Shopping Strategies to Save Money on Food

Tips to Get the Most Out of Grocery Shopping

Nov 14, 2009 Cynthia Graham

Saving money is very rewarding, and saving on groceries can net a family hundreds of dollars each month. These tips will provide a good start in accomplishing that goal.

Shopping strategies are crucial to saving money at the grocery store. Follow along for top money-saving tips.

Grocery Store Savings

Grocery stores and producers run promotions and coupons on a cyclical basis, so in the quest to save money it is important to buy more than currently needed for consumption, then store the remainder to use when the items are not on sale. This way, food is only purchasing at the discounted prices. For instance, in the winter months, soup coupons are plentiful and stores typically mark the cost of soup very low, as a loss-leader item (an item usually priced lower than the store's cost in order to entice shoppers to the store). When this occurs, simply purchase twice as many as needed, so that the soup will last until the next soup cycle begins again.

Weekly Flyer Tips

Study the weekly store flyer and compare the special sales with the coupons on hand. Not all items in the flyer are the best deal. The best deals are normally found on the front and back of the first and last pages. A good example of the value of this would be a jar of Jif Peanut butter, marked down in the flyer to $1.85 from $2.79. Add in a coupon worth 50-cents-off and doubled by the store. Now the savings reaped from the sale, plus the doubled coupon, lowers the price of that $2.79 jar of peanut butter down to 85 cents. That is a savings of 69.53%. Not bad for a few minutes of work.

Shopping Strategies

Take the time, initially, to jot down the high and low prices for staples and favorite items. Use a coupon when the price of the item is near or at the bottom of the price range. If that sounds like too much trouble, use the Coupon Mom or Grocery Game sites to help. Those sites use a database to match sales with coupons and tell shoppers the best time to purchase a product, to achieve the greatest savings. In addition:

Join the store's frequent-shopper program. Hefty values are often found when using the discount card.
Shop from the highest and the lowest shelves, as that is where the lower cost items are usually found. Buy fruit and vegetables in season, when they are at their lowest price.
Look for a discount area, which is usually to the back of the store, for ready-to-expire or discontinued products.
Shop for meat the day before Christmas. A little known fact for stores that close on Christmas Day; to avoid the expiration of the existing meat before the store re-opens, many grocery stores will dramatically mark down most of the meat in the early afternoon of Christmas Eve. Stock up for the year and then freeze the meat.
Look for red label mark-downs that are placed on items that will expire soon, as these products normally prove to be great cost cutters.

For even greater savings, combine store savings with gasoline discounts. Many stores will give gasoline discounts based on the amount of money that is spent on groceries. In the North, Giant Eagle and Kroger participate in this type of program.

Grocery bills will begin to plummet after taking just a few of these steps and putting them to work. Have fun with it and make it a game. Shopping like this will become an enjoyable way of life.

For additional coupons and savings, check out:

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