Grocery Store Tips

Do you have any grocery store tips you can share? 

We have a grocery budget of $650 a month for a family of 6.  July was an awesome months at just under $500 and the worst was September, $675.  Our grocery allowance doesn’t include dining out, but we really try to limit that to only once a month.  I think we’ve done very well for a family our size.

Here are some tips that have helped keep our food budget down:

- Make a list prior to going shopping.  Ideally keeping a list on the fridge to write down items as you use them would be best but hasn’t always worked.  The list helps limit the I want items from the store.

- Clip coupons from the paper.  Go through these prior to leaving for shopping.  Take the coupon binder with you, just in case those must have items happen.

- Plan meals for the next week.  Use this to help determine the items needed from the store.  I’ll be honest that we are horrible at this but when accomplished it aides greatly in the shopping and list making.

- Understand you won’t be perfect during your shopping, want items will slip into the cart.  Try to limit these as much as possible, try to improve with each grocery trip.  If you can avoid these items making it into you cart please share your secret.

- Online coupons.  I actually made an online coupon document for helping us save additional money.  This was time consuming and took a lot of will power to accomplish.  I’ll try to check the online coupon sites each week and use some of the individual products regularly.

Above are some things we’ve done in the past to help save money.