Is fresh fruit expensive? Many people think so. Recently I was really hungry for fresh peaches. The store I was at had only 1 variety. They were $1.48 per pound and the peaches were very large. I bought 4 of them. When they rang up, they totaled $2.92…more than I thought they would be and more then I would normally pay for 4 pieces of fruit—$.73 a piece.

Here are some tips for controlling the cost of fresh fruit:

1. Watch size of individual fruit. Small peaches would have been about 3 per pound and even at $1.48/pound they would have been less than $.50 a piece.
2. Watch quantity purchased. I purchased fresh cherries earlier this summer. They were $2.99 per pound, a pretty good price for fresh cherries. I was so surprised when they rang up over $10!  They were pre-bagged and even though the bag didn’t seem that big, I had purchased over 3 pounds of cherries.  Just be sure you can eat the quantity you purchase!
3. Store them correctly. If fruit needs to ripen (like peaches), place them in a basket on the counter or in a brown paper bag. Once they ripen (or if they were already ripe when purchased), place them in the refrigerator—either in the paper bag or in a bowl/basket. Some fruits (like peaches and pears) spoil from the inside out when kept in a plastic bag; so, when you get home from the store, take the fruit out of the plastic bag you bought it in.
4. Keep it in perspective. My peaches were $2.92 and that seemed like a lot, but I recently bought a bag of baked chips that cost $3.79—less filling and less nutritious than the 4 peaches! Also, $.75 for a piece of fruit may seem expensive, but a regular-sized candy bar at a convenience store is $1.19.

So, enjoy that fresh fruit!

-contributed by Renee