What are some useful tips when going grocery shopping?

tinka: What are some useful tips when going grocery shopping?
We have a family of four and struggling during these economic times. We need some tips on grocery shopping, because when we go we usually get things that last about 2 weeks tops.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Tom ツ
First, make sure you have a stocked pantry of essentials

Second, always make a list and always stick to the list

Third, aside from pantry staples, try to shop the perimeter of the store. The middle aisles are where you’ll find all of the processed foods and junk food. The perimeter of the store is where you will find fruits and vegetables, whole grains, protein and good dairy like eggs and yogurt.

Fourth, try to keep those who are shopping to a minimum. It is much more challenging to stick to a list and a budget with each additional person who tags along.

Fifth, use coupons only for items that you actually use. If you find a coupon for a brand of bread that you don’t use but want to try, go for it, but don’t buy food or products that you don’t use just because there is a coupon for it.

I hope these tips begin to help!

Happy Shopping!

Answer by awommack
save money

Answer by mark
I suggest putting the family on the “peimeter diet”. Not actually a diet but a grocery shopping plan.

If you ever noticed, all of the good (unprocessed) foods are on the perimeter of the supermarket. You go from Produce, Seafood, Meat, Dairy. Get 90% of your food in these areas of the market. Obviously, cleaning supplies and dried beans/pasta will require a trip down the aisles but if you keep the focus on the perimeter, you will eat better and cheaper.

Answer by iLOVEmusic
don’t go grocery while you’re hungry, this will lead you to buy more. since you want it to last for 2 weeks buy the biggest size of a product or go wholesale.. it might look expensive but it will last longer…

Answer by donny
use coupons for somethings, stock up when things are a bargain,use store brand if possible, buy family pack of hamburger divide into 1lb packages,buy family pack of meat if possible, grow garden

Answer by Watching in Westminster
Tom had some very good shopping tips. The only thing I can add to his list is to make sure you are NOT hungry when you go. I always eat before I go to the grocery store. You ain’t tempted to grab extras that way.

Answer by Mrs.Avery
always make of list before you go and stick to it… most people keep mental note of the things they need and intend to get at the grocery store, and when they get there they impulse buy 10 other things that weren’t on their mental note. I have 3 stores that I shop at and I always check the specials for each store online before I set out to grocery shop. I buy the basics at wal-mart because they tend to be cheaper. I buy cereal, eggs, milk, bread, snacks, vegetable, water,cheese, household products like toilet paper, laundry detergent etc… now there is a store called publix here in florida and they have buy 1 get 1 deals every week that come in handy and so does this other store winn-dixie, I don’t know where you live but, I know other stores across america offer these same deals, you just have to look for them and I find looking online at the stores web-site to be most helpful.. also there are other changes you could make like in my household for instance my husband goes to work everyday and my 8 yr. old goes to school, and they both take their lunch.. i used to buy those frozen smuckers peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for my son to take to school, but now, I make his pb&j and instead of buying individual sized chips for his lunch, I buy a big bag of Doritos or whatever and put some in a ziplock bag…I could go on and on about stuff…but the basic thing is to switch to generic brands of practically everything,,, because they are just as good, and cutting down on packaged food… e.g instead of buying pouches of flavored oatmeal, just buy a big container of oatmeal…and so on and so on… i hope i didn’t ramble on too much, but anyhow good luck and God bless 🙂

Answer by Leslie H
Some really good answers here. A list is very helpful to us, and we never go shopping when we are hungry. If I leave my son home, I tend to buy less impulse items. (Actually, it’s probably when I leave DADDY home that I buy less impulse items). Coupons don’t do much for us, because usually the coupons are an incentive for us to buy some convenience item that we wouldn’t buy, unless we had a coupon, so to us, it’s money lost.
We found a store near us that sells ‘discount groceries’. We have a dog, a cat, a bird and squirrels, and the food for the pets is so much cheaper there. The bag might have a rip, mended with tape, but it’s still the same food. Iams, Pet science diet, etc. The rest of the items are not expired, but somehow not ‘prime’ shelf condition. Boxes may be crushed, etc, but the prices are unbelievable. Never buy crushed cans, but who cares if your mac n cheese has a funky corner?
We also planted a garden last year, got tomatos, raspberries, kale, lettuce, corn and peas, all in a space of about 100 square feet. We planted in tiers, and got the most bang for our buck.
Also, if you have the storage room, join one of the big box stores, and buy the things you need the most often in bulk. We bought a food sealer, and my husband buys and seals meat, steamed veggies, cheese, flour, everything he can put in a bag. (He loves his sealer). Just be careful that you don’t buy huge amounts of stuff you won’t use before it goes bad.
Just a few things that have worked for us-hope it helped.

