Saving Money on Groceries – A New Strategy

Month after month, our grocery spending has been averaging around $400-500. This only includes food (no household items) and does not including dining. For our family of three, I know we can spend less than that.

There are free sites out there that can help you with your grocery shopping and finding deals (like My Grocery Deals). Unfortunately, due to our location, sites like those do not have flyers for our local grocery stores. We do not subscribe to our local paper (too expensive), so getting those flyers involves a trip to the grocery store just to pick them up. Then it’s a matter of going home, reviewing the flyers and creating a grocery list, then going back out. With our schedule and when the flyers come out – it doesn’t work well.

So, we are trying something different.

Once a month, we take inventory of all of our food. I’ve made a list of the normal items that we always need to make meals and I mark down what we need to be fully stocked up. Then we head out to Walmart. By far, they have lower prices than our local grocery stores for things that normally do not go on sale. When we made the trip a few weeks ago, we had a cart full of groceries for $150. I’m not sure if we’ve ever spent that much on one trip before.

Now that we have the normal items, then it’s a small weekly trip to the grocery store to get things such as fresh fruit, milk, bread and meat on sale (we no longer buy fresh meat at Walmart). Our budget is to spend no more than $50 each trip during the weekend, with no trips during the week.

$150 + 50 + 50 + 50 = $300/month

So far, it is working amazingly well. A major problem for us was that we were taking too many trips to the local grocery stores during the week. All of those little trips add up quickly and often result in buying things we really didn’t need (like frozen pizzas for a quick dinner). By limiting the number of trips we make, we are focused with our purchases and we are getting a little creative with our meals to use what we have.

Take the blunder we made with buying a huge can of tomato sauce when we thought we were buying ketchup. I made homemade pizza over the weekend, and whipped up a larger batch of pizza sauce. What I didn’t use, I popped in the freezer for later. We also had some pineapple chunks in the fridge. My son loves canned fruit as a snack, but doesn’t always want to eat the rest of it. Combine the pineapple with some ham lunchmeat we bought on special and needed to use soon (close to use-by date) and we had Hawaiian pizza. We’ve had Hawaiian pizza a few times, but we have never made it.

Limiting our grocery store trips is challenging us and I like it.

At some point, I’d love to add menu planning into the mix. I used to do that before and we saved so much money doing that. But I wasn’t working as much and I had the time to do it. I also cooked more than I do now. For now, this change will have to do and so far it is going well.

That’s the thing about saving money. There are many strategies out there for doing it. But you have to spend a little bit of time looking at your spending and figuring out what works well for you.

Posted by Tricia on January 21, 2008 at 10:14 PM in Saving Money | 29 Comments »
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JW Thornhill responded:
Posted: January 21st, 2008 at 11:49 pm
This sounds like a very interesting method of saving money of groceries.

I’ve tried some of the advice on savings (such as using the farmer’s markets, etc.) and that worked out great for us.

Maybe we could try this strategy also.

I’ll talk it over with my wife.

Thanks
Jill responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 12:32 am
Is it possible to get the news paper delivered on only one day? We have only a weekend service and we save a lot on this. The coupons we get from the paper always are more than the cost of the paper.
Ben responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 2:23 am
have you tried planning one menu for the month? We use the same menu every month with a different meal every day. By the time the next month comes around, you are ready for a meal you had a month ago, get it? Also, we are blessed with a “bent ‘n’ dent” store here. We can get staple items for a 1/3 (or less) of the cost as new. Last week we bought a can (damaged, but not open) of Dole sweet corn for 9 cents! Walmart had it a 64 cents!
Positivity responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 3:33 am
Spending too much money on groceries because you go to the stores that much is a common problem. That is one of the first tips you get here in the Netherlands (yes, your blog is known here!). Reduce your trips to the grocery store! And, make a menuplanning.
Mandi responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 am
Try http://www.couponmom.com
In addition to showing many sales with the flyers (online), it has a searchable coupon database with just about all of the coupons in our state.
There are also ways to get your newspapers delivered at a fraction of the cost, all documented there. You do have to join, but it is free.
Do you have an Aldi’s or a Save-A-Lot in your area? I’ve got another site that is helpful for those stores, but I think you are not near them.
Tricia responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 7:59 am
We don’t have an Aldi’s (or Save-A-Lot), but I am familiar with them. I used to live near an Aldi’s, and I remember the first time I went in one I was in awe at the prices. The best store we have for low prices is Walmart. I’d love to open up a store like Aldi’s here…it needs it!

With our paper, they rarely have coupons and the flyers for the grocery stores come out different days. I’d have to get two papers/week. I’ll have to see if we can get a subscription where we can pick and choose and see how much it is.

