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Seven Easy Ways to Save Money on Your Groceries

If you want to save money on groceries, it’s not as difficult as you think. A lot of people think they have to sacrifice what they love, but the reality is that there a few simple things you can do to save money on groceries without adopting austerity tactics for the pantry.

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Save Money on Groceries with These 7 Easy Approaches

Saving money on groceries is less difficult than a lot of folks think it is. In fact, when you read these tips, you’ll see that they’re mainly exercising common sense and using what you have to your advantage. That makes it super easy, and that’s the name of the game.

Inventory

Do a complete inventory of your pantry and freezer every month. If you’re like me, you’re guilty of pushing things to the back of both of these areas as you look for other things. That leads to forgetting what you have. Take a monthly inventory of everything you have to be sure that you don’t buy more of something that you need or that you don’t buy something you don’t need at all!

[tweetthis]Save money on your grocery bill with these seven simple tips. [/tweetthis]

Use Ads for Meal Planning 

One of the best ways to save money on groceries is to plan your meals around the sale ads. Rather than planning out meals for the week and then seeing what ingredients you can save money on, do your best to build meals around what’s on sale for the week. This helps you save money at checkout, and it can also lead to more creative cooking.

Don’t Assume 10 for $10 is Amazing

10 for $10 sales can be great ways to save. They can also be great marketing. If an item is normally $1.05, and it’s on sale for 10 for $10, that’s no deal. It pays to look at the non-sale price. Even if you find a fantastic deal, remember that unless it’s specified, you don’t actually have to buy 10 of the item to get the sale price.

Shopping is a One Person Job

If you want to save money on groceries, never go shopping with more than one person. That is especially true for kids. When you shop in a group, everyone starts grabbing things that they like. This leads to either buying more than you intended, buying items that aren’t on sale, a meltdown in aisle 3, or a combination of all of them. So go alone. This is where I often get caught. It’s so true. One of the kids always adds at least one or two things to the grocery cart. Go alone and save money!

Skip the Middle

Unless you are totally loyal to specific brand, do your shopping high and low, and skip the middle. You want to save money, and companies pay top dollar to place their more expensive items at your eye level and on end caps. Shop from the top and the bottom to find the brands that cost less.

[tweetthis]Do you want to save money at the grocery store? Here are seven tips that will help. [/tweetthis]

House Brands

Speaking of brands that cost less, house brands are a great way to save money. For years, people have equated house brands with lower quality, but that just isn’t true. In fact, in my experience, house brands are just as good – and oftentimes better – than name brand items.

Grow Your Own

If you live in a climate with any sort of growing season and you have the time for it, consider a vegetable garden. Not only will you get fresh veggies for a fraction of the price, you’ll be getting quality produce free of the toxic pesticides routinely used on mass produced vegetable farms. You’d pay top dollar for organic produce at the grocery store. So while this last one isn’t exactly easy, it’s less of a headache than you’d think.

[tweetthis]Save money starting now – grocery shopping tips![/tweetthis]

Save Money Starting Now

If you want to save money at the grocery store, it’s as simple of following a few easy strategies to make sure you get the most for your money. Starting with knowing what you have and knowing what to look for right down to possibly growing some or all of your own produce, you can save money on groceries, and you can start doing it right now.

If you want to learn more about building your money and investing here’s my Mind Your Money Series.

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What is your money saving tip? 

Mom of two beautiful active girls, traveller, fitness junkie, social media consultant, and keeper of the sanity.

15 Comments

  • Jennifer Williams

    Great tips, glad to see the one on the 10 for 10 items as they can be very misleading and many do assume they have to buy 10. I always try to buy my fresh fruit and produce when it is in season. If it is possible I freeze any extra so it does not go to waste.

  • April Mims

    These are great tips! I plan my meals around what’s on sale or at least stock up on good deals for later. We like to have a couple of backup meals so we don’t end up eating out.

  • Mama to 5 BLessings

    With 7 of us, soon 8 our grocery bill is more than our mortgage payment. When i shop I have to find all sorts of ways to save sometimes it means going to several stores to get the best deals!

  • Jeanine

    This is the biggest area we need to save money on! We buy groceries so much and so often I feel like our bill gets higher and higher each time. I will have to try all of these.

  • Lisa Rios

    Grocery shopping can be too expensive if you don’t plan it well & these are some simple but effective tips to save some money out of it. I always prefer house brands as they are of great quality for sure when compared to the big branded names.

  • Debbie White Beattie

    These tips are really helpful and I have inventory sheets so once a week I go through the house and find what’s low and make a grocery list