The price of everything keeps going up up up!! Here are some easy strategies for saving money at the grocery store.
1. Consider making your own bagged salad. I know, bagged salad is such a great convenience. It helps you pack that lunch or make dinner so much quicker. I bought a salad spinner at a discount store for about $10, but it has saved me much more than that in the long run. I can usually find a head of ice burg lettuce for 99 cents. I tear it mcm bags outlet into bite sized pieces, wash it thoroughly in a colander and let it drain for a few minutes. The I spin it in my salad spinner until it is dry. I store it in a Ziploc bag with a paper towel. The paper towel helps to absorb excess moisture, and keeps the lettuce nice and fresh. Make sure to remove the excess air from the bag when sealing it up. That’s it. A 99 cent head of lettuce will usually give me the amount of lettuce that is in three bags of salad at the grocery store. Washing and drying the lettuce should only take about 5 minutes per week. Let’s see, if a bag of lettuce is $2.50, times tree bags is $7.50. It only cost 99 cents for the lettuce. You have saved $6.51 in five minutes. It’s like earning $78.12 per hour. In two weeks, the salad spinner will be paid off, and mcm handbags sale the rest is pure savings.
2. Buying in bulk is not always the best deal. If you are buying perishables, and you do not eat it all, you are throwing your money away. You can actually save money at the salad bar. If you only need a few cherry tomatoes, don’t buy the pint at $4, just spend $1 on the few that you will actually use. The same is true for dairy products. If you will only use mcm bags a pint of half and half, don’t buy the quart if it will spoil before you finish it.
3. Experiment with store brands. The quality of generic brands has greatly improved in the last few years. The next time you reach for that store brand, consider trying one of the store brand. You can save anywhere between 15-50%.
4. Clip coupons and combine them with store sales to get the largest savings. The coupons in the Sunday paper do not always match up with the sales at your local store. Therefore, you should have a way to organize your coupons for future use. You can either clip out all of the coupons, and store them in a binder inside of baseball card holders, or you can simply file the whole flyer by date. Using the latter system, you will only clip the coupons you will actually use.
5. This bring me to the next strategy – stockpiling. It is not hoarding. It is important to have a stockpile of commonly used items, like toothpaste, shampoo and peanut butter. When you buy things at a huge savings by combining coupons with sales, you can afford to start building your stockpile. You will never worry about running out of things in you pantry. If the stores do not run a great sale one week, you can just buy the perishables like milk and eggs. It may take a few months to really see a savings, because it will take you a while to build your stockpile of groceries and coupons. Trust me, this strategy is worth it.
Happy shopping!