WAYS TO SAVE MONEY ON GROCERIES
A few days a go I saw an episode of “Oprah”, in which she had various people telling their stories about how they managed to save money in the times when everything seems to be steadily going up. There were some amazing stories there, I must admit. But the one that really held my attention was about a woman that manages to cut her grocery bill by up to 70%!
Now, this is something worth looking into. So I looked her up on the internet and I found her tips on how to save on groceries. Her name is Stephanie Nelson and she is a founder of CouponMom.com and here are some of the tips she claims will save you a bunch:
- Take advantage of your local supermarkets featured sale items. And plan your weekly menus and shopping lists around those items. Moreover, planning ahead will keep you from impulse shopping.
- Learn about your store’s saving program and how it works, e.g. buy one, get one free deals, double coupons, store discount cards, which provide you with automatic discounts, special store coupons etc.
- Combine strategies and methods to purchase items at the lowest possible price, for example using coupons with a “buy one, get one free” offers. Furthermore, the best option is to use coupons when items ore on sale, which may result in getting some items free.
- Buy the Sunday paper, which carries 75% of grocery coupons. Stephanie advises to purchase two or three copies to save even more, since most coupons have a few-month expiration date. You can also get coupons online.
- Buy more of the popular items when they are on sale, e.g. if a boneless chicken is on sale every other week (as it is in case of Stephanie’s store), buy enough to last for two weeks until the item is on sale again and you can get it at a lower price. This way you never purchase the boneless chicken at its regular price.
- And lastly, be flexible about the brands you shop for and shop at the store that has the best price for the items in a particular week.
Stephanie sears by these simple rules and she showed Oprah’s viewers that it really is possible and how instead of paying nearly $200.00, she ended up paying only forty some… Now, that’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing happen to my grocery bill…