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Frugal Grocery Shopping
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Every week we all go trudging to the shops to get our weekly supply of essentials for the home, like our food, cleaning products and personal care items. But do we really know how much we are spending? Grocery shopping can be one of the big overlooked areas of our weekly budget spending.
We might take our time and shop around for electrical items or think
twice about our clothes
shopping, but when it comes to grocery shopping we simply go on
autopilot. However it is probably our biggest single outlay every week,
so it really does deserve to be thought about seriously and turn this
area of our spending into frugal grocery shopping and save ourselves
some big bucks.
Frugal grocery shopping lists
Making out a list before you go shopping will not only save you time, but it will also help to keep you focused and not get side tracked by tempting offers. However this will only work if you keep strictly to your list and not go shelf browsing.
I have prepared a FREE simple printable download shopping list that you can use to get you started.
(You will need adobe acrobat to open it, if you do not have acrobat it can be downloaded for free HERE)
Tips for writing out your frugal grocery shopping List:
- Decide in advance your next week’s meals and note down the ingredients required.
- Check your cupboards to see what ingredients you do not have or need to re-stock.
- Check your staple items such as bread, milk, cleaning products and personal care items.
- Once you have made your list keep it available for next week, it will come in very handy as reminder of items that you regularly need. I sometimes forget to buy some the basic items if I don’t have a list, I suppose it’s because they are a bit boring I guess.
How to be a smart frugal grocery shopper
Many people don’t realise this, but supermarkets spend thousands of pounds every year on cunning little marketing ploys to make you spend more money than you intended. They employ teams of people to analyse shop layout and consumer shopping habits to make sure that they place their items in their store just in the right place to tempt you.
However if you know and are aware of these ploys then you are more likely to recognise them and not fall headlong into them. Common tricks are:
- Moving Isles -Moving items to different places in the store, so that you have to go hunting down isles that you would not normally venture into and so exposing you to more of their products. Keep your head down and only focus on the items you came into buy.
- The long walk - Commonly purchased items such as milk, bread
and eggs are normally placed along the edges of a store, often at
the back of the store.
Again forcing you to walk past lots of tempting goodies. If all you want to buy is a loaf of bread then keep to the edge of the store and avoid walking through centre isles. Especially wise on the way back from the bread shelf to the till, keep to the edges and save not only your wallet but also your waistline.
- Check those lower shelves - Shops will often put their most
expensive items or their own brand on the shelves at eye level. This
is because a lot of shoppers just take the first item they see on
the shelves. Lets use baked beans as an example, you will often find
the leading brand name right in the middle of the shelf, it’s
a brand you know and hey, you need some beans, so why not.
But check out the lower or upper shelves first. If you are on a frugal grocery mission, here is where you will find beans at a much cheaper price or that have special offers on them. The difference in price can be far greater than the slight taste difference in the product; brand name is not always the best.
- Advertising – Beware of advertising hype. Shops and
brands will bombard you with advertisements promising you all sorts
of enticements, i.e. we are the best, this will make you stronger,
and this will make your hair shinier. Be aware that this is advertising
and their main aim is to get you to buy their product instead of someone
else’s.
Don’t be fooled by this hype, many products are even made by the same manufacturer and sold as different brands. Remember buy what you need and not what the advertisers tell you that you need.
Fresh is better and cheaper
One
of the big spending pit falls is processed food. Yes they may be easier
to prepare but what are you really eating, preservatives, colourings
and additives. Plus the cost of these items can be staggering.
The price of frozen ready meals is shocking and the amount of food in those little plastic trays is often quite unsatisfying, meaning that you will have to fill up on something else afterwards. This is both dangerous for the waistline and incurs more cost.
Buying fresh produce and preparing your own meals is not only much better for you health wise but it’s amazing how much fruit and vegetables you can get for your money. This is especially true if you buy from independent market stalls or farmers markets.
In the UK a new phenomenon has arisen over the past five years where a lot of markets sell produce by the bowlful for only one pound. This is fantastic for large families or student households. (I often buy a bowlful of bananas and get at least 15 or 20 bananas for my money and they are all good too).
Buying fruit and vegetable that are in season is also a wonderful way to save money and give you a varied diet. Buying strawberries in winter is costing not only you more but also the planet. Vary your diet and help local growers by getting your hands on cheap plentiful seasonal produce.
Keep your self on the frugal grocery road with these tips.
- Watch out for coupons for items that you buy regularly.
- Bulk buy items on sale if you regularly use them.
- Go frugal grocery shopping on your own, that way you will remain focused.
- Never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, in a rush or tired. You will always come home with more than you need, trust me.
- Use a hand basket not a trolley when shopping for a few items. The temptation and ease of filling up a trolley can sometimes be just too easy.
- Take your own reusable bags to the grocery store with you. Many shops are now charging for bags and this will become more and more expensive as time goes on due to climate change issues.
- Never buy single portion items. For example a box of rice will last you for several meals and cost a lot less than a single portion where you are mainly paying for the packaging.
- Add your own flavourings to items rather than buying them prepared. A good example is cornflakes with raisins. It is far cheaper to buy a box of normal cornflakes and a bag of raisons (it’s a lot tastier too).
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