Beginners guide to cutting grocery expenses

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Cutting grocery expenses has been especially important in today’s economy. I’ve found this fun and challenging to try since our family went from three to five when we got my husband’s kids back in 2016.

I consistently found myself trying to live on $500 a month for five people since losing our food stamps a few months after we got the kids settled.

common misconceptions about cutting grocery expenses

sacrificing how much food, not having as much, and being unable to balance the diet.

how to get started

write out all your typical items that you like to buy from the store

eliminate single-serve convenience items (save $20-$50 per trip)

see what convenience items such as single-serve drinks can be converted to using concentrated drink enhancers such as mio, personally, I like the store brands too, they’re typically half the cost of Mio

the positive part of these drink swaps is reducing sugar intake

you can also swap to buying a large container that everyone pours from, if your family likes the convenience of single-serve drinks, consider getting a soda stream, they save money and waste!

same goes for snacks and single-serve chips, you can always buy bulk and pour some into snack bags.

Switch to generic (50% savings)

while I know sometimes generics are not comparable quality, with a lot of items generics work just as well as the name brand while significantly cutting costs.

tailor your shopping to what is on sale

sometimes if possible wait for the next sale on your favorite household items and pick up a little more when they’re on sale, my area has Giant Eagle so I like to wait until there are sales with digital coupons on items.

Buy some items from Dollar Tree

some items aren’t worth getting from the dollar store, however, when I need paper plates or some simple cleaners or cleaning supplies I prefer to go there to avoid the huge markup at retailers.

Plan your meals, at least 5 or 6 days of the week

this helps with cost, write down what meals you would like that week and reserve one day for take out to keep the cost of take out down.

with meal planning, I like to keep the meals to where I can buy a larger package of meat to stretch the budget such as chicken or ground beef

taking the guesswork out as much as possible will save money and wasting food you “might” use.

utilize the grocery pickup option

sometimes just having everything in a cart and checking out without having to go in the store saves me a lot, avoiding impulse buys

conclusion

over time I plan to add to this post as I come up with more ways, these are just some of the ways I’ve been able to successfully save money without jumping through hoops and cash back programs.