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Saving Money at the Grocery Store
Buy what you eat and eat what you buy
If you learn nothing else from this article, eating what you buy and not wasting what you buy is the primary way that you will save money on groceries. If you’re like most Americans, you waste up to 40% of your food purchasing dollar. Therefore, if you only buy what you eat and eat everything you buy, you’ll be saving 40% on your food bill just using this one tip. Just recognizing what you’re wasting and not purchasing what you’re not eating is certainly the place to start.
Create a Food Purchase Budget
Limit the amount of money that you spend every week for food. Measuring what you already spend on food will not only give you an idea what your food purchases are, but also allow you to determine where you’re spending money
A good way to do this is to determine how much you are currently spending every week on groceries at the grocery store. This can be done simply by keeping and reviewing grocery receipts every week.
Now determine some ways, in addition to not wasting food, that you can save money now. Perhaps you can purchase a store brand rather than purchasing a name brand, but only if you know you will eat the store brand. Purchasing a store brand only to have it sit on a shelf not eaten is wasteful, not a savings at all.
When possible, purchase food based on cost per gram or per ounce. Sometimes you’ll save buying in bulk, but sometimes, that’s not the case and sometimes that changes. For years when I would price white sugar, I found that a 25-pound bag cost more per ounce than a four-pound bag did. Now, however, I have learned that a 25-pound bag now costs less than a four-pound bag per ounce.
However, if you find that you tend to waste food because you are buying a bigger size and that food is going stale or spoiling before you eat it, purchase a smaller bag of that item no matter what the cost per ounce, because you’ll keep more money in your pocket!
Create a Menu Plan
The next step in saving money on groceries from the grocery store is in making a menu plan. I go into more detail in this in the article Create a Revolving Menu Plan to Save Time and Money.
