The second biggest expense in the American household is
groceries, and yet very few people do anything to regulate or minimize
that expense.
If when you pick up an item at the store you held it in
your hand and simply ask yourself, "How long did I have to work to
afford this item?" Most items would jump right back on the shelf.
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Shop with a full stomach, a bottle of water and a
jacket to avoid falling for the store's subliminal ques to spend
more money.
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Shop the perimeter of the grocery store first. This
is where the fresh items are kept, such as meat, breads, produce,
and dairy. This will pretty well fill your cart and cut down on some
of the impulse buying.
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Use the store rewards card. It just takes a minute
to fill out the application and you get at least a 10% off of
your total expense for your groceries.
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Coupons spend just like money at the grocery store
and are free in your Sunday paper. If clipping the coupons takes
more time than you are interested in, send for free clipped coupons
at http://Eat-Free.com. You'll
receive $50 worth of coupons twice a month.
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Join coupon exchange groups to get coupons for
everything you normally buy. I started exchanging with the other
parents at the different booster clubs I belong to as well as people
at Yahoo! groups that are interested.
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Once your pantry is stocked with at least two of
each item that you normally use, only buy items that are on sale and
that you have a coupon for. Once you get this going you should never
spend more that $10 per week for person in your household. I know
some people that have it down to $5 per person. The reason being,
you don't ever need anything, so you can wait for the sales.
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Join groups online that are proficient in storing
food for maximum shelf-life. There is a real good group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RealFoodStorage.
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Use a list and stick to it. One of the coupon
exchange groups mentioned above gives you a free list of over 1200
items in grocery stores that allows you to just delete the items
that you don't use and add others. This way you can customize your
list to keep track of prices, coupons and sales as well as your
on-hand inventory. You can get that at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rrce.
The list is also a great way to let others on the message boards
know what you use and what you need coupons for.
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Keep track of your store's sales for the week, month
and season by watching their web sites. Just enter the name of the
store and add a .com after it. For instance WinnDixie.com or
Krogers.com. Not only do they have the sales flyers posted there,
but you may request to have them sent to you by e-mail. Now when you
are in an area where that store is you can be armed with your
coupons and reward card to buy those few items on your list.
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Take advantage of rebates.
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Grocery vouchers are pure profit and easy to
acquire.
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Recycle cans and bottles. At the time of this
writing aluminum cans are up to .65 cents a pound or $10 per garbage
bag of smashed cans at the recycling center.
