The trip is the cost.
Every receipt on this site charges the round-trip drive and your time to the store side. The store doesn’t put either on the receipt — but you pay for them either way. Put in your car and your commute; we’ll do the rest.
Here’s what to stop driving for
The biggest annual wins on our ledger — same brands, trip charged in.
trip_cost = item + (item × tax_rate) + gas + time├ gas = round_trip_miles ÷ mpg × gas_price└ time = trip_minutes ÷ 60 × hourly_ratesavings = trip_cost − amazon_cost
- Impulse buys at checkout. Conservatively, you probably spend $7 on candy + magazines per trip.
- Return hassles. Amazon returns are free and silent. Store returns are a second trip.
- Childcare opportunity cost — if you’re solo with kids, the trip is structurally harder than the math says.
Questions we actually get
How much does a trip to the store actually cost?
With our defaults — 11 miles round trip at 26 mpg and $3.42/gal gas, plus 52 minutes of your time at $15/hr — a single store run costs about $14.45 before you buy anything: $1.45 in gas and $13.00 in time. Four runs a month is roughly $693.45 a year. Plug in your own car and commute above to see your number.
Is Amazon Subscribe & Save actually worth it?
Usually, for true staples. Subscribe & Save takes 5–15% off the listed price (15% needs 5+ items in a monthly delivery), and it stacks with coupons and card rewards. The catch is auto-delivery of things you don’t reliably use. Our rule: only subscribe to items you re-buy on a schedule anyway — diapers, trash bags, detergent — and we show the S&S step-down on every receipt where we’ve recorded it.
Why do you value time at $15/hr?
It’s deliberately conservative — below the median US wage. If you earn more, your store runs cost more than our receipts show. Use the slider above to set your own rate, or tap "my time is free" to zero it out and see the gas-only math.
Why not use the IRS mileage rate?
The IRS rate (around 70¢/mile) bundles depreciation, insurance, and maintenance into every mile. We only charge the marginal cost you actually feel on a grocery run: gas. That makes our trip cost an underestimate — the honest direction to be wrong in.
Do you count impulse buys?
No — and that makes the store side look better than it is. Checkout-lane research puts unplanned spend at several dollars per trip. If we charged a conservative $7 impulse line, almost every comparison on this site would swing further toward the cart.
Are your Amazon prices live?
No — they’re recorded prices from real orders and periodic re-checks, each stamped with when we captured it. Prices move, so every deal page links out to Amazon to check the current price before you buy.