Photograph Credit: Stock.xchng (Christy Thompson)
How are the grocery sales going in your area? Last week was very unusual in that I spent almost $150 in groceries due to some fantastic sales. Yes, this amount is almost my budget for 2 grocery weeks. However, I am now stocked with meat, cheese, snacks, sides, and vegetables.
When I shopped this week’s sales yesterday, I spent $5 at Publix and by-passed the sales at Bi-Lo. For these two weeks, I am still within my budget. Yeah! The timing determines my savings. Thankfully, I was using time wisely when the items were on sale.
In working through the “creating your grocery lists” series, we have considered Steps 1-2 in Part 1 and Steps 3-4 in Part 2. Now, let’s consider Steps 5 and 6 in Part 3 as we complete our shopping lists.
Step 5: Print Grocery List
Once I have the needed items that are on sale and the BOGOF options, I will print this list. These are the items I may or may not purchase at this store.
Step 6: Repeat process for next grocery store
In my neck of the woods, I have quite a few grocery store options: Food Lion, Ingles, Publix, Bi-Lo, Whole Foods, Earth Fare, and Wal-mart (to name a few). If I tried to shop at all the stores, I would be shopping all week.
Since I would rather be using time wisely and spending time with my family, I choose to shop at 2 stores: Bi-Lo and Publix. As I create this part of my grocery list, I prepare one list for Bi-Lo and another for Publix.
This process may seem long at first. I remember it taking me all day to prepare my lists with all the normal interruptions. (Again, this system is not for everyone.) When it takes me 4 hours to prepare a grocery list where I save $50, then I am “making” $15 per hour. As I practice and continue to cut my preparation time to 1 hour, I am increasing my hourly savings to $50 an hour (when based on the same shopping trip).
Now that I know the system and have practiced it for many months, I am routinely creating these two lists in under an hour which is maximizing my savings.
My success did not occur overnight. I have made many mistakes along the way. For example, stocking up on an item when it was on sale for $1 off to find the next week the same item was a BOGOF item for $2.50 off. Sale items are great if you need the item, but I have learned not stock up on a sale item.
My stock up price is 50% off. I will purchase one item of a sale price to get me through until the next BOGOF sale on that item. Using coupons with those BOGOF sales just increases the savings. How do I know this? Because I have learned from my own mistakes. I would not be saving 50-90% on my groceries today if I had not started trying these techniques. By just implementing one or two saving strategies, you can increase your savings by 20-40% without using a single coupon. But you need to start, learn from your mistakes, and enjoy the savings.
The basic lists are now created. Next week, I will share briefly how I match coupons and finish compiling my list for each store. In using time wisely, I hope you are finding this series helpful. If so, then try a tip or two and see if your savings increase. If you are like me, once you see the savings, you won’t want to pay full price ever again. 🙂
Question: What is your favorite savings strategy thus far? Please click on Leave your Comment to add your answer.