recreatingreality.com

If you are serious about re-crecting your financial reality, it may be time to take a look at your grocery bill.  Many of us spend more for food than we need to, only because we don’t shop wisely and we don’t pay attention to the prices we pay for groceries and other goods that we purchase at the grocery market.

The first thing that comes to mind when we think of grocery shopping is clipping coupons.  Coupons have been around for a long time and many of us have tried using them and have experienced frustration at the check-out counter when we started pulling out the coupons.  Organization is the key to successfully shop with coupons.

Another way to cut the cost of our grocery bill is to use the cards most markets now offer.  For example, one of the chains where we shop has a “Bonus Card.”  There is a regular price for the product, but if you have a “Bonus Card” you get a discount on designated items each week.

Additionally, many grocery stores mark down some products such as meats and vegetables when they approach the “sell by” date.  At one of our local markets, the price of meat is marked down the day before the “sell buy” date.  Check with the butcher or the manager at your favorite market to see if they mark down meats before the “sell buy” date.  After a conversation with two store managers we discovered that the meats that are marked down are actually good, without freezing, for approximately 5 to 7 days beyond the “sell buy” date on the package.  Again, this can be a matter of personal planning.  We have found that our market usually marks down meat on Tuesdays at 5:00 and Saturdays at 4:30.  If you shop for these specials, be sure to take the meats home and freeze them immediately unless you are cooking your purchase that day.

Buy in bulk.  For example, occasionally toilet tissue that is regularly priced at $ 8.79 for a 12 roll pack is on sale for $ 4.99.  That’s a bargain.  We know that as long as we live we are going to purchase toilet tissue, so why not buy at least two, maybe three of the packages.  The same goes for other products that can be safely stored for a few months.

Read the labels on the canned or boxed items.  Store brands are often from the same manufacturer or preparer as the name brand products.  Why pay $ 3.79 for box of cereal when you can pay $ 1.99 for the same size box of a store brand?  It’s worth a one time try, at least.  If you find the store brand to be the same (the taste test) you can save $ 1.80 per box by buying the store brand instead of the famous name brand.  After all, we aren’t eating the box.

Check the prices of fruits and vegetables at the grocery market as compared to those at a open market or a farmers’ market.  Recently, green bell peppers were selling for $ 1.49 each in the grocery store.  They were selling 3 for a dollar at the farmers’ market.  The bell peppers were equal in quality and size.

The word of caution that must accompany this post is that the buyer should never buy anything that he or she does not buy on a regular basis.  When I buy cereal I usually by a store brand of rice chex.  I had coupon that would offer savings on a box of Cheerios.  Nothing against Cheerios, but we don’t buy usually buy them and we prefer rice chex.  Buying a box of Cheerios would not be a savings for my family.  We probably wouldn’t eat them or if we did, we would eat them without the morning satisfaction of the rice chex.  Do not buy something you don’t want or don’t like just because it is on sale.  Learn to shop wisely.

Although I seldom, if ever, have a coupon by shopping wisely and on the days I know items go on sale, generally speaking when I compare the price of what I would have spent to what I did spend, I have a 33% savings.  In fact, that is my goal in the grocery store.

• Coupons
• Use the discount cards offered by the grocery stores when possible
• Buy meats (and perhaps fruits and vegetables) when marked down by “sell buy” date
• Shop the open air markets or farmers’ markets for vegetables and fruits when practical
• Store brands vs. name brands