According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2007 Consumer
Expenditures survey, the average household spent $3,465 on
food at home. That's quite the hefty annual grocery tab --
close to $300 a month.
Saving money on your very next trip to the supermarket
needn't involve poring over the Sunday paper clipping
coupons, or driving all around town to find the best price on
frozen peas. Just remember these four simple tips to easily
save as much as $100 on your shopping trip.
1. Use your cutting board to chop your grocery tab in
half. Prechopped, presorted, prepackaged -- man,
we're lazy … and it's costing us, too. When
Consumer Reportssent two shoppers to the supermarket
for the weekly basics, the one schooled on the cost of
convenience rang up a tab that was $79 less.
The biggest budget-busters were bagged veggies ($11 versus
$3 for
au naturelbroccoli bunches), single-serving
containers ($9.90 for oatmeal envelopes versus $1.59 for the
canister), and presliced cheese ($2 more per pound than
having the deli guy work over a hunk of muenster). Food
companies have jumped on the consumer-convenience bandwagon
to reap huge profits, but that doesn't mean you should buy
in.
Dust off the cutting board and colander, and stay away
from the worked-over (and marked-up) grub. A few extra
minutes of dicing and slicing are certainly worth $79 in
savings.
2. Study the per-unit pricing tags taped to the
shelves. There are those who keep color-coded files
with meticulously clipped coupons indexed by category,
retailer, and expiration date. And then there are the rest of
us. The good news is that savings can be had even if you
don't have a wallet full of coupons.
The secret to savings is to simply pay attention to
per-unit pricing. And your grocer provides a handy cheat
sheet right on the shelf. The bigger box of cereal is no
bargain at $0.08 more per pound than the smaller one. And oh,
the horror of the innocuous $1.39 20-ounce bottle of soda,
when a few aisles away six 2-liter bottles cost just $5.
That's $23.19 less than what you'd shell out for the same
amount of pop in the smaller size.
If you are motivated to find coupons, the Web makes fast
work out of finding coupons to use before you hit the grocery
store's aisles. Try
Coupons.com,
CouponMountain.com, and
CouponMom.com. To
make the most of the discounts, check your store's website
for double-coupon days, as well as restrictions on coupon
use. Signing up for a store's loyalty program can amount to
cash back, too. Cardholders get not only better deals on
their current purchases, but also coupons worth cash off
future trips.
3. Ignore the lure of name brands and go
generic. Opting for store-brand items over name-brand
ones can cut your supermarket tab by one-third or more. When
Consumer Reportswent shopping, it stuck to a
store-brand shopping list and picked up chocolate-chip
cookies, orange juice, frozen lasagna, raisin bran cereal,
coffee, and peanut butter for about $24 -- nearly $10 less
than what it would cost to buy name-brand fare. Continued... |