Grocery Shopping on a Budget

First ask yourself these questions:
1. What is your monthly amount for groceries right now BEFORE you do any cutting back?

2. Are there any special diets due to allergies, etc. that need to be followed?

3. How many are you needing to feed?

4. Do you have picky eaters?

5. What type of things if any do you make or can you make from scratch??

6. Do you have a extra deep freeze and pantry space??

7. Do you want to shop weekly, biweekly, or monthly?

Now for suggestions(in no specific order) on how to accomplish grocery shopping on a budget:
1. Shop your house before you shop the store!!

2. Make weekly menus for every meal and snacks AND around the grocery sales.

3. Make a pantry list of EVERYTHING you buy and post it on your fridge so that when you run out or are getting low you can circle or hightlight that item. I made up a form that has different categories(canned goods, frozen items, produce, etc) and then wrote down everything in those categories that I purchase. One place where you can get some of these forms(pantry list) is at Organized Home. Here is a printable master grocery list. You can either print out or use as a guide to make your own.

4. If you are not already, start making bread and baked goods/sweet treats from scratch.

5. Use coupons for items that you purchase consistently! Watch the sales and when those items are sale use the coupon and save more!

6. Start following the sales, and make a price book of items that you buy regularly. You will find that stores have what are called "loss leaders" in the ads...basically an item is advertised for a major discounted price. I am sure that you have seen in the ads where the same items are sale week after week...well track the price of those items and you will see that one of the weeks that an item is on sale it will be discounted more than any other week it was on sale.

7. When you find an item at a low price stock up within reason on that item. For example, whole chickens were on sale at one of the stores that I shop at for 59 cents/lb. Instead of getting other cuts of chicken that week I got 3 whole chickens to use in my menus.

8. Buy store brand items rather than name brand. Do you have an Aldis or Save-A-Lot near you?? You might want to give them a try for your shopping needs.

9. Do a garden and can it! (I am not able to do this because of limited space right now)

10. Buy items in bulk from Sams/Costco. I go to Sam's on a monthly basis and get only certain things(baking supplies, cheese, cereal, snacks,etc.) WATCH your prices though, because sometimes buying in bulk may NOT be cheaper than buying the item in the grocery store.

11. Make a grocery list and stick to it!

Here is a few other suggestions that I got from my friend, Debbie:

1. When you make your menu for the week, do it with a grocery ad and a few cookbooks in front of you (or with lots of recipes in your head.). See what is on sale and plan meals around those items. If you can't think of what to cook using things that are on sale, use the cookbooks.

2. Don't be afraid to serve leftovers. We have 'smorgasbord' at least once a week. I pull everything that is hiding in the fridge out and tell the family to help themselves. I do require that they choose from each major food group, otherwise at least one person would have rice, potatoes and pasta and not a vegetable in sight on his plate... (Leftovers in my house are used for lunches or in makeover dinners! I use them mostly in dh's lunches but if I make more than just one extra serving it is fair game for the kids to have for a lunch.)

3. Make as much from scratch as possible. The only things I buy that are pre-mixed are pudding mixes (and I make it from scratch sometimes too), jello, and occasionally brownie mixes if they are cheap (so the kids can make them).

4. Learn to identify convenience foods and eliminate them. A good example is popcorn. I've had teens here who didn't know you could make popcorn without using a microwave. I buy it by the 50 pound bag for way less than it costs to buy microwave popcorn. (This is a hard one for me because I find that convenience foods can be a meal-saver! Even with planning menus, life just gets too hectic and dinner gets forgotten or something happens where having convenience foods to use is ALOT cheaper than heading out to eat at a restauraut.)

5. Learn to recognize if a food has been prepared in a way you could do yourself. Any time you buy something like that, you are paying someone else to do something you could do. You may decide it's worth paying someone, but lots of things are so easy and inexpensive to do yourself it doesn't make sense to pay someone. For example, I never buy condensed soup. Making a white sauce is a breeze, flavoring it is a breeze, and it works in casseroles just like Cream of Whatever. You can also make a lovely cream soup when you know how to make a basic white sauce.

6. Discipline yourself not to buy something unless it is available for your 'target price' or less. To determine target prices you need to pay careful attention for six months or so to what items cost, so you know what is the lowest price for which you are likely to get any particular item. If you have a hard time remembering, write information down in a notebook. If I can't get something for my target price, I will do without or substitute unless it's a special occasion or I have extra money anyway that week.

Now a look into my shopping experience....I feed my family of 7 on around $450/month(that does not include the WIC)! However, it does include even non-food/household items like shampoo, toothpaste, cleaners, and paper products. Because of only having one vehicle and my dh's work schedule, I have no choice but to take my munchkins shopping with me. I take dh to work in the morning and we go in the morning to shop while there is not alot of traffic in the stores. So if my kids want to take up a whole aisle it isn't that big of a deal! LOL I also allow the kids to pair up and go into the next aisle and get the items that I need. I find that shopping goes twice as fast instead of me walking up every aisle with them in tow. I shop at least 3 stores when I go. I do shopping every two weeks. I also will not shop a store if there is not at least 1/2 dozen "loss leaders" in their ad. I figure that if I am going to waste gas to go to that particular store than it better have good sales! I usually can get my shopping done in about 3 hours(with the kids).I also have more patience in the morning to work with them to help them learn how to shop frugally. The kids know that I have list that I am following so the likelihood of them asking for something and getting it is very unlikely! Oh and just sooo you know...it is a hassle to take ALL the kids with me too, esp. having one that does NOT like to shop! But I have found that getting them involved in the menu planning, and the shopping at home and in the stores they are getting some life skills taught!!(I count my grocery shopping with the kids as part of homeschooling!)