Groceries take up a big chunk of family budgets every month, but it’s almost a certainty that you could make some significant supermarket savings if you shop carefully.
Convenience costs you money. When you buy pre-washed or pre-cut food it almost always costs significantly more. If you buy a plastic tub of fruit salad, it will cost you far more than if you bought the individual fruits and cut them up and mixed them in a bowl. Shredded cheese is likely to cost more per ounce than a big block of cheese. And so on. Spending five extra minutes a night cutting and washing groceries can save you a lot of money.
Buy in bulk when it makes sense. However, those bulk purchases are not bargain if half of the purchase spoils.
Buy generic brands whenever available.
The groceries on the endcaps are not necessarily on sale. Sometimes they are on the verge of expiring and the grocery store is trying to get rid of them quickly.
ALWAYS check the per-unit price. Deceptive packaging can make one product look as if it contains more than another product, so check how much a product costs per ounce, or square foot, or however it is measured.
Clip coupons and search out double-coupon and triple-coupon days.
Scan each aisle for “two for one” sales and any other bargains. Buy what’s on sale; if pork chops are on sale, go for it. If you wanted pork chops but chicken and hamburger is one sale…buy the pork chops another week.
Try not to bring your children grocery shopping with you. It is almost inevitable that you will end up spending more and will buy items that you didn’t need. You’ll buy them treats to keep them quiet, or they will reject generic brand groceries in favor of prettier packaging, and they will play havoc with your grocery budget.