Answer by libbyami
Everyone has great tips, I will just add a couple of things I do.
Get the Sunday paper if only for the coupons and weekly sales ads at the market.
Make a menu for the week The menu is made up of things I find on sale and things I have on hand. If you have a coupon for something on sale, so much the better.

Also, double duty dinners are a time saver, for instance, on Sunday I plan a big pot of chili, so Tuesday will be chili mac topped with cheese. Robin Miller from food network does a lot of these types of dinners. Also Sandra Lee and Melissa D’Arabian do $ 10 dinners, both are also on food network.

Always stick to the list. It does take a bit of work, but I look in my freezer and look up recipes using the proteins I have on hand, this also helps you to NOT have to visit the market a second time to pick up what up forgot.

Answer by Trish
First of all, do not take the whole family to the store. Even just two adults can end up spending more as each gets fancy ideas about ways of spicing up the week’s menu. One adult should go shopping, alone. Two of you can alternate shopping trips if you want, but only one of you should go at a time.

Next, set a regular shopping day. Try to be realistic about how often you will need to shop. For example, if your family drinks a lot of milk and you only have a small refrigerator, you may need to shop more than once a week. If you don’t use any products that would spoil in a week or that can’t be frozen, then you can go every two weeks. Longer than that is probably not practical for most people, but if you have a lot of storage space and don’t use many perishable items, it may work for you.

Then, get in the habit of keeping a running list of things you need. Don’t wait until five minutes before the shopping trip to take out pen and paper and brainstorm for ideas. Instead, keep a list on your refrigerator with a magnet all the time. As you think of things you need, add them to the list. It’s especially helpful if the list is arranged in categories based on the layout of the store you usually use. For example, my store goes PRODUCE/DELI, FROZEN, MEAT, FOOD GROCERY, NON-FOOD GROCERY, DAIRY, NON-GROCERY. You can simply write those broad categories on a sheet of paper, or type a template on your computer and print several in advance. If you want something more detailed, see if your store offers a free list or store map.

Try to leave a little flexibility in your list. For example, don’t necessarily say “hamburger”. Say “meat”, so that you’ll remember to check the price per pound on the various options available. One week, it may make sense to buy hamburger and make a pot of chili. The next, there may be a sale that makes frozen turkey breasts less expensive. There’s nothing like a Sunday dinner with roast turkey on no special occasion whatsoever to keep you from feeling deprived!

Sometime before each shopping trip, you should look at the list and make a mark next to each high-priority item, in case you can’t afford to buy it all at once. Also, make sure that between the food on your list and the food in your cupboards, you have ALL the ingredients to make the meals you want to have before the next shopping day. A single extra trip to the store “just to pick up a few things” can tempt you to buy things you don’t really need.

Next, set a clear budget, one that you can stick to. In the context of your overall family budget, figure out how much you are willing to spend on groceries, phrased as a certain amount for a given time period (a week, two weeks, however often you want to shop).

Of that amount, set aside about 5-15% for “impulse spending” (more toward 5% if money is especially tight or more toward 15% if you are especially good at grabbing bargains on impulse). It can be helpful to get your grocery money in CASH rather than writing a check or using a debit card. (If money is tight, NEVER put recurrent necessities like food on a credit card! It makes it too easy to overspend.) Pull off the “impulse dollars” before you walk into the store and put them in a different pocket from the main fund. You can use them to buy anything you choose, either on the regular shopping trip or (if you are disciplined enough to stay within the impulse budget) between trips. This can help you to take advantage of great sales on things that aren’t on the list and that will not spoil if you “stock up” before you need them. Also, it allows you to buy occasional “surprises” for the family. Without that, it can become a real grind to keep within your list all the time. If you never make an exception until you are feeling frustrated and deprived, eventually, you’ll end up splurging and spending way more than you should. Anything you don’t spend can be carried over to the next shopping period, allowing occasional bigger treats.

