), I figured out that it wasn’t California that was expensive – it was Bed Bath & Beyond.

Sure, it was convenient, everything you could ever want for your home in one place. Clean elevators and a nifty cart-return escalator made the shopping experience easy. But I still couldn’t get over paying $13 for a mesh hamper (something that I knew was being marketed as an impulse buy, as it was located in a bin next to the checkout lines). I had come to the conclusion that there had to be someplace with the same items at a lower price every single day.

I scanned the phone book and found a single Dollar General store tucked away in a decent neighborhood. Asking the locals if they had heard of it, most said that they did know it was there but often didn’t consider it because of its location (even though it was a nice place to shop). Apparently it is just easier to take a bus to one area of the city, buy everything you need, and schlep it back home. Going six blocks in the opposite direction (even at a guaranteed 30% savings) was not usually considered.

Selling the same product at different price points within one city isn’t just happening between competitive stores – it often occurs within a franchise. Hy-Vee stores in Omaha carry canned vegetables at 20-30% higher prices in the nicer neighborhoods. But if you can jet twelve blocks East, you will find the exact same stuff for much cheaper (and at a Hy-Vee store, nonetheless). Companies have figured out how much people are willing to pay, and price their wares accordingly. People in nice homes may not notice the extra 20-30 cents on a can of veggies; poorer neighborhoods would. (Or so companies conclude.) Pricing is developed by zip code, social makeup, time of year, and many other factors.

If you can crack this code (and shop the locations that are consistently more affordable within a community), you can save without really trying.