Bent-n-Dent? You better stop it Ben – I’m drooling over here at the thought
jaye responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 8:12 am
Have you tried going on your store’s website to look for the flier? I can go on the website of my local store, check deals and even put together a shopping list to print.

I, too, go to the store far too often. Though I’m not big on stocking up on items, I find getting a lot the pasta and sauces we love (when they’re on sale) is a good way to prevent extra trips to the grocery store. That way, I always know I can whip something up at the last minute. I buy Barilla for $1 for a pound of pasta and $1.50-2.00 for sauce. That’s $3 to feed a family of 5! Add some veggies and bread and everyone’s happy. Homemade pizza is similarly inexpensive and pleasing to the kids.
Frugal Dad responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 8:40 am
Way to be resourceful! We do something similar, making one big trip first of the month, and weekly trips to replenish fruits, breads and milk (plus a few items not on our lists – we really need to break that habit).
Matt responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 9:19 am
I think the hardest part with keeping your grocery costs down for me is the forced meal planning. I don’t know what I want to eat for dinner on any given day. Keeping stocked up on the essentials is always a good idea especially when you can buy in bulk.

Good Luck keeping the costs down!
Alison responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 9:43 am
One thing that’s helped with our menu planning (which I just started last week and LOVE so far) is that I signed up for a recipe-a-day email from allrecipes.com (other sites have this as well). It just emails me a new recipe each morning (and these are tried and true recipes from real people, not anything too fancy. Anyway, I save the recipes I want into a separate folder in my email and then when it comes time to plan the next menu I just sort through those recipes and pick the ones that I want – I also add a few of my own recipes to the mix, but getting a new one in an email every day breaks up the monotony.

Then I just base my grocery list of what I need to make those meals (we do it 2 weeks at a time). We don’t necessarily eat those specific meals on those specific days, but we know what our options to pick from are. So far it’s fantastic and it definitely beats coming home and standing in front of the fridge trying to figure out what to make for dinner.
K responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 10:10 am
Congratulations! This is a great step given that your food budget did seem way too high. And you’ll get the side benefit of improved health for your whole family by cutting out the expensive, processed food that you used to buy on impulse.
SavingDiva responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
Good luck sticking with the grocery budget! My only piece of advice for lowering food costs is cook once, eat twice. When I cook dinner, I make enough for two and put half on my plate and half in a tupperware container to take to work.
SavingDiva responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
Good luck sticking with the grocery budget! My only piece of advice for lowering food costs is cook once, eat twice. When I cook dinner, I make enough for two and put half on my plate and half in a tupperware container to take to work.
Dawn responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 10:53 am
We shop at Wal-Mart for our regular grocery shopping. They have better regular prices but the other stores here have better sale prices. We meal plan and only use a list. We also watch the local store ads closely so when stuff goes on sale we stock up on stuff like spaghetti sauce or oatmeal or anything else we use a lot of. We have Pick-N-Save here and they run a lot of 10 for $10 deals. We also found a farm thats relatively close that sells bulk beef. We are going to buy 1/4 of a cow. Its $2 per pound and we can have it split up however we want! That is an amazing deal, especially on the really yummy stuff like different cuts of steak. And the 300 lbs of beef will last us a very long time. It is a large expense up front but we already are using a chest freezer and will fill it with this. Have you thought of buying a bunch of stuff you may use regularly at an Aldi or GFS when you are out of town? Maybe stock up on some of those super priced canned veggies or something like that. We spend $60-$90 per week to feed five of us and our little one still eats baby food. But that really doesnt take into account the cost of stuff we already have on hand that we work into the meal plan.

