50 Great Grocery Shopping Tips
Written by Leo Babauta
Buy frozen veggies. While fresh veggies are a little better, frozen veggies are almost as good, and much better than nothing. And since you can keep them in the freezer, they rarely go bad.
When you’re running low, write it down. Don’t wait until you run out. when you see there’s only three toilet paper rolls left, put it on your list. Because when you run out, it will be too late.
Cut back on meat. Meat is expensive. We have vegetarian meals several times a week (think pasta or chili) and for other meals, you could just use a little meat as a kind of seasoning instead of the main ingredient — think Asian, Indian and other such cultural food. Actually, I eat vegetarian all the time, but the wife and kids do a little of each.
Pack your own lunch snacks. Buying pre-made snacks is convenient, but a big waste of money. Buy little baggies and buy the snacks in bulk, then it will take just a few minutes to pack some snacks for lunch each day.
Make leftovers for lunch. Plan to cook a bit extra for each dinner, so that you’ll have leftovers for your lunch and for the kids’ lunches. Pack it right away, after dinner, so you don’t have to worry about it in the morning.
Cook a lot, then freeze. Alternatively, you can cook a whole mess of spaghetti (for example) and freeze it for multiple dinners. A great idea is to use one Sunday and cook a week’s (or even a month’s) worth of dinners. Plan 5-6 freezable dinners and cook them all at once.
Always have batteries, toilet tissue and light bulbs. And other necessities that you always seem to run out of — buy a whole bunch when they’re on sale, or buy in bulk. Be sure to check to see if you have these items before you go to the store.
Try crock pot dinners. We discovered these in the last year, and they are easy and cheap and tasty. Cut up a bunch of ingredients, throw them in the pot in the morning, and have dinner ready for you when you get home. Can anything be more perfect than that? I submit that it cannot.
Clip coupons. I know, sometimes they seem like too much trouble. But it’s not really that hard to clip a few coupons and toss them in a coupon envelop to take on your grocery shopping trip. And you can save 10-20% of your bottom line with coupons. Check store entrances, newspaper and flyers for coupons.
Only use coupons for items you were already planning to buy. Don’t let them trick you into buying something that’s not on your list, just to “save” money.
You have some great pointers here. Grocery shopping is one of the easiest areas for me to analyze and cut back on my budget. I have to stop asking my husband to stop at the store on his way home from work to pick up just one item- he always buys extra, unnecessary items, and he doesn’t have my coupons with him!
One point about the frozen veggies tip- frozen veggies can actually be more nutritious than fresh, because they are frozen at the peak of their nutritional value. Fresh veggies that have been sitting in bins for awhile have lost much of their nutrition.