Grocery Shopping Advice to Save Money

[Hijack73]

I'm looking to reduce my weekly grocery expenses and would appreciate some tips from the community. Right now, I shop at supermarkets and use discount coupons, but it hasn't made a big impact.

Do you have any effective ways to cut down on costs? I'm also thinking about trying smaller stores or local markets—would that actually help me save more?

I generally buy on sale or do without. That goes for everything from meat to laundry detergent. As an example, when I start getting low on say, dishwasher stuff, I start scouring for digital coupons (I have 2 stores and THEN wait for it to go on sale. Most digital coupons are good for a month and usually more and will stack with manufacturers coupons (which I don't often get, but I will take a quick look). I have 2 accounts with each store ;) And when I can get a heck of a deal, I'll buy all I can (as many coupons as I have, in other words). Pantry stuff like green beans and other canned goods, not unless it's on sale. Mayo, I wait on BOGO and buy 4. Stuff like that.

I buy concentrates and use old spray bottles (like a bottle of Mr. Clean concentrate - which will make 20 spray bottles worth of cleaner) to make my own cleaners. I think the only cleaners I currently own that I didn't buy on sale are some quartz countertop cleaners I bought because you aren't supposed to use just whatever on quartz. I price check things like that (use Walmart app, check Amazon, see what it cost in a grocery store THEN figure out if I see this X item at a grocery store on sale for 50 cents off, I'll know if it's really a good deal. I'll break out my phone right then and there and check a walmart price or Amazon before I toss it in the cart.

I used to think that walmart couldn't be beat for stuff like cleaning supplies, but once I started paying attention and kinda figuring out the cycle for say All Free and Clear (my preferred laundry soap) I'll just wait for it to go on sale BOGO at our local Kroger owned affiliate and buy like 4 of them. The cycle is that every 8-10 weeks, it's going to be BOGO. I might buy 2 if I still have 2, because I will never have 40 packs of Tide pods again, that's some OCD hoarding stuff and I'll never go back, but 4 in my stash is acceptable. Plus, coupons and policies have changed from those wild days.


I will admit, I was once an extreme couponing type of person, but I still use the strategies I learned while doing it.

My vacuum sealer may be my favorite way of saving money. Buy in bulk when it's on sale, vac seal it. I'm getting a bit low on chuck roasts and ribeyes, but I don't have a chuck in the freezer that I paid more than 3.99/lb for. I haven't seen those prices since back in the spring. Last week I bought ~15 lbs of pork loin for 1.79/lb - and I won't need pork loin for probably 4 months.

My grinder is my other favorite way of saving money. Now that I'm making smoked sausage - even after spices that's well under $2/lb. Breakfast sausage, well under $2/lb. Ground beef - all that clearance meat I buy, some of those chuck roasts, top round for 3.49/lb - plenty of ground beef.

 

[jcam222]

I save a ton by stocking up on meats when they are on sale. Vacuum sealer and a couple freezers make it doable. Just one example, last time 80/20 ground beef was $2.99 I bought 50 lbs and broke it down. I do the same with sausage @$1.99 locally. Steaks same thing.

 

[Gonna Smoke]

My vacuum sealer may be my favorite way of saving money. Buy in bulk when it's on sale, vac seal it.

I save a ton by stocking up on meats when they are on sale. Vacuum sealer and a couple freezers make it doable. Just one example, last time 80/20 ground beef was $2.99 I bought 50 lbs and broke it down. I do the same with sausage @$1.99 locally. Steaks same thing.

Yep, buy in bulk when on sale. Example, this week Food Lion has bone-in chicken thighs for 99¢/lb. These are family packs that contain 8 thighs each so I bought 5 packs at about $5.00/pack and vac sealed them and in the freezer. They are fairly often this price and by the time I use them, I can get more. It beats running out and buying at regular price.

If you don't have an extra freezer, look for deals on used ones. I don't do Facebook, but I hear that can be a good place to find a deal. It's an investment initially, but will more than pay for itself. Same with a vacuum sealer...

 

[Nodak21]

Inflation is the reason we can’t afford gas, groceries, vehicles, homes, daycare, or anything else.. there is only one way to change it..

 

[tallbm]

I'm looking to reduce my weekly grocery expenses and would appreciate some tips from the community. Right now, I shop at supermarkets and use discount coupons, but it hasn't made a big impact.

Do you have any effective ways to cut down on costs? I'm also thinking about trying smaller stores or local markets—would that actually help me save more?

How many stores do you have in your area? This matters.
Also how many mouths are you feeding and how picky are they?

Buy the Weekly Ad Sale Items
If you are lucky enough to have a few options, including culturally specific stores (Mexican, Asian, Indo/Pak, etc.) then the best way I know of is to check all the weekly ads.
Buy whatever is on sale and cook that.

