The concept is simple. We maintain lists of the prices charged for everything sold at your local stores - groceries, household goods, auto parts, gasoline - everything. When you want to shop, you go to our website, pick the kind of things you want to buy, then fill up your shopping cart. When you check out, we find the lowest price for each thing in your shopping cart, and tell you where to buy it. We also tell you how much you saved versus buying everything at each one of the stores in your area. You can limit your search to just a few local stores to minimize driving, or because you just flat don't like them. This is America!
Our motivation is ideological, and totally American. If you studied economics in high school or college, you remember that our economic system is based on what's called the "perfectly competitive" model. According to this model, we're guaranteed to get goods at the lowest possible price. But as you know, stores do everything in their power to keep you from knowing who's got the lowest price. Company executives pay themselves millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses, buy corporate jets, and sign up for the local country club, then pass the costs on to you. We've fought wars against people whose only crime was that they didn't believe in this model. Turns out, I don't believe in this model either - unless it has a little help. This site is that help.
So how do we make money? We don't. That's why it's called a "non-profit."
Here's how it works: Local committees (which may be high-school or college students, homemaker groups, or anyone) use tools that we provide to keep lists of local stores' prices up to date. (The stores can help if they want, and we make it easy for them to do so; but they probably won't.) Local committees sign up as many households as possible in each neighborhood, asking them to contribute 10% of their savings to the local commmittee. Savings are calculated based on the final shopping lists printed out by members, and consist of the difference between the lists we come up with and the total cost of all purchased goods if bought from the least expensive of the stores on the list. The household gets a bill from the local committee at the end of each month. Local committes can donate the money to charity, or take a trip to the Smithsonian. Payment is voluntary; If you don't think the service is worth paying for, you simply drop out of the system. Well, okay, we drop you out of the system. But it's not a business, and it's really voluntary. That's it!
Sign up today! Here's your chance to help people in your community and change the world.