The Tightwad

If you really want savings on grocery shopping, you need a plan of attack.  Like most things, if you just try to muddle through it, you will not get the best results.  Keep a Price Book on hands to look up prices and each week when the grocery ads come out, look up the prices to see if you are getting the best deal.  Match the sale prices with your coupons to get the best price available.  Plan on stocking up on items if you are getting rock bottom prices and they are non- perishable.  Make sure you make a list out so you do not get side tracked while at the grocery store or forget something important.  It’s important to have a strategy to save money in your grocery budget.

Sorry, that I have not written in a few days.  I have been sick.

Today’s Tightwad tip:

Making the most of what you have.  My example of this is when we buy rotisserie chicken.  I know buying rotisserie chicken from the deli is not exactly frugal, but we only do this once in a while when time to make something is short.  Anyways, after we eat our meal off of the rotisserie chicken we always have chicken left over.  So we boil the chicken while on the bones.  After we are done boiling it, we take the chicken off the bones and use the broth and the chicken to make chicken and dumplings that lasts for a few days.  So the one chicken dinner becomes 3-4 meals.

If you are really in a pinch and need to save some money in your budget, try shopping in your own pantry first.  Many people have things stocked up and sometimes do not even know what they have in their pantry.  Go through all the food you have stocked up in both your pantry and freezer and figure out what you have.  Go through your cookbooks and see what dishes you have all the ingredients.  Make a list of these and put them on a menu for the week or for the month depending how many dishes you have the ingredients.  Next, figure out food (in your cookbooks) that you have part of the ingredients and you can cheaply buy the rest of the ingredients.  Now put these on your menu and make a shopping list of only these items that you need to finish the menu.

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Now days the Sunday newspaper is not the only place to get grocery store coupons.  A newer way to get grocery store coupons is to print them out on your computer.  Yep, that is all you have to do.  Yes, this is legal and yes, most stores will accept them.  Of course, you may want to try just one or two at first to make sure your store does not have any problem with accepting them.  Do not however, make photocopies of the printed coupons, that would be illegal.  The printed coupons each print up with a barcode.  You will probably have to download a special program for your computer to put the barcode on, but this download is free.  There is also usually a limit on how many coupons that you can print out.  Here are a few sites you can get these coupons from.

http://coupons.smartsource.com/

http://couponbar.coupons.com/

http://www.coupons.com

http://www.upons.com

Going to coffee shops is a great way to waste a lot of money.  Consider if you spend just $3.00 on your coffee (of course, some are more than that!).  Spending $3.00 a day during the work week, every week of the month, every month of the year will add up to $720 (or $780 if your counting 52 weeks) a year in coffee.  If you do this for just 5 years, your looking at $3600 (or $3900 when counting it at 52 weeks) in coffee!!! YIKES!!! Now, I know not everyone spends on coffee shops that regularly, but they do it often enough for it to take a decent chunk out of their budget.  A simple way to save money is to cutout going to coffee shops and making your coffee at home.  You can also search the internet for recipes for gourmet coffees.

The Tightwad Tip of the Day:

Learn to use coupons effectively when grocery shopping.  Challenge yourself to see how much you can save while grocery shopping.  Go at it like a game and see if you can beat your high score by saving even more the next time.   Keep a price book detailing how much each store costs for each item and whether the “sale” item is a good price.  Use coupons and sales together to get an awesome price on the products your buying.  Shop at stores that offer double coupons, especially if they have a sale on that item also.  If you have more than one coupon for a product and the item is on sale, consider stocking up if it is a product you use often.

Your grocery budget is a great place to start saving.  Most people spend way more in groceries than they need too and it is usually one of the most flexible budgets in your monthly spending.  Some simple ways to start saving :

1)      Start making more foods from scratch .

2)      Use less convenient foods.

3)      Buy generic foods when possible.

4)      Use a price book to compare prices among stores.

5)      Use coupons and sales when you want to buy name brand products.

6)      Keep your coupons organized so you do not loose them.

7)      Get a rain check when a store runs out of a sale product.

Just using these simple steps will start saving you money on your monthly budget.