Tips for Grocery Shopping

These are great tips on Gro­cery Shop­ping from zen​habit​.net. I have found these to be really help­ful. Maybe you will too.

1. Always go with a list. If you go with­out a list, you may as well just throw your money away. Bet­ter yet, donate it to me — I prob­a­bly need it more than you. :) Seri­ously, though, you need to pre­pare a list of every­thing you need, pulling from your weekly menu (next tip) and check­ing to make sure you don’t have it in your pantry, fridge or freezer. Make sure you’re not for­get­ting any­thing. Now stick to that list.
2. Plan out a weekly menu. This is the best way to ensure that your list is com­plete, and that you have enough to serve your fam­ily din­ner for the week. I often plan a weekly menu and then dupli­cate it for the next week — this way I can shop for two weeks at once. Be sure to plan a left­overs night.
3. Don’t go when you’re hun­gry. This is a com­mon tip, but it’s true: when you’re hun­gry, you want to buy all kinds of junk. You’ll end up spend­ing a lot more. Eat a good meal first, and you’ll be more likely to stick to your list.
4. Have a bud­get. When I go to the store, I know exactly how much I can spend. Then I try my best to stick within that limit. If you don’t know how much you can spend, you’ll cer­tainly spend too much.
5. Do a rough run­ning tally. Related to the above tip, if you want to stay within your bud­get, it’s best to know where you’re at. Then, when you can see you’re going to go above it, you can decide whether you really need that 10-lb. box of bon bons. I keep a run­ning tally on my gro­cery list, just round­ing off so I can do some quick math. An item costs $1.85? I say $2. Then I don’t need a cal­cu­la­tor or all those com­pli­cated math skills.
6. Keep a list on your fridge, and write things down imme­di­ately. When you run out of some­thing, don’t leave it to your mem­ory. Jot it down imme­di­ately, and you’ll never have to run back to the store because you don’t have eggs.
7. Make a pantry check­list. Make a check­list of every­thing you nor­mally stock in your pantry. Keep it posted on the pantry. Put a slash next to each item for the num­ber of items you have (if you have two cans of stewed toma­toes, put two slashes). Then, when you use some­thing, turn the slash into an x. This makes it much eas­ier when it comes time to make your list.
8. Keep things stocked for quick-n-easy meals. Easy meals for us might be spaghetti or mac-n-cheese or a quick stir-fry. We’ve always got the ingre­di­ents on hand, so we can whip some­thing up fast when we’re feel­ing lazy.
9. Buy in bulk when it makes sense. If you can save money, over the course of a month or two, by buy­ing in bulk, plan to do so. But be sure that you’re going to use all of it before it gets bad — it isn’t cheaper to buy in bulk if you don’t use it.
10. Keep your receipts, then enter into a spread­sheet. This will be your price list. Use it so you know when bulk or sale items are a good deal. It’s also a great way to com­par­i­son shop between stores — buy your bak­ing goods in Store A but your fresh fruits in Store B. The spread­sheet can also serve as a check­list to use when you’re com­pil­ing your shop­ping list.
11. Buy frozen veg­gies. While fresh veg­gies are a lit­tle bet­ter, frozen veg­gies are almost as good, and much bet­ter than noth­ing. And since you can keep them in the freezer, they rarely go bad.
12. When you’re run­ning low, write it down. Don’t wait until you run out. when you see there’s only three toi­let paper rolls left, put it on your list. Because when you run out, it will be too late. :)
13. Cut back on meat. Meat is expen­sive. We have veg­e­tar­ian meals sev­eral times a week (think pasta or chili) and for other meals, you could just use a lit­tle meat as a kind of sea­son­ing instead of the main ingre­di­ent — think Asian, Indian and other such cul­tural food. Actu­ally, I eat veg­e­tar­ian all the time, but the wife and kids do a lit­tle of each.
14. Pack your own lunch snacks. Buy­ing pre-made snacks is con­ve­nient, but a big waste of money. Buy lit­tle bag­gies and buy the snacks in bulk, then it will take just a few min­utes to pack some snacks for lunch each day.
15. Make left­overs for lunch. Plan to cook a bit extra for each din­ner, so that you’ll have left­overs for your lunch and for the kids’ lunches. Pack it right away, after din­ner, so you don’t have to worry about it in the morning.
16. Cook a lot, then freeze. Alter­na­tively, you can cook a whole mess of spaghetti (for exam­ple) and freeze it for mul­ti­ple din­ners. A great idea is to use one Sun­day and cook a week’s (or even a month’s) worth of din­ners. Plan 5–6 freez­able din­ners and cook them all at once.
17. Always have bat­ter­ies, toi­let tis­sue and light bulbs. And other neces­si­ties that you always seem to run out of — buy a whole bunch when they’re on sale, or buy in bulk. Be sure to check to see if you have these items before you go to the store.
18. Try crock pot din­ners. We dis­cov­ered these in the last year, and they are easy and cheap and tasty. Cut up a bunch of ingre­di­ents, throw them in the pot in the morn­ing, and have din­ner ready for you when you get home. Can any­thing be more per­fect than that? I sub­mit that it cannot.
19. Clip coupons. I know, some­times they seem like too much trou­ble. But it’s not really that hard to clip a few coupons and toss them in a coupon envelop to take on your gro­cery shop­ping trip. And you can save 10–20% of your bot­tom line with coupons. Check store entrances, news­pa­per and fly­ers for coupons.
20. Only use coupons for items you were already plan­ning to buy. Don’t let them trick you into buy­ing some­thing that’s not on your list, just to “save” money.
21. Look for spe­cials. Every store has spe­cials. Be sure to look for them in the news­pa­per, or when you get to the store (they often have unad­ver­tised spe­cials — look on the higher and lower shelves for deals). Don’t buy them unless they’re things you always use.
22. Try the store brands. Brand names are often no bet­ter than generic, and you’re pay­ing for all the adver­tis­ing they do to have a brand name. Give the store brand a try, and often you won’t notice a dif­fer­ence. Espe­cially if it’s an ingre­di­ent in a dish where you can’t taste the qual­ity of that indi­vid­ual ingredient.
23. Cut back on your “one-item” trips. They waste gas, and almost inevitably, you buy more than that one item. If you plan ahead, make a weekly menu, and shop with a list, this should dras­ti­cally reduce the num­ber of trips you make for a small num­ber of items. But if you still find your­self run­ning out for a few items, ana­lyze the rea­son — are you not mak­ing a good list, are you for­get­ting some items from your list? Stock up on the things you fre­quently go out for.
24. Sugar cere­als are a bad buy. Lots of money for no nutri­tion. Look for whole grain cere­als with low sugar. Add fruit for bet­ter flavor.
25. Be watch­ful at the reg­is­ter. Keep an eye on the scan­ner — you’ll keep the cashier on his toes, and catch any mis-priced items.

Read Tips 26–50 here…

1) Unclut­ter­ing Your Laun­dry
2) Tax Sav­ing Tips