#1. Shop Sales
This is my first step every week. When the sale flyers for local grocery stores start coming in the mail (or on apps I keep on my phone, for those that are in the neighboring town), I scan through them to see what's on sale for the coming week. I open my notebook and make a list of the items I'm interested in. This isn't a grocery list that I'm committing to buy, just a reference point as I compare sales and make my menu plan for the coming week. Which brings us to #2. . .
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| My current planning system. |
#2. Plan, Plan, Plan
I cannot stress enough the importance of a weekly menu plan when it comes to keeping your food costs down. We can (no joke) cut our budget in half with a
little forethought, compared to deciding daily what's for dinner and going to the store for just those ingredients. Don't forget, when planning dinners, to have a plan for breakfast and lunch as well! Your plan doesn't have to be precise. I simply plan 7 dinners for the week and decide as I go what to have on each day. But make a plan!
#3. Use Up Leftovers
You know that meal plan? If you're making something you know you're likely to have leftovers of, have a plan for those leftovers. Will they be lunch the next day, reheated? Will they be morphed into something else later in the week (or next week)? Will they be frozen to reheat and eat later in the month? I'll write a separate post later with more details, but there are certain meals I make knowing that they will give us another meal or two later in the month.
#4. Buy in Bulk
This one has two applications. One is, when possible, buying more than you strictly need this week when something is available for a particularly good sale price. The other is buying in larger quantities when the cost per pound/ounce is lower that way. For example, I can often save up to $1 a pound on ground beef just by buying a ten pound package vs. a one pound package, then dividing it into quart freezer bags (one pound each) and freezing it. For a family that uses anywhere from 10-20 pounds of ground beef a month, that's a significant savings. However. . .
#5. Only Buy What You Can/Will Actually Use
Watch yourself on those sales and bulk buys. It can be tempting to buy things we don't need just because the price is a good deal. If you would never have bought it without the sale price, chances are you didn't actually need it, and it's still money better spent elsewhere. It can also be tempting to buy that ten pounds of hamburger (or bulk quantity of whatever) without a concrete plan of how you'll store it, only to realize half of it went bad before you could use it up. Don't let this happen to you! Buying in bulk is only a good deal if you actually get to use all the product you purchased. Also. . .
#6. Watch Per-Unit Pricing
You may want to take a calculator along or use the calculator app on your phone until you get the hang of this one. Some stores show their per-unit pricing on the shelf sticker; others don't. And even in stores that do, I've found that they're sometimes calculated wrong, or in a way that makes comparisons difficult (for example, one might be calculated by the ounce, while another is calculated by the piece, making it hard to accurately compare the two). The point of all this is to remind you that the larger package, while often the better deal, is not always the better deal. Sometimes sale pricing makes a smaller package cheaper by the ounce. Other times, there's virtually no difference, meaning you might as well just buy the size that's most convenient for your family.
#7. Cook From Scratch
If you're willing to invest the time, this one suggestion can offer substantial savings. Convenience always costs. Whenever we have spaghetti for dinner, my
family enjoys garlic bread with it. If I purchase the frozen garlic toast they like, it costs me $3 a box, and we eat 2 boxes. That's $6 just on garlic toast! OR, if I plan ahead and invest the time, I can make garlic breadsticks, which taste suspiciously like those served by Olive Garden, for little more than some of my pantry staples. The cost is negligible, and a fraction of what I pay for the more convenient option. If you'd like to try making them for yourself, you can find the recipe here.
#8. Think Outside the Box
Sometimes savings can be had just for a bit of unconventional thinking. I sometimes like to make pork chops for my family, for example. Pork loins (especially if you buy whole or half loins) are frequently on sale in my area for around $1.79-$1.99 per pound. Chops? Never! Yes, sometimes they're on sale, but usually for around 50 cents (or more) per pound extra. But if you have a sharp knife and a reasonably steady hand, you can save that money and still have pork chops. Just buy the whole or half loin, and cut your own boneless loin chops! Depending on the size of your family, you could even cut off a few chops and still use the remainder as a roast for another meal.
#9. Buy Generic
I realize this doesn't work for all people or for all products. We cloth diaper, and one area I refuse to compromise is laundry soap. When your baby routinely poops on something, it absolutely, positively HAS to come clean, EVERY time. But if you haven't tried generics, you're probably missing out on a lot of money saved. Many generics are virtually identical to their name-brand counterparts. Some are noticeably different, but still quite good. You might even find, as we have, that you prefer the generic version of certain foods. My husband is the one in our family who tends to have what I call "brand hang-ups," but there are a few products he actually favors the store brand of over the name brand. You might wonder how a product that's so much cheaper can be just as good (the phrase "You get what you pay for" comes to mind), but what you are likely paying for is the name-brand company's advertising budget.
#10. Use Apps
You have to be careful with this one, because sometimes it's easy to get sucked into buying something you wouldn't have otherwise bought, but rebate apps like Ibotta (my personal favorite) can be quite useful at saving you a few cents here and there, which adds up in the long run. I also use a handy tool on the Wal-Mart app called Savings Catcher. You can enter up to 7 Wal-Mart receipts per week, and the app will track what's on sale at area competitors and give you back the difference if a better price is found. The only caveats are that it works using UPC codes (so no store brand comparisons), and you can only get the money back on a Wal-Mart gift card. I find myself shopping at Wal-Mart enough that that's not a problem for me, personally, and there's no limit to how much you have to accumulate before they'll let you cash out. I also use the store apps for grocery stores in the next town over to access their sale flyers, since those don't come with my weekly paper.
Bonus: Aldi!!!
I added this one as sort of a bonus suggestion, as I realize not everyone has access to an Aldi store. (My deepest sympathies if this is you.) Aldi is sort of my secret weapon as a mom who's trying to feed a large family on a (relatively) small budget. They carry mostly their own brands, and cost savings aren't that substantial on the few name brands you'll find there, so you have to be able to let go of those brand hang-ups I mentioned earlier. However, I haven't tried a single thing from there yet that my husband (the picky one, remember?) has asked me not to buy again. If you've never gone before, you'll find that they do things a little differently than most grocery stores. You'll have to bring your own bags (or buy some for a few cents), bag your own groceries, and return your own cart, but the cost of paying someone to do all those things for you isn't rolled into your grocery prices, which adds up to some pretty amazing savings at the end of the day. If you have one nearby, I highly recommend checking it out!
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