Everybody needs to eat. There’s no way that you can get around that. But what you can do is save some money every week on the food you do buy. But how do you do that? One of the best ways to do it is to shop the sales at your grocery store. If you can learn how to do that effectively you’ll save your family hundreds of dollars each month.
1- The first thing should be to eat out less
Without a doubt it’s much cheaper to eat at home than it is to eat out all the time. It’s ok, and actually encouraged, to eat out every once and awhile, but don’t make it a habit. You should treat yourself and your family with something they’re craving, but only do it after you’ve done well saving money by eating in during the week.
2- Check your pantry
This may sound obvious, but before you go out buying a bunch of stuff to make dinner you should check to see what you have at home. You might be surprised to find a forgotten bag of rice, or some frozen chicken that was hiding in the back of the freezer. You really want to try to use your older food first so that it doesn’t go to waste. Wasting your food by letting it spoil is one of the biggest ways that people waste money on food. The washington post is quoted that “americans waste over $165 Billion in food each year.” Don’t add to this statistic.
3- Plan your meals around the sales
Checking your pantry might give you some ideas or some ingredients, but you always have to go out and buy more food. The trick is to learn how to buy food when it’s on sale. Your grocery store will always have sales on all sorts of items. Chicken, beef, beans, olive oil, pasta and the list goes on. What you need to do is to check what is on sale that week and try to plan a meal around those items. Of course, you may not be able to get everything you need on sale, but every little bit helps.
If you watch the sales closely you’ll start to notice patterns. I know that my grocery nearby stores, Publix and Harris Teeter, will put certain items I want on sale regularly. You just have to buy and stock up then.
For example, when I want chips I buy them when they are advertised buy one get one free, which comes out to be half off. I’ll buy enough to last me a few weeks until the sale comes again. I do this same thing with meats that I can freeze like chicken, beef, shrimp etc. They will eventually go on sale so I will buy a good amount when it does and freeze some for later. I’ll also keep some unfrozen to use for meals during the week.
Some of the best items to buy this was are staples like pasta and rice because they have a long shelf life. When the deals on items like these comes around you need to stock up. Don’t just buy what you need this week, but buy enough for a month or two. It will likely be around a month or two before you find a deal on pasta again, depending on how many different grocery stores you have in your area. I have so many choices nearby that I don’t have to wait that long before another place puts pasta on sale.
4- Buy good produce
Produce goes on sale too, but you can’t stock up on those. The best thing you can do with produce is buy the good stuff that looks fresh. Good produce is good for you, and if you were looking for a place where you can be lazy and not worry about sales all the time then produce is it. The trick to produce is shopping around. You might find that you can get better tomatoes at the farmer’s market for less than what you’re paying at the grocery store. Check your area for every possible place that you can get produce and compare prices. You might be surprised what you find.
For example, I like to get parsley to make tabouli every now and then, and I can get great quality parsley from Walmart for half the price that Harris Teeter sells it. Yes, Walmart has good produce. You just need to look. Not everything is cheaper there though, like I said you need to shop around.
If you prefer to shop one place without comparing prices everywhere you can try Walmart’s “Savings Catcher”. One thing great with Walmart is that they have their own App which you can download to your phone, then you scan your receipt and they’ll look up all the local stores prices on the items you purchased. If they find a lower advertised price then you’ll get the different on a gift card.
I have had success with getting money back with this App, but it isn’t perfect. You won’t benefit if something is buy one get one free somewhere else, which is a huge savings. However, if you’re buying a lot of produce then it can definitely make it easier on you because those prices are usually advertised and they seldom use buy one get one free ads with produce.