How To Save Money When Grocery Shopping

The pandemic has reshaped our lives in many ways. We are home more due to social distance, remote work, distance learning, traveling, and dining out less. We have spent more on grocery shopping to accommodate this “new normal” lifestyle.

Ways To Save Money When Grocery Shopping

1. Have A Reasonable Shopping List The better your shopping list is, the more productive your experience. Make your grocery shopping list as specific as possible. Peruse your pantry, frig, and freezer for what you have. I leave a pad on the counter for things we run out of to form our next list.

2. Use Unit Pricing As A Great Tool Unit pricing is a valuable tool to use to help you find the best prices. The price label on grocery shelves usually includes the unit price for the product. Sometimes in small writing, the unit price tells you the cost of the product in ounces or pounds, allowing you to compare the price of different sized packages better. Larger-sized products and store brand items often have a lower unit price but not always.

3. Cut Your Fresh Produce and Grate Your Cheese In a pinch, I will buy fruit, cheese,  and veggies, cut up already. However, I find cutting fresh produce very therapeutic. They stay fresher longer, tastier, and are less expensive. I have all the tools–shredders, graters, dicers–and I use them as needed.

4. Leftovers Provide Benefits Leftovers are the bane of so many people’s existence. Not to me. Growing up, we had leftovers though we never called them as such.

5. Bring Your Phone There are good reasons to have your phone available. The calculator comes in handy for crunching unit prices, comparison shopping, or playing upbeat music to pick up your pace. It’s a good alternative to overcome piped-in Musak used to slow down your shopping.

6. Use Cash To Avoid Overspending Credit cards are more convenient when I have significant grocery shopping to do. You can track your spending better. Plus, getting some money back is satisfying if you are using a cashback rewards credit card.

7. Bulk Buys Don’t Work For Everything When it comes to bulk buying, my husband, Craig, and I are different shoppers. When Craig goes shopping and sees sales on produce, he is liable to overbuy some things that aren’t bargains at the end of the day. He bulks up on perishables or non-perishables alike.

8. Buy Generic Brands Buying generic brands for food, drug, and household products at supermarkets and wholesale stores is a terrific way to save money.  A generic brand for a consumer product is typically sold without a widely recognized name and is usually not promoted by expensive brand advertising.

9. Buy In Season “For everything, there is a season.” These lyrics are from “Turn! Turn! Turn!” written by Pete Seeger and originated in the Book of Ecclesiastes. The words are a reminder that we should value our seasons. And so too, our seasonal foods.

Swipe Up To Read More about  How To Save Money When Grocery Shopping