Easily Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half
How to Save up to 50% at the Supermarket without Clipping Coupons
Aug 5, 2008
Even though food prices are soaring, you don't have to spend a fortune every time you enter the grocery store, and you don't need to spend a lot of time clipping coupons.
Manufacturers’ coupons, store coupons, coupon trading…all ways to save money at the supermarket. But if you don’t have the time or the energy to cut into newspapers or scour the ‘net for codes, you can still save money, but you have to plan ahead.
How to Save up to 50% at the Supermarket without Clipping Coupons:
- Only buy food at the supermarket. Shop for toothpaste, shampoo, soap, laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid, etc, at discount stores like Walmart or Target and warehouse clubs like Sam’s or Costco. You pay a lot more for these items at the grocery store, and if you buy in bulk and take advantage of sales you’ll save even more.
- Buy generic. You will save big by not buying name brands. Unless you’re extremely loyal to a certain manufacturer try store brands. They’re not only cheaper and probably just as good, but supermarkets often put these on sale first. Hesitant to try generic? For the first time buy only one box instead of six. Try it out and see if you can’t get past that brand loyalty enough to save some real money. Best generic products? Canned fruit and vegetables, cereal and toaster pastries, as well as paper towels and toilet paper.
- Plan your meals around sales. Instead of eating whatever strikes your mood, come up with recipes based on what’s on sale. You can quickly scan the store’s sales flyer usually located in front of the check-out lines, before you even walk down the food aisles. Or you can go to the supermarket web site. If you do this often enough, you’ll begin to see a pattern. For instance, stores tend to rotate sale items on a bi-weekly or monthly pattern. So if your favorite vegetable goes on sale every two weeks you can plan accordingly.
- Only shop once a week. It takes a lot of planning, but if you force yourself to limit shopping trips to once every seven days, you’ll end those buying-on-a-whim shopping trips. Plus you’ll likely avoid pre-made deli meals which are often the most expensive foods in the store. It takes planning a menu ahead of time…and sticking with it.
Finally, record your grocery bill at the end of the month and compare it to previous months when you didn’t follow these tips. You’ll notice that all it takes is a little planning and some selective shopping to slash that grocery bill in half.
The copyright of the article Easily Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half in Consumer Education is owned by L. Marie Dubuque. Permission to republish Easily Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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