Saving Money at the Grocery Store

If saving money at the grocery store is one of your biggest goals as a wife and mother this post is for you. The cost of things just keeps rising and if you are raising kids their appetites just keep growing. Whether you are a small family, a large family, or somewhere in between everyone has to eat and food costs money. So today I will share with you how I buy all needed household items (including paper products and diapers) for $350 a month.

– Shop sales for meat and produce. If you really want to start saving money you have to get yourself to a place that you have some “extra” money set aside that will allow you to stock up when items are on sale at a good price. This takes some work but it is worth it. I keep a running list of what I like to pay for certain items and then also at what price I “stock up” at. This takes the guess work out of it and helps me to have one less thing to think about when grocery shopping with children in tow.

– Menu Planning is essential. In an effort to make menu planning even faster and easier I have created a master list of meals that my family will eat and I use it over and over again. I do tweak it just a little each month depending on sales and such but it takes me less than 20 minutes to create my menu plan for the month and my list too!! I keep a master list for the monthly regular purchases and then I just add or subtract from it depending on what I need.

– Make as much as you can. A bag of flour costs about the same as a loaf of bread but a bag of flour will make almost 5 loaves of bread. Mayonnaise and milk may cost a little more than salad dressing but with these two and a few spices you can make bottle after bottle of salad dressing. Start simple and grow from there. Here on Our Heart and Home you can find my homemade bar-b-que sauce recipe, and my homemade pork sausage recipe.  These are great places to start, or you can try some homemade snack items like homemade granola, homemade nutria-grain bars, or caramel chex mix!

– Be willing to try anything once. Rice. Beans. Lentils. Oatmeal. The list of frugal foods is long but not always popular. In working toward saving money at the grocery store my family has tried new foods. Some we loved the first time and others we couldn’t stand and then there were those that we tried again and grew to love. Just be courageous and strike out in an effort to try new things and save money.

There you have it. Start there. Make small steps at a time. Eat out less. Menu plan more. Plan meals around busy nights to avoid the drive through line and start saving money at the grocery store.