Guest post from Gurkamal of The Women Talk
Saving money wasn’t really anything I ever thought about until we became a one-income family. Both my husband and I are computer engineers and we made a good income, so I never gave second thought to budgeting.
It wasn't until our little one came along and I was home for maternity leave that I first thought about trying to save money. After a break of nearly a year, I decided to stay home with my child and began looking at money-saving tips to keep our finances under control.
After writing down our expenses for a couple of months (I never kept track before), I was shocked to find that we were spending around $400 every month on groceries! Well, that was enough to make me start thinking about taking action in our spending department.
I am glad to report that our expenses have been under control since then, and we have been able to save around $150 on groceries every month! Here are some of the tips and tricks I utilized to lower our grocery bill:
1. Compare Prices
Comparing the prices of different items across different stores has probably saved us the most amount of money. I use Crystal’s Price Book to write down the price of the most-shopped-for items in our household. It also helps me figure out if the sale advertised in that week's flyer is actually saving us money or not.
This is how my price book works. Let's say you buy 4 boxes of cereals every month, usually for $3.94. You end up paying $15.76 monthly. Every few weeks, the price drops to $3.44 a box and you pay $13.76 per month. When you buy cereal every time the price is reduced you end up saving $2 per month.
Similarly I compare bread, sugar, cooking oil, frozen vegetables, etc. at a variety of stores for different dates. It may not be a huge savings per item, but believe me, when you add up the amount for major items, the saving can be significant by the end of the year. We were able to save right around $70 per month just by comparing prices.
2. Stock up on Sales
I watched as my sister bought in bulk from Costco, but the thought never occurred to me!
However, after our family grew, I started stocking up on non perishable items like sugar, bread, cereal, ice cream etc. I saw significant savings of $25 with this change.
I sometimes use coupons on top of buying in bulk and end up saving even more.
3. Plan Weekly Meals
Before we started meal planning, we would buy whatever we saw in the aisles of the supermarket. For example, I would buy an extra bag of potatoes, not realizing there is already one lying in the corner in our pantry.
When I started our planning our weekly meals, I had to write down the menu for each day of the week. That led me to track down everything in our pantry, fridge, and freezer, and then make a grocery list.
This system helped me save more than $40 per month that would most likely have been thrown away or wasted (rotten vegetables and fruit).
4. Avoid Prepackaged Food
You might be tempted to buy that cute packing of pre-cut apples and melons, or the snack size mini Oreos, but you end up spending too much money as opposed to buying whole fruits or family sized packages.
We ended up saving more than $40 when we stopped buying prepackaged food.
We are glad that we were able to come up with a system that helped us save money without compromising our lifestyle and the quality of food we consume.
Do you have any other tips to save money on groceries?
Gurkamal is the author of The Women Talk, where she shares tips and tricks to help others with money saving, blogging, recipes and DIY Crafts. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario with her husband and almost 4-year-old boy.
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