Six Painless Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill

MSNBC says that the average family of four spends nearly $6,000 a year at the supermarket. If you'd like to spend less (we spend less than $5k, BTW), here are their six painless ways to cut your grocery bill:

Have a plan. Make a list before you leave home. Use the supermarket flyer from your mailbox or the store’s website to take advantage of weekly sales. But read it carefully. Don’t assume that every featured product is on sale. Manufacturers might have paid for placement.

Get with the program. You usually have to sign up for a club card to get advertised sale prices.

Pace your purchases. You rarely have to pay full price for the staples you buy again and again. Products go on sale at predictable intervals that are easy to figure out if you read your store’s flyer every week.

Buy store brands. Most supermarkets offer their own private-label brands, which cost around 25 percent less than comparable big-name brands. We found that savings can be more than 50 percent.

Clip and click coupons.

Shop smarter. Stores use a variety of tactics to coax you into spending more.

Not much new here, but there are some good reminders -- just in case you're not doing all of these already.

I've written a ton on this subject. Here are the posts I've done this year alone (along with a couple others I though you would like) on saving on grocery/food costs: 

• How to Save Money on Grocery Purchases 
• Save 41% by Using Store Brands 
• Seven Things You Should Always Buy Generic
• A Few Tricks to Make the Most of Coupons  
• Time, Gas Costs, and Savings Trade-offs When Shopping for Groceries  
• Save the Most on Groceries in the Least Amount of Time
• Save Money on Groceries by Keeping Track of Prices 
• Five Ways to Cut the Fat from Your Grocery Bill 
• How to Earn $100 an Hour (Or Save $100,000 in Your Lifetime) 

Now, after reading all those, there's no reason not to save a bundle on food costs, right? ;-)

Comments

[Matt]

Good list and here are some of my comments and suggestions

Use coupons only if you actually use the product or want to try the product.

Beware: Lists lead to ruts

My wife is a list maker. If it is not on the list she does not buy it. However, I make dinner and when we get into ruts of the same old stuff becasue it is not on the list, then I need to go to the grocery in order to expand our pallet of food. She does not cook where I do so how can she know what we can try? We try things that we normally would not have and then we start to plan the variety within our food plan when things are on sale.

Beware: Bulk stores for trying new foods is can be bad ( costco)

My wife has learned the just becasue she likes it may not mean me and the kids will like it. Taste test at the local buld buying place may showcase new products but you may end up being the only one liking it and you will have ALOT of it. Peroigies were bought at costco and my wife was the only one who liked them and it was a big bag.

Beware: Store brands are semi great but when outcome matters cost should not be the determining factor.

I have a chicken and dumpling receipt that uses prepackaged biscuits. Trying to save money I tried the value package and it was a disaster. The dumplings were like erasers and unable to be eaten.Time and food wasted. Same receipt different biscuit totally different outcome.

[RB Boren]

Many supermarkets distribute their weekly flyers through newspaper inserts on specific days of the week; in my area. (In my area, two are Wednesday and one is Sunday.)

Of course you don't have to get or buy a newspaper, the advertised specials are all on the store's website plus you can usually get hard copy in the store.

I have found store brands generally to be of high quality and great value. There are only two name brands which I am unwilling to switch.

[Everyday Tips]

I rarely use the store brand as I have had some bad experiences, especially when it came to dryer sheets.

Also, bigger is not always better. Sometimes the smaller size is actually cheaper, so always look at the per ounce cost of a product. Combine a small item with a coupon and sometimes the product is almost free!

[Valerie]

Very well timed, as my husband and I just sat down with our grocery budget today (which we are appalled by!) and decided to work on that in the next few months.

With generics, I've found some winners that I'd choose over brand names even if not for price, some I can't tell the difference, and some complete losers. As kids, my parents always made us do a blind taste test of if we could really taste a difference. If not, generic it was. (Only once could I tell-- my favorite applesauce). My husband and I have sometimes done the same to be sure we're not just brand snobs. Turns out, we sometimes like generic better.