Best of luck, you are doing a great job and have inspired me to be much more in tune to our debt.
Eric responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 11:01 am
That’s a good idea. We try and limit shopping to just two trips a month. Usually we average $100-150 for two people. We’re trying harder now though to do a list-only shopping trip and only by what is on the list and nothing else. We also do inventory each quarter of what we are throwing out, what just stays in the fridge, or in the pantry and just collects space and is never used. We try and remember why we bought it and what would have been a better investment. I think these discussions help the communication between husbands and wives also.
Beverly responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 11:54 am
Tricia, We raised and educated 5 children. One of the time-saving methods I used over the years and still do, is that whenever I can I double a receipe and freeze it for a later time, when I know I am going to be busy, or just don’t feel like cooking. Also like has been mentioned by others, making a menu plan and then rotating it also is a big help. I’ve enjoyed your column very much. We are in our 70′s now and even though we are not having the struggles you are having we have learned alot through the years. I am concerned for the young people with so much debt. They need to know that their parents didn’t have everything when they first started out. They would appreciate what they do get if they had to wait and sacrifice to be able to afford it, instead of using a credit card.
Jagular responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Hello Tricia. I just started reading your blog, and I was wondering if you are planning to do a recap of ’07 like you did for ’06
Oh, and I added you to my blogroll over at http://www.RiverOfDebt.com
arduous responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Tricia this post has me really really hungry!! Congrats on bringing your grocery costs down. I started menu planning in December when I cut out pre-packaged foods, and it’s a lot less time consuming than you would actually think. Though to be fair, I don’t have to run menus by anyone else since it’s just me in my apt.
Joy Smith responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
They need a bent -n- dent store here! BTW our wal-mart has a day old bread section which is awesome. I can freeze the bread for later use which saves us tremendously on breads. Plus we get special treats once in a while because of this. Our local Braums also has last minute savings like this. In their produce section we’ll find $1.00 coupons on the items when their close to expiring. I found a mixed bag of lettuce one day for 39 cents and there was nothing wrong with it. They’ve also been known to give away bananas when they’re starting to turn. I snatched those up and froze them for banana bread.
Connie responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I just started doing this in December and I am saving so much money and it is saving me valuable time!

I also started using a milk delivery service that brings our milk, eggs and fresh fruit every week. So I am saving even more because I am only going to the store twice a month.

Oh and I love menu planning!
Brooke (Dollar Frugal) responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Right before I go on long work trips (6 months), I buy my boys all dry goods they will need for that time. Cereal, oatmeal, beans, pasta, rice…you get the point. They only spend $25 each week when I’m not here on milk, meat, eggs and essentials. It’s so great for them, also, because they only spend a few minutes getting those things, so they have better together time.

It sounds like you have company when you go grocery shopping. Have you considered having one of the adults go alone? It really helps us to spend less money. We make the list together, and everything on the list gets bought, so there’s no squabbling. It’ worked well for us.
bluntmoney responded:
Posted: January 22nd, 2008 at 4:43 pm
That’s exactly the way we do it too: one big shop plus a few small ones for perishables. We spend about $250 or less for three.
Ben responded:
Posted: January 23rd, 2008 at 4:13 am
Sorry! hey – if you have the resources, open a bent-n-dent!! The overhead is very low, really. Ours here is only open Mon, Wed & Sat. People literally line up on those three days, and the store (about the size of an Aldi’s) is empty in a couple of hours.
Mandi responded:
Posted: January 23rd, 2008 at 8:15 am
We shopped “crash and dent” while it was here in my area. Amazing deals. But items there went quickly.

I’m cerious where Connie was able to get a milk delivery service. I’m green over here.
Scout responded:
Posted: January 23rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Mandi,
What is the other site for Aldi’s? Thanks.

S
crazyliblady responded:
Posted: January 24th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Have you thought about sharing coupons with people you work with, or with family? Maybe you could “share” a subscription to the newspaper that is delivered to one house and then pass around the coupons to others.

Menu planning doesn’t work well in my house, as my husband does most of the cooking, does not like to use recipes, and I never know what he will want to cook. So, my “plan” is to stock up on a lot of things we use a lot of and keep the basic stuff available.
Just my $.02.
Nathaniel Scott responded:
Posted: January 25th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
those mid-week multiple trips were getting us in trouble too! we were doing 500-600 a month for a family of 6–that included things like cleaning stuff and diapers, etc. so when we decided to change things, i laid down the law. no midweek trips for something we’re out of. we’re just gonna have to make due until the next trip. and putting a solid cap on spending per week-$100, has made all the difference in the world. it’s such a difference we could probably even go lower.
Dolly Iris responded:
Posted: January 25th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Ok everyone!! The number on rule for saving on your grocery bill is…..

DONT GO ON AN EMPTY STOMACH!!!!
Jennifer responded:
Posted: January 29th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
On menu planning… that’s what my husband and I do.

How do we make it easy? Spend a couple hours writing down EVERY recipe you have on index cards, recipe on one side, ingredients as you buy them on the other. On shopping day, shuffle through and pull out 7 lunches, 7 dinners, etc. (Acutally, we do the same thing for lunches every day, so we only pull ONE lunch card.) Write down the ingredients and go. Takes 5 minutes before grocery shopping… and is about as long as making a list anyway!

Another tip… I look at the local grocery flyers on their WEBSITES! Just go to the website for your grocery store, and click on weekly flyer. At mine, you can even sort the sales by produce, dairy, etc. Makes cheap meal planning really easy.