Shopping for groceries can be very wearying. You spend all kinds of money at the supermarket, watch your family consume the food over the next week or two, and then have to do it all over again. Because grocery shopping is very seldom an enjoyable chore, most people don’t consider that it is a huge area of impulsive and wasteful spending. In truth, however, we waste more money at the grocery store than almost anywhere else. The good news is that it’s not hard to make a few small adjustments to your habits in order to significantly cut your grocery bill. A little elbow grease, some comparative shopping, and attention to coupons can really give your family a boost in this department. Your credit card will thank you!
Experts agree that a well-organized shopping list is the most formidable tool in the arsenal of intelligent shoppers. Making a list and adhering to it carefully is paramount to saving money. Before you hit the grocery store, go through your kitchen cupboards and refrigerator to take inventory. This will accomplish two purposes: telling you what you really need, and also showing you what you have, so that you can maximize these ingredients in meal planning. You will also save on gas wasted when you have to make multiple return trips to the store over the course of the week to pick up forgotten items. On the World Wide Web there are many sites where you can download and print a convenient grocery shopping list that you can fill out and customize to your needs before your next shopping trip.
Menu planning goes hand in hand with preparing a grocery list. Once you have established what you have available in your pantry and fridge, you can work with those items to prepare menus. There are some great menu planning tools available on the internet, including some where you can enter menu items you have available to find recipes. Make sure you focus on recipes that utilize inexpensive proteins and not too many premium ingredients, since these are areas where your costs can really add up. Recipes made with beef or pork steaks or chicken breast will cost a lot, especially if you have a big family. Choose your meals wisely!
Once you are at the store and have carefully loaded your cart with items from your shopping list, watch that price scanner at the register like a hawk. I’ll admit that this can be difficult to do if you go alone and also have to unload the shopping cart onto the belt and fish in your wallet for coupons and your credit card or debit card, but it’s a known fact that scanning mistakes happen at all stores and that no one grocery chain is any more or less accurate than another. Some stores have a policy of giving the item to you for free if it rings up incorrently, which is always nice. At the very least, however, you need to watch out so that you don’t spend any more money than you absolutely have to.
Experts also advise that you purchase generic items over well-loved brand names when at the supermarket. That package of Reynold’s aluminum foil, Lucky Charms cereal, or Charmin toilet paper costs a lot in part because of the money it takes to promote these brands. There is every chance that your store’s generic brands taste just as good or function just as well. Generics are just as good as brands in almost every case, although this is not one hundred percent true.
The next tip has to do with coupons. Smart shoppers clip coupons, it’s true, but not every coupon is a good buy. Many of the food products promoted for savings with coupons are highly processed and terribly bad for you, featuring unpronounceable chemical ingredients and very little nutritional value for yourself and your family. Even at one or two dollars off, these are not a deal. Give yourself permission to spend a bit more on whole foods that are good for you and will give your loved ones the energy they need for a healthy life! Also, to tie in the last suggestion, make sure that the item you are buying with a coupon is really a good deal. I laugh when I see coupons for a quarter off Tide laundry detergent, when Gain or All can be had for quite a bit less at regular prices and smell just as good after washing your clothes!
Also consider passing on canned foods when you go to the grocery store. Beans, for instance, are much cheaper to buy whole than in cans. If you soak your beans in water overnight, you get the same exact product as you would get by opening a can, only with less money spent. This is a cheap way to add protein to your diet without splashing out on meat. You will get much more with your dining budget dollars in this way than by buying canned beans. You also can save money on things like bagged salads, cartons of fresh cut fruit in the produce section, or small convenience packages of chicken breast strips by doing the prep work yourself. A head of lettuce, an onion, a few tomatoes, and a bag of carrots will make twice as much salad as the bagged kind, and it only takes a little work. Likewise, trimming a whole chicken is much cheaper than buying the expensive parts!
There is no need to run up a massive bill on your credit card when doing the weekly grocery shopping. A little hard work, focus, and thought will net you big rewards when it comes to the difficult task of feeding your family! There are a slew of resources out there for those trying to shop on a budget, so there is no excuse for mindlessly wandering the aisles and running up your bill. Every dollar that you scrimp on your grocery shopping is another that you can use on something else in your life – paying down debt, saving for a vacation, or simply doing something fun with your loved ones. The trouble is worth it, I promise!
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