How to Save 20% on Food Prices

Here's a two-part tip from Living Rich by Spending Smart: How to Get More of What You Really Want on how to save 20% (the book's claim) on food and non-food items at grocery stores:

1. Keep a price list. Then you'll know when something is truly on sale.

2. Don't go shopping every week for what you need. Instead, you go to buy what's on sale that week. Then you load your pantry and freezer with sale-priced foods. When you run out of peanut butter, for example, you don't go to the store to buy it at full price; you fetch a jar from your own pantry that you bought on sale.

Ok, a few comments on this:

1. Generally, I like the idea of buying on sale and stocking up. We do it on all sorts of foods and it's one reason we bought a small freezer -- so we could expand our stock-piling to include more frozen foods.

2. This doesn't work on perishable items, and the author recognizes that.

3. Of course, you have to have room to store everything or it doesn't work. We have a HUGE pantry, so it's no issue for us.

4. You also have to use everything. Buying stuff on sale at a great price doesn't work if a portion of it goes bad from not being used.

Comments

[TheJapChap]

Question... Since I'm considering purchasing a small stockpile freezer myself, I wonder how long (i.e. how many great deals on food) it would take to recoup the cost of the freezer itself and the electricity to keep it running? Any thoughts out there?

[FMF]

JapChap --

Probably not long. Freezers don't cost that much and some great deals on meat alone can save a ton rather quickly.

[Aaron]

I'll vouch for this. DW and I have been saving quite a bit on food lately using this method. Hell, we just bought 20 boxes for whole grain pasta (normally $2/box) for $0.50 a box; it was on sale and we had coupons. That's $30 we saved on 1 item. Not to mention that there will ALWAYS be something for dinner, even if we don't grocery shop for weeks.

The local independent meat market is always running big specials too. For $50-$75, you can easily get enough various meets to last months. The last package we got was:
10 lbs ground beef
5 lbs market made sausage
5 lbs bacon
5 lbs pork chops
5 lbs pork steaks
5 lbs of premade burger patties or hotdogs
5 6oz ribeye steaks
5 8oz NY strip steaks
that cost us $85. They will even divide the stuff up into 1 lb portions and wrap it individually if you ask nicely. Works great for us!

[A]

The idea is interesting provided you have the space to pull it off. It does raise one question for me. This only works well if you're getting stuff on sale. So is there an easy way to price watch? If I have to spend a couple of hours sifting through the Sunday paper every week looking for bargains I'll go crazy.

[Jen]

A- Initially, it is an investment in time. The easiest way to start is to make a price book. If you have your old receipts, write down the prices of what you normally buy. Then you can check those prices against the circular's prices to see if they really are a deal. If you want to be thorough, you can check several stores (in the normal course of shopping, if you like) and jot down prices on things you normally buy.

Eventually, you'll be able to recognize a deal right off. Yes, you have to check the circulars, but generally they are all online now, so you don't even have to buy the paper.

I have a ton of stuff bought at very low prices. I also coupon on top of that, so while I don't buy things we won't use, I'm not brand picky for things we do. I generally get cranky unless I save between 30-50% on the things I buy.

There are some things that go on sale all the time, and you can buy less of that to store. The things that go on sale once or twice a year (not grocery, but for example, school supplies) you make an educated guess on and buy what will last you until the next time these things are deeply discounted. Some things really don't go on sale; in that case, you just have to price compare and get the best price you can.

Hope that helps. Oh - on top of this, cook things yourself, and freeze meals. Best advice I can give.

[Bad_Brad]

The most important thing in saving money on groceries, IMHO, is to know what you spend most of your money on. If you know that you eat a lot of Kellogg's cereal, or ground beef, or Prego spaghetti sauce, be aware of that and price it at a number of stores for several weeks. Figure out what stores have the lowest regular price and what stores tend to put those items on sale. Couple that with coupons from your newspaper or any of a number of online sites and you are on your way to saving $$$ on groceries.