Bill does the grocery shopping in our house because he likes showing how smart he is when it comes to saving on food bills. He knows that he saves more money on Sundays because of coupons and all the buy 1 get 1 for free deals, but he still spends around 50 to 75 dollars a week even with all the discounts just for the 2 of us. Of course we get 10 cents off gas for every hundred we spend so that also cuts down on our gas cost.
Since he’s still working that’s no big deal, but when we get older and retire that means we will have to work within a budget and most seniors now a days find it very difficult to survive if they don’t have a pension to fall back on and most companies don’t even provide a retirement plan and who knows what will happen with social security in the future.
We took Nate a few times to the store and that always proves to be more costly. My advice would be to leave children and grandchildren at home when you go shopping, you will have less impulse items in your shopping cart, plus you’ll be able to get the job done much faster and less stressful without all the crying and whining.
I think more people are becoming better shoppers because we simply have to learn to cut corners especially when we start having a family. It’s very bothersome to know that people rely so heavily on credit cards to get by on and end up so far in debt that there seems no way out. I don’t use credit cards anymore because I found myself in that situation once.
We have one of those vacuum sealers for food and it’s a very good investment because it does keep your frozen food in better shape than freezer bags. Learn how your store operates because each week the store will mark down certain items in preparation for the weekend. Usually they discount prices of fresh meat to get rid of last week’s supply in preparation for the higher priced specials for the coming week.
You can save a lot of money if you know when that stuff is going to hit the shelves, you can score big savings and freeze what you buy to use over the next few weeks and buying the economy packs to portion and freeze can be a big savings instead of smaller packs. It’s also cheaper to buy the whole chicken and cut it yourself than buying the already cut packs.
You should never go to the store hungry and always take a list with you, that will cut down on all the impulse buying. Buying store brands will also help stretch your budget and usually it taste just as good. Buy fresh produce when you can, it’s better for you plus it’s cheaper. If you buy cheese, buy it in blocks and cut your own, a good cheese knife isn’t that expensive and it’s cheaper than buying the sliced, maybe not as convenient, but cheaper.
Many families buy in bulk because it’s a lot cheaper, most items are cheaper at the unit cost level if you buy larger quantities. So if you can buy and store more food at once, you can take advantage of those savings. My brother had a pantry and would always buy in bulk. I went to the store with my brother and his wife once and only once because it seemed like they spent all night there, they always picked a time that wasn’t busy.
Using coupons is the norm now and it’s a very smart way to stretch those dollars. My brother’s wife Kay was an avid coupon clipper way back before it was fashionable and the smart thing to do. They would go to the grocery store once a month and I’m sure those checkout girls hated to see them coming because they would have cart on top of cart and it looked like they were buying the store out. When everything was rung up, Kay would hand them an enormous stack of coupons. They always saved at least 200 dollars or more.
If you have a shopping tip you would like to share then please leave a comment. I’m sure others would enjoy reading them. One last thing I have noticed over the years is that if I pick something up and hold it in my hands then I am more apt to purchase it. I always simply look and decide, when Bill lets me go with him instead of picking things up now because I saw that it cut down on my impulse buying by 50%.
