Has your life situation changed? Maybe you have left your job to be a stay-at-home parent. Maybe you’ve just graduated from college and need to pay off student loan debt? Maybe you want to pay off your mortgage early or save for an epic family vacation.
Whatever the reason you may want to find more wiggle room in your budget, one of the easiest ways to do that is to lower your grocery budget. Follow these six easy steps, and you’ll have more money in your pocket to save for goals month after month.
Just a word of caution—if you’re used to going to the store and buying whatever you want, changing your habits will take time. Take each of these steps one at a time, giving yourself three to four weeks to get used to each step before adding a new one.
Make a Menu Plan - Grocery Savings Tip # 1
What are you and the family going to eat this week? That’s what a menu plan will tell you. Before you go shopping, make a meal plan for the week. If you’ve never made a meal plan before, just start with dinner, although some people do a detailed meal plan for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I just plan for dinners and plan on leftovers for lunches during the week.
Keep in mind, when making a menu plan, that it’s not written in stone. You may have one meal down for Monday but something comes up and you can’t cook that meal until Wednesday. That’s okay. Be flexible and use the menu plan as a guide, a suggestion of meals to eat for the week.
Make a Grocery List - Grocery Savings Tip # 2
Grocery stores are in the business of making money, and one way they do that is to create the proper atmosphere. They put candy by the register hoping you’ll buy some on impulse; they try to waft savory food smells through the store, and they put the more reasonably priced items on the bottom or top shelves, knowing you’ll likely look at and purchase items in the middle shelves.
Stores have been doing research on how to get you to buy more for years. The only way you can beat them at their own game is to have a written grocery list that you bring to the store and stick to it. Don’t deviate from the list, and you’ll trim your grocery bill in no time.
Build a Stockpile - Grocery Savings Tip # 3
If you’re used to just shopping for the items you need for the week, building a stockpile will be quite a change for you. The idea is that when you find an item you normally purchase which is on sale, you buy as much as you need to get you through until the next sale cycle. For instance, many in my family have a dairy intolerance, so we buy Daiya dairy free cheese. A little 8-ounce bag of this cheese can run $4.50 to $4.99. However, on sale, I can find it priced from $2.50 to $3.00, so when it’s that price, I buy about 10 bags and put them in the freezer. We use this “cheese” sparingly and never have to buy it at full price.
It will take you a few months to get a feel for the sales cycles, but once you do, you’ll find it’s easy to keep a stockpile and never pay full price again. One way to learn the sales cycles is to keep a price book. Simply write down the date, the store, the item that you bought, and the price. Then, over time, you will notice a pattern. Some items go on sale every 4 to 6 weeks, while others go on sale every 12 weeks.
We love buying grass-fed beef at Sprout’s, and I used to stock up when it went on sale for $3.99 a pound, but now, the sale cycle seems to be every two weeks, so I don’t buy much and some weeks when it’s on sale, I even skip buying it because I know it will be on sale two weeks from now. I never pay the $5.99 to $6.99 they charge per pound when it’s not on sale.
Always Buy on Sale - Grocery Savings Tip # 4
This tip goes hand in hand with the stockpiling tip. We never, ever buy Daiya cheese unless it’s on sale. If you make it a rule to never buy any item unless it’s on sale, you’ll save hundreds to thousands on groceries every year. To do this, you’ll need a good stockpile that you can use for the off weeks when there isn’t much on sale and to round out your meals you create based on what is on sale.
To see this in practice, each week, you’ll simply look at your ads and buy the best deals. Let’s say chicken is on sale. You’ll buy some chicken that you can use for meals this week and also some that you can put in the freezer for future meals. Of course, you don’t want to eat only chicken meals that week, so you’ll use some other meat that you bought on sale and put in the freezer to make a few meals.
Each week, try to have a percentage of your grocery budget, say 30 to 50% that goes for buying stock up items at the lowest price. The rest of the money can be used for items you need for the week like fruit and vegetables, milk, bread, etc.
Don’t be afraid to buy items on sale and put them in the freezer. Did you know that if you find a great deal on milk, you can freeze it? Just open the lid and pour a bit out so the liquid has room to expand during the freezing process. After you’ve thawed the milk, you can’t really taste a difference from fresh. You can also freeze eggs, though you need to crack and scramble them first. This list can help you determine which items freeze well.
Start Using Coupons - Grocery Savings Tip # 5
If you haven’t yet done so, consider using coupons. There are plenty of coupons for snack and prepackaged items, and combined with sales, coupons can save you a fair amount. However, if you don’t eat many prepackaged foods, don’t despair.
In that case, you may find the most value by using coupons for your toiletries, which many people buy at the grocery store and roll into their grocery budget. If you can save money on toiletries, you’ll have more money for grocery items.
Use Rebate Sites - Grocery Savings Tip # 6
Finally, consider using rebate sites like Ibotta and Checkout 51. One good way to make money on Ibotta is to refer your friends. Also, there are coupons for .25 cents off any grocery store purchase as well as food items, alcohol, cleaning agents, and toiletries.
I don’t buy a lot of prepackaged or convenience foods, and I still found it fairly easy to earn $25 in Ibotta rebates in only two to three months.
Conclusions
If you’re looking to save money on your groceries, these six ways can get you started.
Of course, there are many other strategies that I didn’t mention that you can also utilize such as shopping at Costco or Sam’s Club, shopping at discount stores like Aldi, shopping at several grocery stores each week, limiting your trips to the grocery store, and buying in-season produce.
With all these strategies at your disposal, there’s no reason, with a little perseverance, that you can’t reduce your grocery bill.
