Teachin' Ya Tuesdays - Shopping Smart

There is a reason I am always banging into things at the Supermarket. I am always looking down, because that is where most of the products I buy are displayed. Looking down (and up high too) is a great way to avoid being taken in by the design tricks employed by grocery stores to get you to spend more.
As this article from Yahoo points out, lots of planning goes into product placement in stores - all with the goal of keeping you in the store longer and getting you to part with more of your hard-earned cash.
So (besides my downward gaze towards value/store brand product shelves) what other weapons do I use to Shop smart?
The #1 most powerful tool you can arm yourself with, in my humble (and cheapo) opinion, is the Price Book.
For the items you use most, the things you buy again and again, knowing how much the item costs when it isn't on sale is the easiest way for you to tell if you should get excited when a store say that it is on sale. It is also the fastest way for you to see which store is offering you the best prices on a regular basis.
Yes - this takes a bit of time. But I always have time to save money, don't you?
Grab a notebook - I find full-sized works better than small, but that is just me. I like to make a page for each product and then write the date, store, product size, and if the product was on sale or priced normally.
For meat I have a page for each store and have the NON sale prices of typical cuts listed. That way I know if it is worth getting excited about the sale price of a pork picnic roast at Safeway, or if it is really cheaper everyday at Walmart.
If you can't update the book at the store, do it based on your receipts at least, so that weeks from now you can look back and see that Sunflower's lettuce prices are WAY better than that Albertson's produce you are about to toss in your cart. A price book helps you recognize savings when you see it - and (as GI Joe told me when I was growing up) "knowing is half the battle."