A few weekends ago I was actually able to do some serious grocery shopping, it felt great. It has been a long time since our freezer and pantry were full. Lately I've been keeping to the same few extra cheap meals to keep us on our super tight budget. We spent more than normal and a bit more than I would have liked last time around, but our cupboards were pretty darn bare.
I have been in charge of our budget and the grocery shopping / meal planning for several years now, and here are some of the things I do that I have found that save us money and keep us within our budget. Some of these may seem like common sense, but you'd be surprised how many people I know that don't follow any sort of budget or grocery list.
John teases me sometimes about my notebook, but that thing is like my best friend and keeps me organized. In it I have my master list of all the meals we make. I keep record of all the grocery sales, my grocery list, and meal plans for the week. For me grocery shopping is a bit of a process, between organizing and planning and shopping at several stores, it can be time consuming. I think I make up for it though with the money we save. I get the Sunday paper every week for the coupons. I'm not into the whole extreme couponing thing, but they definitely save us money. A few weeks ago our local paper was having a promotion where if you prepaid for a subscription they would deliver the Wednesday and Sunday papers for only $1 a week (awesome!) I buy the Sunday paper pretty much every week anyways, and was thrilled to get such a great deal.
I shop mainly at 5 different stores, yes
5! Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Walgreens, and two of our local grocery stores.
Wal-Mart - Where I get most of my dry / frozen good staples. I find they usually have the lowest prices on these type of items.
Sam's- I go there usually for only a few specific things that I know I can't get cheaper anywhere else. Like apple juice, fish sticks, and boneless skinless chicken breasts are only $1.77lb (I keep an eye out at the grocery stores for a cheaper price).
Walgreen's- Drug stores are typically more expensive, but they have some good sales once in awhile. I can get milk at a great price and Sara Lee's cheapo brand bread for 99 cents a loaf. Last month I was able to get a 12 roll package of Cottenelle toilet paper for only $2.75! They offer "friends and family day" fairly often where you get the employee discount. It was on sale for $5, then 15% off = $4.25, then they had $1 off in store coupon, plus my $.50 off manufacturer coupon =$2.75, yay me!
Local Grocery store- I get my meat and produce there. I also am constantly checking the sale ads for good deals.
I do our grocery shopping every two weeks on the weeks that I get paid. First I go through the sale ads; I've gotten to the point where I know off the top of my head what a good price is for several items we buy on a regular basis. I write down everything that is a good price and we can use. I then make a list of all the meals we will eat, starting with any meals we may not have had in the previous two weeks. I base my meal plans off of what is on sale that particular week and what we have already in the house. I make my list off of what I will need to make all these meals, then I add on any staples we need that we may have run out of. I make several recipes from scratch and I tend to bake a bit, so I make sure I always have flour, white and brown sugars, and yeast on hand. I also try to keep ingredients on hand for quick easy meals, like tacos, in case something comes up and I need adjust my meal plans. After I have everything planned out and my list made, I go through my coupons, then it's off to the different stores to do all my shopping.
We don't keep junk food in the house any more, which helps keep our grocery bill down a lot. Occasionally I will buy some sort of "treat", like Oreos, donuts, or ingredients for dessert (brownies, cookies, rice krispy treats, etc). This summer we also tried to reduce the amount of soda we drank, and that saved us a surprising amount. We haven't been as good with this lately, we just love soda too much. At the same time though I refuse to pay any more than $2.50 a 12-pack, so if it's not on sale we don't buy it. If I do find something that we use a lot on sale for a great price I try to stock up on it. Lately we've stocked up on things like: 99 cent packages of tortillas, 80% hamburg at $1.99/lb, Kraft cheese for 88cents a bag (
amazing!), and bread for 99 cents a loaf. By stocking up on these type of things, it saves us quite a bit in the long run. Usually by the time I'm running low on something it has gone on sale again. I've also been trying to freeze more, I currently have meat, bananas, bread / buns in the freezer. You can freeze a surprising amount of food that I totally didn't know you could until pretty recently.
By far though the biggest things that save us money is meal planning and sticking to my list when at the store. Unless I come across a good unadvertised deal, if it's not on my list I don't buy it.
