Tips to Cut Your Grocery Bill

One way I have found that has helped me to lower my grocery bill is to make it myself. I make my own pasta sauce, pizza sauce, pizza dough, bread and cookie dough to name a few. I do have a few exceptions though. If prepackaged is going to cost me less than making it from scratch. For example cookie dough for less than $1 after sale and coupon. I know it would cost me about the same if not more to make my own cookie dough. In that case I will go ahead and buy the prepackaged.

Here My Top Tips

1. Wash and prep your own produce.
2. Make your own bagged salad.
3. Make your own pancakes,waffles, breads, and muffins.
4. Don't buy precooked meats cook your own (the cost per pound is about 2 times as much if not more than uncooked meats)
5. Make your own sauces.
6. Double recipes and freeze extra. (I am a big fan of bulk cooking)

Making things from scratch does not have to be a daunting task. Set aside a little time each week to make it yourself . The money you will save each week will make your effort well worth it.

Tips to Cut Your Grocery Bill

Coupons

I never used any type of coupon until about a year ago. Boy, do I wish I would have known along time ago what I know now about coupons "oh the money I could have saved". I now think of coupons as money. Here are some of the places you can find coupons.

• Sunday paper
• Online
• Catalinas
• On products
• Red box displays in stores
• Clipping services
• eCoupons

I will elaborate on each of this places to find coupons in the up coming weeks.

Tips to Cut Your Grocery Bill

Stockpiling

Stockpiling is when you buy large amounts of items you frequently use at the lowest price

I use to think that waiting until I needed something was saving me money, boy was I wrong. For example: I waited until I needed dishwasher detergent so I had to spend almost $5.00 on that one box of detergent because it was not on sale when I needed it. Now when I see a sale on dishwasher detergent I buy as many as my budget will allow. For example: (dishwasher detergent was on sale for $3.00 and I had 10 coupons for $2.25 off so I bought 10 boxes for $7.50. I now have enough detergent for 6 months.)

Stockpiles don't happen overnight. When I started this money saving journey it took me about 6 months to create a good stockpile of the items my family uses.

Here are my stockpiling tips for ya.

1. Make a master shopping list of items your family uses.
2. Set a stockpiling budget (for me I set aside $10 to $15 a week).
3. Purchase large amount of a specific item when it is at its lowest price (match with a coupon if you have one).
4. Don't buy more than you can use before it expires.
5. Set up a stockpile a store does. Place new items behind older ones.
6. Don't hoard stockpiles are meant to be used.
7. Monitor your stockpile. When you start to get low on a item it's time to start to look for low prices to replenish it.

If you do this process you will be less likely to ever pay full retail for items again. This will defiantly save you money!

Tips to Cut Your Grocery Bill

Meal Planning Saves Time and Money!

Meal planning is truly one of the best ways to cut down your grocery bill. I also find that my life is less stressful if I know what we are having for dinner.

My evenings are spent running my boys to after school activities that I don't want to stress about dinner nor do I want to blow my weekly budget by eating out, not to mention it is much healthier to eat home cooked meals.

Here are my top meal planning tips for ya.

1. Plan a weeks worth of meals.
2. Use what you have in your pantry and freezer.
3. Make a list of items you need to make your meals.
4. Shop loss leaders for meat and produce specials to use in your meal plan.
5. Cook double or triple and freeze for another week.
6. Use your crock pot or delay start on your oven on busy nights.

IF you have a plan you will not have to make several little trips to the store to get last-minute items you should have everything you need.

Tips to Cut your Grocery Bill

Set a Budget

One of the first things I learned to do when I wanted to lower my grocery bill was to set a budget and stick to it. I made a list of items I wanted to include in my weekly allowance.

1. Food
2. Health and Beauty
3. Cleaning supplies
4. Pet needs

I set a goal of only spending $100 a week on all these things to start with. Once I spent that money there was no more shopping until the next week.

I now spend between $20 and $40 a week. I set my budget high to begin with and dropped the amount of my budget a little every week until I reached my goal of under $50 a week.

For me starting out small has been the key to my success. It took me about six months to reach this goal. So hang in there, you can get there too.