No matter who you are, food costs likely account for a large portion of your monthly spending. Cooking most of your meals cuts costs significantly – and being a smart shopper at the grocery store takes this to the next level!
It is likely that you already know the most common grocery shopping tips:
- Make a grocery list.
- Don’t shop while hungry.
- Shop when you have an appropriate amount of time/energy.
Â
Level 1: Stick to the edges
Have you heard this one before? I was shocked by the simplicity, but the perimeter of the store is where most of the healthier and more affordable food is.
If you are looking for a mindless way to save a little money, just avoid going too deep into the middle aisles of the store. The outer aisles is where you will typically find things like:
- produce (fresh fruits and veggies)
- pasta
- canned goods
- dried spices
- oats
- rice
- meat
- dairy
- frozen foods
…AKA the components of a healthy diet! Many of these items are also exceptionally inexpensive.
Once you get into the center of the store, you will usually start seeing more and more heavily processed foods like:
- sugary cereals
- protein bars
- cookies
- bread products
- chips
- crackers
These processed foods are all about convenience and/or decadence (see Level 5 for more on convenient purchases), and they have prices to match. If you want to save money and eat healthier, you would be wise to only visit the middle aisles that you are specifically planning to purchase items from.
Level 2: Don't shy away from store brands
If you have read my general money-saving tips then you already know that I am a big fan of store brands. Something that a lot of people don’t realize is that many store brand items have the EXACT SAME ingredients as the name brands!
I don’t know about you, but I am not at all interested in paying extra for the words on the packaging.
Level 3: Shop with specific meals in mind
Of all the tips on this page, this one will almost definitely save you the most money. And time. And day-to-day stress.
Plan out your meals, make a grocery list, and stick to your list. For more on this, check out the post I wrote to explain my exact process – including links to some of my favorite meals to cook at home.
Level 4: Compare unit prices
Most people only look at the listed price of an item.
If two bags of frozen broccoli are about the same size, you might think that the obvious money-saving option is to pick the bag with the lower listed price. But what if the bags don’t actually contain the same quantity of broccoli?
Unit price indicates the cost per whatever the relevant unit of weight/volume is: pound, quart, etc.
As you can see, the 32 oz. bag of frozen broccoli costs $3.19. You could do the math yourself to figure out the price per pound:
16 oz. = 1 lb, so the 32 oz. bag = 2 lbs; $3.19 / 2 lbs = $1.60/lb
…but the store is nice enough to list the unit price for us. You can usually find the unit price in smaller text below/beside the total price.
The big bag is a best deal here, and that is often the case. But it is important to know that bigger does not always mean more cost effective! Even things marked as “value size” are not guaranteed to be a better value than a smaller size – especially if you compare across brands.
Do yourself a favor and check the price per unit.
Level 5: Watch out for convenience fees
The more convenient a purchase is, the more expensive it is likely to be. Pre-shredded cheese and pre-cut fruits and veggies are very common examples of this.
It is worth noting, though, that frozen/canned fruits and veggies are typically an exception. The price difference is often negligible when it comes to the whole, fresh version and the pre-cut, frozen/canned version.
Notice how the canned carrots are only slightly more expensive ($0.93/lb) than the whole, fresh carrots ($0.79/lb) – while the fresh “matchstix” carrots ($3.18/lb) are about triple the price per pound!
In the case of broccoli, the frozen florets ($1.60/lb) are actually slightly cheaper than the fresh broccoli crowns ($1.69/lb). Following the same trend as the carrots, though, the fresh florets ($3.72/lb) are much pricier – nearly double the price per pound.
As you can probably imagine, this carries over into other parts of the grocery store, too. Single-serving snacks and drinks are pricier than their full-sized counterparts, for example.
And the pattern certainly continues to quick/frozen meals and sides. Think pre-cooked meat, frozen dinners, pasta with cheese/flavor packets, instant potatoes, microwavable rice, and on, and on…
Whenever you can afford the time to cut, cook, and portion out your own food, your bank account will thank you.
Bonus points for going the extra mile and making your own bread, pizza dough, pie crust, etc.
Level 6: Outsmart the store
These final tips are not really more difficult, but they all involve working against the sneaky ways that grocery stores try to coerce you into spending more money.
Don’t fall for adjacency.
Have you ever picked out a jar of salsa and then grabbed the convenient bag of tortilla chips sitting right next to it, pleased to have saved yourself a trip down the chip aisle? Or snagged sandwich bags from the bread aisle? It is very unlikely that the out-of-place item is the most cost effective option.
Read the fine print.
If something is listed as a “2 for $5” sale or something similar, you’ll want to investigate further. Do you need to buy two, or are they $2.50 each no matter how many you buy? You might be surprised how often this is just clever marketing and not an actual requirement.
Now get out there and test out these tips for yourself – I hope that you find them as useful as I do!