Consider setting a separate budget for non-food items like detergent and toilet paper. Even though you can buy these at the grocery store, they tend to be high-ticket items that a small family does not need every shopping day. If you have a day when you need toilet paper, laundry detergent, bath soap, mosquito repellant and floor wax all at the same time, it can really be hard to buy food. You’ll be tempted to go over-budget “just this once”. If your schedule does not permit you to make a separate trip to shop for these non-food items, at least separate them in your cart and have the cashier ring them up as a different order. You can pay for them out of a different envelope of cash.

When shopping day comes, try not to go when you are tired or hungry. A tired shopper will lose track of how much he or she is spending, while a hungry one will want one of everything in the store. Even if you have to budget several dollars of your grocery money for the shopper to grab a fast food meal, it may save you money in the long run.

As you shop, keep track of what you are spending as you load the cart. If you are really poor at arithmetic or you really enjoy technology, you can use a calculator. (Most cell phones have a calculator function.) However, most people can learn to estimate accurately, with practice. This is my method: Round the price of each item to the nearest half-dollar and add to a running total that you keep repeating in your head. For example, if you have already spent about $ 15.50, you would repeat to yourself “fifteen and a half, fifteen and a half.” When you put something in your cart for $ 2.42, you would round it to two and a half, for a total of eighteen. (When you are first getting used to this technique, you may want to shop at a store where no one knows you, because you may find yourself walking around saying out loud, “Eighteen. Eighteen. Eighteen.”) If you notice that you’ve had to round up several items in a row, deliberately round the next few down, and vice versa. When in doubt, estimate high rather than low, because it’s better to find that your actual total is lower than you thought than to find that you have gone over budget.

When selecting items, keep in mind that size does matter. A particular size (not always the biggest!) may be the cheapest per ounce, per serving, etc. Make sure that if you buy a lot, that you have the space to store it and that it will not become useless, such as by becoming stale, before you use it up. Food you throw away is not a bargain!

The same goes for different brands. Store brands and generics can be a great way of saving money, if your family likes the product. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different brands, but try not to experiment on too many things in one shopping trip. If there is nothing familiar in your cart, then you will start to feel insecure and deprived. That’s when most people break their budget, abandon their list, and go nuts.

The same goes for different stores. You may find good bargains by going to different stores, but don’t stress yourself out over it if you can avoid it. Most stores have roughly the same prices on the majority of items, with a few big sellers that are higher and a few other big sellers that are lower than the competition for the same approximate profit margin. Depending on what particular products your family normally buys, it may or may not be worth your while to chase sales, or to get dairy products at one store and produce at another.

Good luck! I’m sure that in today’s economy, many people are in the same boat–I mean, cart!

Answer by Simone
I always shop when I’m hungry! Of course I’m always hungry. But then I buy enough for several days and don’t shop as often, Don’t bring the kids or the spouse. If someone wants a particular food it must be on the list. Buy unprocessed meats, fish, fruits and vegetables and do your own cooking. There are some aisles of the grocery store that I have never been in, like the soda, and chips and snacks aisles.

Answer by debbie2243
don’t go hungry
make a list
buy foods on the outside perimeter
always compare prices
if you live more than 20 minutes from a store…bring an ice chest for meats in hot weather..put a couple of ice trays of ice in there.

buy the stores own products to save money…have coupons ready and see if they have a double coupon day…you can get coupons on line for almost every food.

Buy foods that are on the special racks…they are almost out of date…freeze them or cook them right away.

buy larger containers…like a quart of mayo rather than a squeeze bottle with less in it…you pay for the container and convenience.

larger container of yogurt and mix in your own fruit preserves.

large pack of meat and go home and you put them in smaller freezer bags then freeze.

buy cheaper cuts and cook in sauce to tenderize or hit with tenderizer…like instead of a sirloin or rib eye buy a chuck roast…try odd cuts like tripe, tail, tongue and it is good

Answer by Jim A
First, I think you should check your pantry and see what you lack and what you are willing to buy. Focus, on what you need. I think that instead of getting a carton of ice cream get a gallon of milk.

Second, look at your grocery store and see if they are offering any sales on items that you are interested in buying. Furthermore, you should look in your newspaper to see if there are any coupons.

Make sure you look at what you really need. So make sure you stock up on poultry, dairy, bread. Then, see if you have enough money for some more.

I work at a grocery store and I see that the families that are saving money are the ones that go and buy everything at once. The ones that just buy a little here and there, then come back several times during the week when they realize they forgot something tend to spend more than what they bargained for.