This thread is showing how to get benefits of weekly digital ads at kroger and kroger family stores which is in the same vein of checking weekly ads but on a nationwide scale!

Understand Price Tags for Max Savings
In the US I believe they must show the overall price AND a unit price on the price tags. Here is an example of a 32oz yogurt and a 6oz yogurt.

The unit price will let you know the cost at the lowest unit of measure. So in the example getting the 32oz yogurt for $0.05 an oz is 2.4 times less expensive per oz than buying the 6 oz version.
There are tons of cases where you think you are getting a deal buying the bigger size but actually are not.
Of course the overall cost matters but in this case we are talking about items under $10 and saving 2.4x the cost buying a few 32oz yogurts is a great savings.

You do this with ALL your items and you can save quite a few dollars.
I teach my friends and younger relatives this lesson all the time and the cereal aisle is very eye opening.

Like 2 boxes of cereal for the same price but one gives you way more per oz in weight thereby fiving you more cereal AND a lower cost per oz even though they seem like they are not really different but you end up getting a few oz more of one vs the other :D

(Cereal example)

Learn to Cook and... Learn to Cook!
Buying whatever on sale often means you have to build up that "how to cook" muscle.
If whole chickens are on sale for $0.99/lb then knowing how to break apart a chicken (not difficult) and how to prep and cook bone-in/skin-on chicken OR whole chicken's becomes a must.
The benefit, is you can eat like a king for cheap! More often than not I spend about $24/week on my groceries for the week.
It's just me AND I am fortunate that we have good weekly ad prices and options in TX, and I don't mind eating the same thing or making different meals from the same cuts of meat and veggies, but I think that could be $50-$60 for many areas of the country if in a situation in the ball park of mine.

Understand seasonings. Like most store bought seasonings are mostly 4 ingredients. Salt, Pepper, Onion, and Garlic (SPOG). Buy those 4 and season in equal parts except maybe .75 parts of Salt where it's 1.0 parts of the others. You can season any kind of meat with SPOG and it will taste AMAZING.
Avoid relying on seasoning mixes and their heavy cost when they are mostly those 4 seasonings.

You can then branch out to make other seasoning types/blends by simply adding as few as 1 or 2 additional seasonings to SPOT.
You want Mexican/Tex-Mex flavors, add Chili Powder and a touch of ground Cumin.
You want Italian you can add any or all of the following: Basil, Oregano, and Thyme.
You want good soup flavors, add Oregano, and Thyme.
You want general Asian flavors, add Ginger, omit salt and sub in Soy Sauce, and some toasted Sesame Oil.
You want a perkier steak/chop seasoning, add a pinch of Cayenne, enough for flavor but little or no heat.
You want good BBQ pork and chicken flavors, add Paprika... yep 1 freakin additional seasoning lol.


If you get your pantry stocked with seasonings and a few additional things like sesame seed oil, canola oil, and olive oil. Some soy sauce, and maybe a few other things and you can make a bajillion types of dishes outof whatever is on sale.

Diversify your meals from the weekly ad meat.

If pork butt is on sale for $0.87 - $1.29/lbs you can buy a 10 pounder that can cut chops out of it for chops. You can cut strips for grillin as well.
Cut into cubes for stir fry or soup dishes.
Cook as a whole roast for roast. Cook in big chunks or as a hole roast as pork taco meat.
Make other cultural pork dishes if you have the seasonings.

If chicken is on sale WOW the variety of things depending on what part of the chicken is on sale.
Chicken fajitas, grilled chicken, whole chicken roast, buffalo chicken, smoked chicken, chicken taco, chicken soup, chicken bakes, chicken pasta dishes, etc. etc. etc.

I'm getting extra rambly and long winded but if any of this sounds interesting I'm sure I and others can expand on it. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Saving all we can and sharing that info benefits us all :D

 

[noboundaries]

If there is a "bag your own" grocery store in your area, the prices are generally lower than full-service grocers. The store or chain's savings on overhead is often reflected in prices.

Store brands are often as good as the advertised brands, but not always. Buy once and see what you get.

Ethnic grocers often have much lower prices on meat, veggies, and fruit. They want quick turnover on perishables and price accordingly. Quality is pretty good, too.

I live in a grocery rich area with at least a dozen chain stores and several ethnic grocers (Asian, Hispanic, Russian, Middle Eastern) within 6 miles of my house. I've shopped at three of the ethnic ones, but not on a regular basis.

I shop regularly at Winco (bag-your-own), Costco, and Trader Joe's, which are actually a bit further in the 6 mile range. They offer me the greatest savings. The others are shopped for convenience.

