5 Ways to Save at the Grocery Store

1. Never shop hungry. When you're hungry, everything looks good and you'll bring home a lot of snacks and items you wouldn't have bought otherwise.

2. Look up; look down. Grocery stores put the highest price items at eye level. Stoop over and see what's on the bottom shelf, then stand on your tiptoes and check out the top shelf.

3. Shop alone. The more, the merrier and the higher the grocery bill, as children or spouses add their favorites and things they want to try to the cart.

4. Shop the sales. Never go to the grocery store without looking at the current sales ads. If you don't take a newspaper, most stores have their ads online. Plan your meals around sales items and stock up a little if you can.

5. Ditch the brand name "must haves." Try store brand cereals, bread, dairy and meat. Most of the time, they're just as good as the brand that you pay the advertising for.

Tightening the Grocery Budget

I used to buy groceries for around a hundred dollars a month, but as prices crept up and up, that rose to $110 to $125 and lately, it's been more than that! As a frugal person, and one who shoots off her mouth now and then, it's kind of embarrassing.

So I'm going to go on a fiscal diet and not spend more than $100 each month on groceries for the rest of the year. I will NOT include extras for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, but I will try to hold it to a minimum. Also, I don't eat out very often, but if I should, that will be a part of the food budget.

Okay. Hold me to it. It starts this Wednesday, when I get paid and start my month over, for practicality's sake.

I have food in the house that I have avoided using. Don't we all do that? Things stuffed away in the freezer that I will use "sometime." That sometime is now, so I might have some strange meals. Then again, maybe not. I have canned food and dry food and a good variety, too.

I'll try to remember and report, although I may not be too specific about it (crunching numbers and listing prices doesn't sound like fun). I'll try to post at least the totals of my food expenditures and maybe a few interesting recipes!

Wish me luck.

More about saving on food

I just published an article titled "Beat the High Cost of Food: Get it Free" on Associated Content.

There are some things I didn't mention there, though... one is that it takes planning and work to get free food, so that it isn't really free. We have to work at anything, whether we work for money and turn that money into goods, or work directly for goods (or food).

It's often more fun or more satisfying to work directly for goods or food, especially if the method is a little out of the ordinary for you. For instance, it might not seem to be much fun for a farmer to glean a field by hand, but for those who sit at a desk all week, an hour or so in the sun and dirt can be might satisfying.

That's just one way of getting "free" food. Pick and choose yours, or use all methods possible.

Just another way to beat the ever increasing cost of food.

Rambling About Food, Money and Benjamin Franklin

What would Ben Franklin think of our modern economy?


Our economy has changed drastically since Benjamin Franklin lived. He, with his frugal wisdom, would go into shock if he could see the way we spend money now. An economy built on debt?? A chicken in every pot, maybe, but paid for with dollars that are already owed to someone else.

And that "chicken in the pot" has most likely been processed into chicken "nuggets," or boneless, skinless breasts that makes nuggets (and other "waste" products) possible by leaving 2/3 of the chicken unused.

No, I don't want to make you feel guilty for eating only chicken breasts. How else would we get all those buffalo wings?

But back to Mr. Franklin. He always advocated wise use of money, and people were a lot more frugal back then than they are now. What would he think if he could see us now? The picture hurts my mind.

Our world is far different from the world Benjamin Franklin lived in, both economically and technologically, so it's kind of cool to see how things work out to help us actually do what Franklin advised.

Case in point: Two web sites, Mygrocerydeals and Dollar Stretcher, brought to you via a great network not even dreamed of when Benjamin Franklin was alive, have teamed up to give you a chance to win back the money you spend on groceries. I won't say more, just go to either site and look for the "Ben." (If you read the story linked above, it will explain it.)

It's wise, Ben Franklin style, to use applications like Mygrocerydeals to help you save money and time on grocery shopping whether you enter the contest or not. If spending a morning sorting through grocery store ads over and over and making and remaking lists doesn't sound like fun, Mygrocerydeals.com will do it for you. If you do enjoy poring over ads, this site adds new depth to the game and you'll enjoy that!

And last but not least on my mind this morning: "An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." That's the way Benjamin Franklin said it. The Book of Proverbs from the Bible says it this way: "A house is built by wisdom and becomes strong through good sense. Through knowledge its rooms are filled with all sorts of precious riches and valuables." (NLT)