Eight Ways to Shave Grocery Costs

Here are eight ways to shave grocery costs from The Street:

1. Price Book
2. Buy in Bulk
3. Buy From the Source
4. Buy in Season
5. Buy Only What You Need
6. Don't Throw Away Food
7. Shop Sales
8. Coupons

Here's how we stand on these suggestions:

1. My wife is a walking price book. She can name the per ounce cost of ketchup, detergent or olive oil at the drop of a hat. Often I'll be at Costco comparing the costs there versus the "benchmark" prices she's spitting out.

2. Do this all the time -- though buying in bulk doesn't always save you money.

3. We do this SOME, especially in the summer, but not enough. Eventually (if we ever buy a new house) we hope to BE the source -- and have a garden in the summer.

4. As much as we can. But if you want something and it's not the season, it's still often worth it for us to buy it anyway.

5. We mess up here (and it impacts suggestion #6 as well). We sometimes get something we think we'll use and then don't quite get to it all. It doesn't happen that often, but it does occur more than I'd like.

6. See #5 above. My wife will keep something FOREVER. I'm more of a "if it looks even close to bad, throw it away" sort of guy.

7. My wife always shops sales and often combines them with...

8. ...coupons. She regularly clips coupons and seems to have one for EVERYTHING!!!!! This is only my guess, but I'd bet we save a few hundred dollars a year on coupons alone.

Comments

[cory]

9) Grow food! Many herbs and spices can be grown in even the tiniest of apartments, if you've got a full garden, you can move up to growing fruits and veggies as well.

[Cheap Like Me]

Good ones! And don't forget to include the store card, if your store requires one, with coupons/sales. I haven't tracked every single detail for a while ... but in 2005 I tracked my spending and savings all year for my family of 3. By combining sales and coupons that year, I saved $444 using coupons and $1,579 using the store card for a total annual savings of $2,024 (with total actual spending of around $4,500). That's not chump change.

[nobrainerdeals]

I find that Amazon really has some good deals on groceries.

[That One Caveman]

My wife carries a price book in her purse, but it's very disorganized and she's constantly tracking different metrics. I have a PDA that would perfectly suit use as a price book. Are there any Windows Mobile applications out there that already do this or will I have to write one myself?

[Julie]

Since your wife is "a walking price bulk".. do you think you could post an article listing reasonable unit prices for some normal household items to get me started? I am the type of person that just goes to the grocery store once a month and buys what I need. I am trying to change my ways and buy smarter. I could use your help. Thank you!

[FMF]

Julie --

I think there is too much variation throughout the country to make this worthwhile.