Mo and I are in the grocery store, checking out with our 12 pounds of butter, when the man in front of me says, “Do you mind telling me what you’re going to do with all that butter?” I politely tell him that I’m stocking up while it’s on sale for $1.99 a pound and intend to put most of it in the freezer. “You do a lot of baking?” he asks. “Well, yes as a matter of fact I do,” I replied. Although, I shop this way for just about everything we purchase at the grocery store – at least everything that goes on sale. If you pay attention to the prices and sales when you are shopping, you’ll notice that items go on sale in a somewhat regular pattern. The butter I purchased today was on sale for $1.99, while the usual price is closer to $4.00 per pound. That’s a savings of $2 each or $24 for the next few weeks, until it goes on sale again. I think that’s a pretty significant savings for which I really didn’t have to trade much effort in return. I’m at the grocery store every week anyways and we will use the butter, so why spend the extra $24 if I don’t have to. Over the year, a lifetime, these savings start to really add up. And that’s just butter. Eggs, for example, are regularly priced around $2.50 per dozen. But, every 5-6 weeks, they go on sale for around $1.00 dozen. Eggs usually have a pretty long code date. With 6 of us in the house, if I make omelets one weekend day, that’s a dozen of eggs used in one meal! We go through a lot of food in our house, making the savings fairly substantial for a little time spent planning ahead. It takes some time to get into a rhythm of shopping this way. You could keep track with some sort of system, electronic or an old fashioned notebook. Or, start small, with one item at a time. Learn the prices of the staples that you buy every week and start to watch the trends. When you’ve found the rock bottom price for that item, stock up. Try to gauge the cycle of how frequently it goes on sale because you don’t want to over buy either or you could end up with storage issues and not use it up before the expiration date. I usually use this method for staples and things I know we regularly use. I’m also careful not to be lured into buying junk just because it’s on sale. Produce doesn’t work so well with this method, as fresher is obviously better, but apples are a good exception to this. I try to buy organic apples since regular ones tend to have more pesticides. They’re pricey, so if I find them on sale, I buy 4-5 3 lb. bags. They store really well in the fridge for a few weeks. If I think they aren’t going to last, I can always turn them into applesauce which is great for the kid’s lunchboxes.

There are lots of ways to save money on food, which is a pretty big chunk of anyone’s budget. I don’t think any single method provides a huge savings by itself, but combined you can build a decent savings with a little planning and focus. Shopping smart is just one way to save. Growing your own food and/or cooking from scratch are other areas that can also make a big impact.

I learned much about frugality and ways to save money on groceries from one of my favorite books, Posted in Other