I'll give you an example.
On Friday, I made shrimp scampi for the gf.
The key ingredient is...shrimp!
But how does one acquire the shrimp?
First, I looked at the display case and looked at the varieties of shrimp....There were two that would work, peeled and deviened for $9.99/lb and deveined only was $7.99 lb. Since I was only buying a lb, is it worth $2.00 to not peel aprox 50 shrimp?
So I thought...what are my alternatives?
Frozen Shrimp!...as the shrimp in the case was previously frozen, there is not a signifcant difference between the shrimp in the display case and the shrimp in the freezer.
There is peeled/deveined shrimp for $7.19 for 12 oz. This means the frozen shrimp was about $.20 cheaper per ounce vs. the display shrimp. However, I couldn't use it. The recipe called for 1lb of shrimp...And because I like shrimp, I opted for the lb.
I ended up getting the deveined only for $7.99, but I learned during the process that the time taken peeling the shrimp ruins the recipe...so if I am short on time, I need to opt for the $9.99 shrimp.
That is very fun and exciting for me...to figure out how to extract the most value from any given situation. From buying gas to buying shrimp to how to plan a trip through the supermarket, I find great satisfaction in finding a better way.