Essential Tips for Lowering Your Grocery Bill (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of my three part series outlining essential tips that I follow for keeping my grocery bills under control. As I noted in Part 1, there are many methods for cutting the grocery bill that go way beyond shopping at discount grocery stores, taking advantage of in-store specials, and using coupons. Specifically, there are several areas that I focus on to keep my grocery costs down. They include:

1. Dinner Menu Planning
2. Shopping Strategies
3. Pantry Management

In Part 1 of this series I focused on the key tips that I use to keep the family grocery bill under control with respect to planning and development of the family dinner menu. Today in Part 2 the focus is on some key shopping strategies I try to adhere to in order to keep the family grocery bill under control.

Shopping Strategies

1. Shop on a Full Stomach. The evidence may be anecdotal but in the rare cases I end up doing my grocery shopping on an empty stomach, the grocery bill ends up being five to ten percent larger. It’s only natural that when you are hungry you’re more likely to make impulsive purchases like snacks and treats.

2. Make a Shopping List and Stick to It. Every two to three weeks the Honeybee sits down and carefully makes her shopping list based upon our multi-week dinner menu. The list she makes is organized so well that it is written in order based upon where the items are in the store. In other words, the top of the list corresponds to one end of the store and the last item on the list is at the other end of the store. Sure, there is a little more time involved, but the extra effort spent being organized pays off at the checkout counter. The orderly list also reduces impulsive purchases.

3. When Practical, Shop by Per Unit Costs. You can’t always assume that products in larger-sized packing is always a better value. Luckily, per-unit prices allow you to make direct comparisons of similar products in dissimilar-sized packaging. In the United States, the per-unit cost of a grocery item can usually be found on the store shelf; the per-unit price is usually marked in smaller print below the main price. If it’s not, you’ll have to figure this out yourself. If you can’t do this in your head, use a calculator.

4. Watch Expiration Dates When Buying in Bulk. Before buying perishable groceries in bulk, make sure you can use all of it before it becomes unedible, otherwise that extra savings you thought you were getting by buying in bulk will have been wasted.

5. Beware of Featured Items on the “End Caps.” As many of my readers know, I used to work in a grocery store, so I am speaking from experience here. The items you see at the end of each grocery aisle, known as the “end caps,” are NOT typically the areas where you’ll get great deals. In fact, the end caps are often misleadingly used to push items that are not on sale. They’ll make the end caps look festive and boldly advertise the price as if it were a good deal, but it’s usually not. The end caps are where many grocery stores make much of their profit.

6. Beware of Items at the Checkout Line. Just like the items on the end caps, you need to avoid the candy, gum and magazines you’ll find at the checkout line. These items are high margin products that can really run up your bill.

7. Buy Store Brands. Many store brands ARE the national brands with a different label on them. In the cases where this isn’t true, the store brands will have nearly the same ingredients as their name-brand counterparts, but at a significantly lower cost.

8. Sign Up for the Customer Loyalty Program. Most large grocery chains have a customer loyalty program. Many advertised sale prices only to apply to your grocery bill if you use your customer loyalty card.

9. Buy Meat Closer to Its “Sell-by” Date. Whenever possible, take advantage of butcher’s specials on meat that is approaching the sell-by date. The United States Department of Agriculture suggests that you cook or freeze ground beef within two days after purchase for maximum quality. If you don’t plan to use the meat within that time, you should plan to freeze the meat for later use. You can generally determine the general condition of meat by its color; a healthy red or red-brown for beef and a pinkish tone for chicken tends to be a good indicator that the meat is good to eat.

10. Be Wise When Using Coupons. Of course, coupons are a great way to save money. I don’t usually advocate timing your coupon use to coincide with corresponding sales on a particular product, as the extra savings are too erratic. In addition, depending on how far your grocery store is from your house, your potential extra savings for a particular product could be eaten up by the cost of gasoline driving to the store.

However, there are times when it pays to hold off on using your coupons. For example, many coupons that come in the Sunday paper happen to coincide with the front end of a product promotion. By waiting to use them, assuming the expiration date is not near, you may be able to avoid the higher introductory prices and take double advantage of both the store’s sale price that comes later in the product cycle AND the coupon.

The more of these tips you can utilize, the bigger the savings you will realize on your grocery bill. As you can see, most are very easy to implement. All it takes is a little commitment from you to turn these tips into real savings!

Next, I’ll focus on pantry management techniques in Part 3 of this series that will help you save even more on your grocery bills.

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