Thursday, October 9, 2008

Money savings tips on groceries!

This comes from O's website and her show yesterday...good tips people!


Plan your meals and shopping lists around featured sale items.
Use your store's weekly sales ad flier to plan your menus for the week. Then, write your shopping list around the items and brands that are on sale.
Taking a few minutes to make a detailed plan will save you the time of making unplanned trips to the store during the week—which can ruin your budget.
Planning ahead also helps you avoid impulse shopping during your trip. Know how your stores' savings programs work.
Do they have "buy one, get one free" deals?
Do they double coupons?
Do they offer a store discount cards that gives you automatic discounts?
Do they have special store coupons?
Once you know your stores' rules, you can combine them to pay the lowest possible prices for your items, such as using two coupons with a "buy one, get one free" deal. Combining strategies can result in free items. Use grocery coupons, ideally when the item is on sale.
Buy the Sunday newspaper—75 percent of grocery coupons come from the newspaper. Buy two to three copies per week to save dramatically.
Go online—grocery stores often have their best deals and printable coupons on their websites.
Many stores offer electronic coupons that go directly on your store discount card. Stock up on common items when they hit their lowest price.
Don't buy a year's supply, just enough to last until the next sale (two to three weeks).
Boneless chicken is on sale every other week at Stephanie's grocery store, so she buys two weeks of boneless chicken every other week to store in her freezer. This habit saves her family of four $325 a year on this one item. Be flexible about brands and stores.
Buy the brand that's on sale with a coupon, or get the store brand if it's less expensive.
Shop at the store with the best prices for your items that week.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Another good tip is to shop the same store & MAKE FRIENDS with the meat guy (he once reduced Perdue chicken breasts as we were talking to $2.99 a bag & I bought 10 bags right there!), the rice stock man and other helpful people in the store. They can tell you about sales/reductions upcoming. You can also order things from competitive stores that your fave store does not carry & they will be happy to help you! I do this all the time. They don't want me shopping OVER THERE when they can get me the item I want here! Ask questions, as they are there to help! Coupons are great too!