Every week I plan to post my shopping trip to help others and inspire others to save more on their groceries! We didn’t really need a whole lot this week, but tomorrow we plan to have friends over for desert – I LOVE to entertain guests!
Well, I thought I was going to the store to pick up a few things and come right home. Not so! I went over budget big-time. So, then my thoughts went to this post – HOW am I going to post about saving money on groceries when I can’t even do it??? With everything that happens, we should try to draw out some kind of lesson. Today’s post will be a lesson in what NOT to do when grocery shopping – probably a good place to start.
1. Have a list. I know it sounds extremely elementary and obvious, but that is what I did NOT do today. I just wanted a few desert things and came home with the makings of four deserts for four adults and three children!!!
2. Have a calculator. This not only helps in the aisle when trying to figure out the best deal on a certain product, but it also helps you keep track of what you are spending so you are not surprised at the checkout. And, usually, mental math is just not good enough. Lots of things can sidetrack you and suddenly you’ve forgotten the number that was in your head.
3. Have a once-a-week grocery shopping trip and commit to only going at that time. This helps tremendously with keeping a budget!! My grocery shopping trip today was almost entirely on impulse. I bought a whole lot more than what was needed and bought lots of frivolous items.
4. Research the sales and coupons. I did have one bright-spot in my shopping trip for this week – Publix B1G1!! I love buy-one-get-one-free sales and when you stack coupons with it, you are really saving some big money. For instance, Publix has Yoplait Kids Yogurt on a B1G1 sale this week. Their normal retail price is $2.79 for a 6-pack. I was able to find two Yoplait coupons for $1.50 each (see this post for details). I can use both coupons since I am buying two items for a total of $3.00 off! In the end, they owed me $0.21 for the deal! I bought another kind of yogurt for my oldest ds that was also on sale. I paid $0.99 for two individual yogurt cups and two 6-packs of yogurt which would have cost me $7.18. That’s a savings of 86%!! I regularly save between 50% and 80% on this type of deal.
I hope you will be able to glean some good information from these weekly grocery shopping trips and I sure have been reminded of the very basic ways to save some serious money!!
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