You’ve made your grocery budget and you are determined to stick to it. And then you walk into the grocery store and it all unravels. Sometimes even the best laid budget plans go awry if you aren’t fully prepared. Here are the things I do to {try and} make sure my budget and my grocery store total match up on each trip:
Study first: Check the weekly circular for the store you’re planning on shopping at. What’s on sale? What items are listed that you have coupons for? Does the store have in-store coupons or an app with additional coupons you can check before you go? Also, take that list off the fridge where you’ve been jotting down what you’ve run out of and search for coupons and sales for those items specifically.
Plan your menu: Once you’ve seen what’s on sale, make a menu for the week {or two weeks, depending on how you shop}. Then build your shopping list around that menu. Be sure to account for daily snacks, and all 3 meals as well as drinks for each meal and desserts, too {can’t forget the best part!}.
Shop before you shop: Once you have your weekly menu all planned out, head to the pantry and your freezer and shop there first. You can also reverse this and build your menu around what you have on hand, but if you like to mix it up weekly or try new menu items, you’ll build your menu in this order and then shop from your pantry.
Make a detailed shopping list, using generics whenever possible: If you skip this step, you are setting yourself up to fail. Big time. Once you’ve done the first 3 steps, you’ll know exactly what you need. You’ve checked sale items, planned out your entire menu and even checked to see what ingredients you already have on hand. Now you finalize your list.
Don’t deviate from your list, with one BIG exception: Stick to your list. Buy what’s on it and only what’s on it, except when you see a good sale. Let’s say you have grilled chicken on your menu and you get to the store and they have a blowout on pork chops. Time to do some menu rearranging and sub out that chicken. That works for fruit, too. If you have strawberries as a snack and you get to the store to find strawberries are crazy spendy but they have apples at rock bottom prices, switch out your snack items. But replace, don’t add onto the list. You know how much food you need, so unless you see a stock-up price on non-perishables, you’ll probably end up wasting food, even if it is on sale!
Shop alone. I know this is easier said than done, but if at all possible, leave the kiddos at home. It’s easier to stick to a list and avoid junk and flashy packaging when their cute little faces aren’t staring up at you.
Shop top and bottom shelves. Grocery stores put all of there most expensive items at eye level. For each item on your list, compare prices on the top and bottom with those on the middle shelves.
Don’t shop when you’re hungry or tired: You’re much more likely to impulse buy when you’re tired and hungry.
And there you have the tips I always use. Are there any tips that you use that I missed? If so, we’d all love to hear about them.
Keep calm and save on,
~Mavis
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Lisa L says
A trick I use is carry a shopping basket instead of using a wheeled cart. If I have to carry it all I’m less likely to buy stuff I don’t need because the basket gets heavy!
Rosaleen says
I leave hubby at home. He is worse than the kids ever were. At least they knew when I said no, it meant “no.”
AJ says
Even worse is a hungry HH! 😀
Peg says
Yes, leave the husband at home. Much worse than shopping with children!
Carrie says
Balance expensive meals with inexpensive ones. Burgers and sweet potato fries one night and black bean soup (made from dried beans) the next.
Don’t experiment with more than 1 meal a week. New ingredients can be expensive and in my experience the curry spice and coconut cream just sits in the cabinet for months because I don’t have the brain power to try something new after work.
Stay out of Costco! lol
bobbi says
Awesome tips! Thanks so much! 2018 is going to be a game changer! I have so many good goals!
Mavis Butterfield says
It is!!!! I can feel it. 🙂 🙂 🙂 Goals are cool.
Denise says
I save lots of money by cooking internationally! I use small amounts of meat, usually cut into small pieces, with lots of vegetables. If I do cook a large piece of meat like a chicken I am able to get many meals from it and I always use the leftover carcass to make soup stock. I even get extra meals from restaurant dining by making the leftovers into another meal which can sometimes feed the family. Think quiche, omelet or frittata, soup, pasta dishes etc. I just have fun trying to make my food dollars go further.
Practical Parsimony says
*Always go to the store’s reduced section/s. You might find a great deal. Buy as much of the dirt cheap food that you eat as you can afford. Don’t just buy one can for this week. Buy for more weeks.
*I have so much food at home that sometimes I just shop for really good sales whether I have coupons for them or not.
*Conversely, if I don’t see a good sale, I might just buy milk and bananas one week.
*Never limit the grocery budget each week. If you only spend $10 on milk and bananas one week, the next week the deals/sales/reduced items might be so plentiful that you will spend two weeks grocery money that week. Remember how last week you only bought milk and bananas? By not just spending the money because it was in the budget, you can now buy many deals.
*Yes, I use coupons, but with plentiful sales, some days the coupons are not there, but the prices are much lower. Besides, Mavis covered coupon use.
Cheryl says
The better way for me is to not carry any credit cards into the store with me as that seems to give me permission for unlimited spending. Cash or debit card is so much more limiting and makes me have to really plan out stuff as you can only make a dollar stretch so far.
Stephanie says
I have a grocery list that is organized by aisle for my local store. I check each item I need, and it makes the shopping trip much more efficient. It also reduces the wandering eye syndrome.
Olivia says
I use cash only and I use a great app called Out of Milk. You can’t enter prices for each item, which ones have coupons and the amount of those coupons, and the tax rate and which items are subject to sales tax. I make my list and my menu for the week using the sales prices of my favorite bigger grocery store and then I shop at Aldi. 9 Times out of 10, Aldi’s regular price is better than anther store’s sale price. Whatever Aldi doesn’t have gets bought at the other store. I knocked $80 a month off of my grocery budget doing this.