An Amazon grocery store opened in the past month or so next door to the Costco. I haven't tried it yet, but will check it out soon. Prime members save 10% off the marked prices.

Happy Shopping!

Ray

 

[chopsaw]

Store brands are often as good as the advertised brands, but not always. Buy once and see what you get.

Good tip .
The trick there is to match the bottle design to name brands , and compare the ingredient list between the name brand and a store brand .
Remember , the store is not making their own mustard and ketchup . So find the bottle that matches a name brand . The only difference is the label .
Koops mustard is one that does a lot of store brand labels . Usually a buck cheaper .

Here in St. Louis , Carpenters have a share of the millwright work . There's a pasta plant where we maintain the conveyors that stuff the bags with dried pasta .
Line is running , horn sounds . Line stops , change the bag , line starts up again . Same product .

 

[DougE]

Store brands are often as good as the advertised brands, but not always. Buy once and see what you get.

Aldi claims that whoever makes their store brand has to meet or exceed the name brand for the same product. I find this mostly true.

 

[tallbm]

Aldi claims that whoever makes their store brand has to meet or exceed the name brand for the same product. I find this mostly true.

The Lucerne brand is like the Albersons/Tom Thumb/Safeway/Randalls dairy "store brand" and is really good. I swear by it and the only thing I know is better for dairy that isn't the fancy stuff is the Borden brand in TX which is harder and harder to find.

 

[texomakid]

Trying to navigate grocery store pricing is also very tricky and deceptive. We shop at 4 different stores trying to maximize our savings. Just last week I saw a weekly sale flyer with frozen tater tots on sale - buy one get one for a penny. So that went on the list. When I was at the store shopping I get to the tater tots that were advertised as basically a BOGO they had jacked the price up from $6.50 to $8.50. I mentioned it to one of the managers and with a smirk they tried to tell me this was the actual retail price. But somehow this week, they are no longer a BOGO and they are back to $6.50 (still higher than I can purchase them at other stores.)

Why not just advertise them at $4.25 when you buy 2 bags? I would have still bought them since that was a decent price. Now during the same trip I purchased a large porterhouse T-bone steak on sale for $7.99/lbs and it was as good a steak as I've ever purchased. An actual bargain for what I paid. Always hit & miss.

I could go on but I won't. My point is I try to pay attention and avoid deceptive business practices. It's my opinion that all the major grocery stores play this game in some form or fashion.

Rant over! lmao - let's go have a great weekend peeps.

 

[chef k-dude]

Use your computer and internet connection. Sure, easy for me to say, I work from home and my computer has a 30" monitor with twin 24 inchers to each side. This is helpful for what I do which often requires many drawing pages open at one time. This helps me view multiple web sites (I absolutely hate using my phone for any lengthy web time) so I can bring up the web sites for Giant, Food Lion, Kroger, Harris Teeter and Walmart.

I dont get out a lot, intentionally, I work from home and have no need for a lot of contact with people socially. But when I need to go "to town", for something, I will look at who has what on sale, and will hit multiple stores while in town buying primarily just the great sale and BOGO items from each. Once in town, the stores are fairly close together so I'm not burning a bunch of gas.

I stock up on proteins and some other items that way (BOGO stuff at other stores are always cheaper than Walmart), then the wife does the run of the mill shopping at Walmart. I look at these web sites quite a bit and have for years. Walmart is usually ALWAYS the lowest price on everything if you are comparing other store's REGULAR price with Walmart's. Sometimes they may not be on a specific produce item. We almost never buy meat from Walmart because our freezers are stuffed with excellent deals already. I never pay full price for meat unless it's something specific or unplanned we need or want right away, then I will buy a protein from Walmart.

For our everyday meals, I never plan the menu, then shop for it. I make a meal plan every week and may shift something during the course of the week as things in my head change. I have a "freezers" list I keep up with pretty well and I have a "meals" list with just about everything in my repertoire of recipes and methods. I look at my list, see what we haven't had in a while or what catches my eye that I'm in the mood for, check whether that protien is in the freezer or look at whats in the freezer list to decide, and develop the weekly meal plan. Thaw stuff out ahead of time and have my wife pick up any vegetables, etc. when she shops at Walmart.

I have my recipes in MS word and in .pdfs on my computer as well as almost everything I make at least more than once a year in a wide three ring binder in the kitchen bookshelf. I have a small hook on the kitchen wall where I have clear plastic page protector pouches to hold printed recipes. I take them out of the binder and into the plastic protectors. I keep a dry erase marker near for checking off ingredients and making quick notes on the plastic. I just still prefer physical recipes even as somewhat "techy" as I am. I might get a tablet and use recipe apps in the future, but the recipes in the protector can be laid right on the counter if I want and dont have to worry about splatter.