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Our strategy for saving on grocery shopping
By the time we did our spending analysis, we were spending up to $400 per week on groceries and up to $400 per week on dining out. $42,000 per year! WTF?! That’s why saving food was critical to our financial success. Good news! Since you’re here, grab your free copy 5 building blocks for a happy gay life.
By saving on groceries, we were debt-free
It’s ridiculous that we spent more on groceries for two people than the average family of four. This also includes our wine budget, but that’s another story.
What have we done?
By the way, this was the time in our lives when we were at our fittest. So we probably ate more than the average grown man to build muscle, but we didn’t eat too much – I don’t think so.
After doing our spend analysis, we knew we were doing it had to change our shopping and eating habits. Here’s what we did.
We bought whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, in whatever quantity, without a shopping list or weekly menu, and became extremely careful grocery shoppers. We base our weekly shopping list and menu on coupons and weekly sales.
Our first few weeks of this strategy lasted up to three hours. We soon developed a process and grocery shopping became much easier and faster. But be aware that there is a learning curve. Once you’ve done it, you’ll not only save money, but also time.
1. Shop on optimal days
First we subscribed to the Sunday newspaper because it contained packs of vouchers. We started clipping and filing our coupons and quickly had an extensive and diverse arsenal of coupons. Today we use others great tools that help us save digitally.
We then visited the websites of each of our grocery stores to check in-store sales.
Armed with our coupons and store sales information, and knowing what we already had in our kitchen, we created our weekly menu. Our only goal was to buy as little as possible at full price. That was our second goal Don’t waste foodwhich leads to point 2.
2. Create a menu and shopping list
We checked our fridge and cupboards as a starting point for our weekly menu so we could use up anything we hadn’t eaten the previous week instead of letting it rot and throw away.
Once we planned breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner for that week based on the process above, we made a grocery list of what we needed for the week but didn’t yet have.
When we shopped, we diligently stuck to our shopping list and proudly used our coupons. It helped to combine our vouchers per store, at the time there were three stores in our area. We also used our own bags to get the bag discount. We were looking for it Save every cent.
3. Shop once a week
We know exactly what it’s like: you drive home, have no idea what’s in the fridge or cupboards, and stop to grab a few things. You decide on a menu in your head, shop, and boom, you’ve spent $50 getting everything (some things you already had but forgot) to make a once-in-a-lifetime meal.
Every single one of these trips adds up and blows your food budget.
How we saved $30,000 a year
This may sound difficult, but we made it fun by making it a game. Each week we tried to save a larger percentage than the previous week. Our best was a savings of 62%. We weren’t as detective-like as Extreme couponingWe didn’t have the storage space to essentially stockpile food, but with our new food saving strategy we’ve done a whole lot better than ever before.
Our grocery savings strategy saved us a ton of money, which we then put towards our credit card debt. Saving on groceries accelerated our quest to become $30,000 debt free!
Previously, we spent about $42,000 on dining out and grocery shopping, much of it on credit cards. Our strategy involved eating mostly at home and reducing our grocery spending to about $100 per week. We even created a menu 42 meals for less than $100. Additionally, we focused on lower-cost fast-casual restaurants and brought the budget down to about $75 per week. That means we spend about $9,000 on dining out and groceries, a whopping $30,000 per year.
You can do it too!
It will take a minute to consciously and strategically plan your grocery shopping, but you will find that it will save you a lot of money that can be better used toward paying off debt or saving in a retirement account. Save on grocery shopping today and live better today!
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