Food: Grocery Shopping Sensibly

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Grocery Shopping Sensibly
Monday, October 17, 2005

By Christina VanGinkel

With grocery prices rising right along with everything else, it may feel as if you just cannot get a grasp on what you spend each week to keep your family fed. Take heart though; though there may be nothing you can do about the prices of things such as gasoline, there are strategies you can take part in to alleviate the cost of feeding your clan.

Make a List

Never go grocery shopping without a list. Whether you are shopping for a complete weeks worth of items or only a few, never go without a list in hand. Keep a notepad in the kitchen and make note of anything you will need the next time you go to the store. After a few weeks of this, you should be able to not only cut down on unneeded extras landing in your shopping cart, you should also be able to decrease the number of times you have to run to the store for a forgotten item that is necessary to meal preparation. If you are the type that it is impossible for you not to try a new item, or a different flavor, etc., allow yourself a set dollar amount for these extras. This will give you the freedom to still try things, but at the same time, not allow yourself to blow your whole grocery budget.

Use Coupons

Coupons are not what they use to be. It is entirely possible to find them for items you really use and in dollar amounts that easily make it worthwhile to clip and use them. Many magazines, newspapers, supplements that come in the mail and websites that allow you to print directly from them, provide plenty of sources for coupons. Manufacturers often place them inside products to entice you to purchase their brand repeatedly.

Grocery Discount Stores

These seem to be popping up everywhere, even small town America. Check them out, as many offer name brand products for less, or their own label deeply discounted. Staples, such as bread and milk, are often much cheaper at these stores also, and as they are often smaller than the big chains, you can get in and out of them much quicker if you do need to run to the store midweek for items such as these. The shorter amount of time you are in a store, the less likely you are to spend on extras not needed.

Name Brand versus Off Brand

It pays to check out off brand products. Some exhibit no distinct difference from their name brand counterpart, though some do. Keep a note of those that compare equally to save on future shopping trips, and those that do not so you know which ones to avoid in the future. For example, I have found nearly any brand of saltine cracker to compare equally to the name brand that I would normally buy. Canned corn though varies greatly from label to label. Buying generic corn means no one eats it, so any savings I originally gained is lost because I end up throwing the whole can in the garbage. Where as saltines are eaten at the same rate, no matter the label on the box.

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