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Written by K Quinn
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Here are some useful tips to help you save time and money when grocery shopping.
- Use the art of meal planning and plan meals a week in advance. Pick a method for meal planning and serve up delicious dinners each night. Whether planning from grocery fliers, a meal planning subscriptions service or your favorite cookbook. When you have a plan for dinner and the ingredients are purchased and ready you can avoid fast food and last minute pizza orders which drain the checking account.
- After you have your meal plan all set draft out your grocery list and attach any coupons you have to it.
- Only use coupons for things you regularly buy or have wanted to buy. Don’t cut every coupon there is and buy just because it’s on sale.
- Buy only what you will need for your recipes (unless you’re stocking the pantry). And pay attention to what your family really eats. American tend to toss much more food than other countries. The french are known for really using up their groceries in meal preparations. You can read a great story about that here.
- Organize your grocery shopping list according to the layout of your grocery store. This way you can shop quickly and mark off things as they are added to your cart.
- Meat is one of the more expensive grocery items you will buy (breakfast cereal is another). So try using less meat. Or lower cost meat. Replace the chicken or even beef sometimes in your recipes with lower cost turkey. It’s healthier too. Or make more casseroles, soups and stews and reduce the amount of meat called for in the recipe. Start with reducing by a fourth or a third. Eat hearty salads with beans and nuts instead of meat once a week as a meat alternative.
- Make one for the freezer. Save time and double up some recipes. Place one in the freezer (label and date) so you can have a great dinner from your freezer on an extra busy night.
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In the Kitchen 
