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Tips
for Saving Money on Groceries
- Plan
all of your meals in advance. Get started by making
a chart with four columns at the top for breakfast, lunch,
dinner and snacks. Then list out along the side of the chart
the number of days you want to plan. I try to do one week
at a time, but I know some more ambitious families who do
a whole month. If you have some picky eaters in the house,
have them help with the planning to make sure you are making
foods they like.
- Make
your grocery list from your plan and shop with your list.
Try to avoid buying anything that is not on your list, unless
it is something on sale that you can stock up on.
- If
you have the room, stock up on sale goods for non perishable
purchases on items you normally buy. It is hard to beat
the rate of returnyou can get on some of the sales the grocery
stores have to entice you to do your shopping with them.
For
example, if you invest $1 in a money market account, at
current interests rates at the end of the year you may have
made a total of 4 cents of taxable income. If you buy a
$1.00 item and get another one free on a buy one get one
free sale, then that is like getting 100 cents worth of
goods for free - nontaxable. For goods on sale items at
great prices, you can make a much greater return on your
money by stocking up than you can by deferring the pruchase
and investing the money instead.
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A
Money Saving Tip from the Past -
"Many
a dollar is foolishly spent for delicatessen foods.
The retail cost of ready prepared foods includes
a fraction of the salary of the cook and the fuel,
as well as the regular percentage of profit. The
food, also, is not so nourishing or flavorsome as
if freshly cooked in the home kitchen."
From
Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them
(1918), by C. Houston Goudiss and Alberta M.
Goudiss.
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- Join
a wholesale warehouse club like Costco or Sam's Club,
if you don't already belong to one. Set up a schedule to
go warehouse shopping based on your family size and food
consumption. I try to stock up on non-perishables foods
once a month at a warehouse places. However, for most perishable
goods like fruit and vegetables, I find that the package
sizes are often just to large for my family to consume before
the produce gets old and moldy.
- I
buy some meats at the warehouse places, but again the package
sizes are often so large that I usually have to freeze half
the packages. I'll use frozen meats and others foods for
my family when I'm short on time, but on a regular basis
I think there are more vitamins and minerals in fresh
meats and produce so I don't get too much that I have to
freeze.
- You can save
money using coupons, but be aware of how much time you
take to store, sort and decide which coupons to use.
- Compare costs
per ounce on packages.
Usually smaller and individually wrapped packages cost more
per ounce. However, on perishable goods, sometimes I find
it is cheaper to buy smaller quantities rather than buying
large packages where some of the food will go to waste.
- Add some
convenience foods to your grocery list, if you know
you have some busy days ahead and won't have time for a
lot of made from scratch meals. A stir fry meal made with
frozen beef strips, frozen broccoli and and canned pineapple
chunks with a side of instant rice is still cheaper and
healthier than most fast food meals. Plus you can make a
meal like this in the time it takes you to drive to McDonalds
and back.
- Shop when
you are not hungry, so you are not enticed to make spur
of the moment purchases.
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