I was talking to a person today who said that he saved a lot of money by carefully thinking which area he would live in. Apparently a big factor in deciding where to go was whether or not there was a lot of competing businesses in the area that offered goods and services to the public. That way the odds of him getting stuff at low prices were greater as every business will constantly try to outdo each other price wise.
He was specific too where it wasn’t just a matter of having a lot of stores in general but rather ones that offered similar products or services. Kind of a logical thing to do when you think about it. Although, this must be super difficult to plan out as many times when it comes to businesses that are say leasing spaces in certain areas there are agreements where there cannot be competing businesses within the same area range.
Example, a lot of times they wouldn’t allow say two hotdog vendors to be in the same block. It’s probably easier in this sense to just live closer to say a large shopping center if you really want the variety in competition to try and get the best deals.