There’s no doubt about it – groceries are expensive. You figure the average household shops once a week, with a smaller percentage shopping twice a week. That doesn’t account for all the stops to Wal-mart, the drugstore or anywhere else extra people purchase their groceries! Gas stations are a HUGE money waster – but they have that name “convenient mart” – Convenient yes, cheap – no way!
I’d love to play the grocery game but for a long time it was not available in my area. It might not be available to you either. I can surf the net for coupons, but my printer is in a fritz so printing coupons is out of the question too. Of course, 90% of the time I find coupons online (unless I’ve specifically requested them) they wind up being for something I don’t buy. I don’t discourage the coupon clipper from checking out either of these avenues, in fact, I highly recommend it, especially if your printer works! So what do I do?
Well, the first piece of advice I have for cutting your grocery bill down is cut coupons. Wait!?! I just knocked that! No, I didn’t knock cutting coupons in general, I only noted that the one’s I find online don’t typically coincide with the normal groceries I buy. And that is ONE way that your grocery bill goes up! When you are constantly buying things you don’t need, but would like to try because you have a coupon, you’ve just discovered a sure fire method way of NOT saving money. So I say nix the grocery coupons for stuff you don’t use. But go out and purchase that Sunday paper – scan through it.
Yes, there are wonderful little flyer’s in there just loaded up with coupon offers from all over. But be fastidious in your choosing. If it’s something you use, then clip it. If it’s something new, that you just have to try, clip it, but file it for a couple of weeks (check the expiration date) and see if you are still wanting to try it afterwards. If it’s something new that replaces something you already buy, again – clip it. Take it to the store with you and compare prices on your normal buy, and this new product. Purchase the cheaper of the two. (Keep in mind you do have a coupon for the new one, so that one might end up being the more economical purchase.)
Nicole Humphrey writes articles for the Scrapbooking Blog and for the Frugal Blog. She also guest blogs on a variety of topics. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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