According to website Parents, the average family of four spends $164 on food every week. Whether you need to tighten your budget, or you simply want to have more money to spend on other things, lowering your grocery bill can help you save more than you think. Fortunately, a shopping list can be quite useful for planning your food purchases and controlling your costs.
Step 1
Plan your meals in advance. Figure out the ingredients you need for each meal and put them on your list. Repeated trips to the grocery store and unplanned purchases can lead to impulse buying, which adds considerable cost to your food bill, warns an article on Oprah.com. Don't put non-food items, such as shampoo or dish detergent on your grocery list. These items are far more expensive at the grocery store.
Step 2
Keep track of sale items. Read the weekly grocery fliers in your local newspaper to find the best deals, suggests Parents. Plan your meals for the week around the bargain items you find in the fliers. If you see an especially good price on expensive items, such as meat, buy enough for several weeks and freeze it for later use.
Step 3
Clip coupons for food items your family uses regularly. Don't be tempted to purchase expensive items you wouldn't normally buy just because you have a coupon; this can defeat the purpose of your money-saving list. Find out if your local grocery store has double coupons days. Plan your shopping trip around that day to get the best value for your coupons.
Step 4
Make a list of dinners and side dishes your family likes to eat frequently. Buy the ingredients for those dishes in bulk packages. You can save significantly by purchasing food items in bulk quantities, especially if you are a member of a price club, such as Costco or Sam's Club. Stick to your shopping list; just because you're buying in bulk doesn't mean you can't get a better deal on certain items somewhere else. Compare prices at different stores to get the best deal on each item before you make your shopping list.
Tips and Warnings
- Check your shopping list for items you can replace with the store brand instead of buying the name brand, suggests Parents. Store brand items are often exactly the same as the name brand items, but at a fraction of the price.
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