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So, they’re scanning your items at the grocery store, and when the last tomato gets bagged you’re stunned¹ at the cost. How did you spend so much? Maybe those cherries were 12 bucks² a pound. Or maybe you should have paid more attention to what you put in the wagon³. Then again, maybe not. Because a new study in the Journal of Marketing⁴ shows that the harder shoppers try to keep track of what they’re spending, the worse they actually do.

With the economy still in the dumps, sticking to a budget is key. And food’s a major expense. So a lot of shoppers try to keep a mental tally⁵ of what they toss into the cart as they go along. Scientists interviewed 300 shoppers, and found that more than half of them try to crunch⁶ the numbers without a calculator or even a pen and paper. The trouble is doing that math in your head is hard. As a result, they underestimate their total cost, and end up overspending.

One trick, the scientists say, is to count what’s in your cart and multiply by a guesstimate of the average cost of the items. So nine things at $2 a pop should give you change of a twenty. It’s not perfect, but it’ll also tell you whether you can get in the 12 items or less lane.