Grocery Shopping While Hungry Is An Expensive Mistake

New research finds shopping while hungry costs you an extra $26 per trip, on average.

A new survey of 2-thousand Americans looks into our food shopping habits and finds:

• The average person makes two trips to the grocery store a week and budgets $162 for the food.
• Grocery shopping while hungry leads 76% to spend more money than they’d like and six in 10 admit it also makes them ditch their health goals.
• Even with a budget, 62% of respondents admit they’ll typically spend up to 20% more than what they planned for groceries for the week, while 20% say they never overspend.
• To get all the items on their list, people usually need to hit up two supermarkets in a week and their average grocery run takes 39 minutes.
• Some times are better for hitting the grocery store, with the best time to avoid crowds being 8:00a.m. to 9:59a.m., while the worst time is from 4:00p.m. to 5:59p.m.
• More than half (59%) usually shop from a grocery list and 79% of those who do say it helps them avoid overspending.
• Specific brands are really important to some shoppers, including 41% who have preferred brands they’re willing to go to another store to buy if their usual store is out of stock.
• The most common “must-have” groceries people buy regularly are bread (54%), eggs (52%), meat (51%), milk or milk substitutes (50%), coffee (35%) and bananas (35%).
• Bananas are actually the most-purchased grocery in the U.S., something 60% of respondents weren’t aware of.
• The survey also asked about the right stage to eat a banana and half say it’s when it’s “yellow with no spots,” while 6% like their bananas when they’re still “mostly green,” 23% go for a “green/yellow” combo, 13% like them “yellow with brown spots” and 1% prefer “mostly brown.”