Here's a quickie list how to save money when you buy and prepare food for your family …
After mortgage/rent payments, utilities, and transportation, one of the most important categories in just about any budget is FOOD.
It also can be one of the places in your budget that you can reduce the most. (Try getting your bank to reduce your mortgage payment!)
Save money when you buy and prepare food
Nothing is free, of course. If you don't pay with money, you'll often pay with time. It does take time to prepare to buy food, to get things in place to save money when you buy food, and to prepare food.
The main trick is to do activities that give you the best return on your time invested.
Here are some ways that you can save money buying and preparing food that don't need to take up a chunk of your day:
1. Know the average prices of foods
A store will always try to make you think that you're getting a great deal. The only way you can be sure, though, is to know what things cost normally. You don't have to know what everything costs normally — just the things that you buy regularly. If you're good with numbers, then you may be able to keep some of the figures in your head, but otherwise, a price book comes in handy. This is just a notebook with products and prices; take it with you when you shop so that you can compare.
2. Use coupons
Coupons can be a great way to save money. They work even better if you're able to take advantage of doubling or tripling (or even stacking) of coupons. You may also be able to catch “loss leader” sales that make those coupons an even bigger percentage off of the price. Just make sure that the items are things you'd want normally (coupons often just encourage people to try something new and potentially overpriced). Also, make sure that the effort you put in is a good payback on your investment. If it takes you 5 hours to save $10, then you've just worked for $2/hour. (Also, if it's an in-store coupon, redeem it ASAP!)
3. Browse weekly ads
Checking the weekly ads for your local grocery stores can help you to find the loss leaders. You might not even have to buy the newspaper! The ad for our local Walmart Supercenter is online, as well as the ad for Food Lion.
4. Use money-saving app Ibotta
What's even better than saving money with coupons? Saving money without coupons, of course! I've found a surprising number of items at my local grocery stores that qualify for cash back with money-saving app Ibotta. (I just check the items I want to redeem before I shop, then I scan my receipt at the end. It's that easy.) For some items, you can buy any brand you want and still get cash back!
5. Develop a grocery budget
For us personally, this and eating out were the two things that we could stand to trim the most in our budget. To arrive at our number, we did an overall zero-based budget to see what we could fit in for food, both eating out and eating in. It was a lot easier to stay within our grocery budget when we cut out a lot of the eating out we were doing!
6. If taking bags from the store costs, then bring your own
Some discount stores like ALDI and IKEA will charge you for plastic bags. (Hey, their choice.) If bags don't cost extra, then at least don't toss them immediately after you get home. They can be reused for any number of things. We put a plastic shopping bag over the armrests in between the front seats of our mini-van; it's the perfect place for a trash container for everyone except the very back seats.
7. Buy in bulk
Generally, it's cheaper per unit to buy in bulk. Not always, but generally. Family packs, value packs, three-packs, whatever-packs. However, it's wise to make sure that you (a) have the room to store the bulk items, however much it is, and (b) that you'll consume it before it goes bad. Things like 96 rolls of toilet paper won't go bad, but 50 pounds of carrots might, even in the refrigerator.
8. Check unit prices when buying in bulk
Most grocery stores will have the unit pricing next to the price of the package. As long as you can consume the quantity you're buying before it spoils, then the lowest price wins. A few gotchas, though. First, sometimes the store may not be perfectly organized, and the price tag isn't perfectly aligned with the product you're buying, so make sure that you're looking at the price for the right product. Secondly, the biggest package isn't always the winner. Third, check the units. If you're not comparing apples to apples, then the comparison is meaningless.
9. Cook in bulk and freeze the rest for later
This not only saves money but saves time. When I make my hamburger soup, I make 14 to 16 servings. I go through it quickly enough that I can refrigerate it rather than freeze it, but there's no reason that I couldn't freeze portions in zip bags. This tip also works for ingredients; when I open a big can of diced tomatoes, I use half and freeze the other half.
10. Pack your lunch for work
This tip gives a pretty high return on time invested if you eat out almost every day. Take a typical lunch out at $10/day. That's $50 per week. It's fairly straightforward to cut this in half, even if you buy “convenience” sizes at the store. If you prepare a little bit more, $2/meal isn't out of the question. Saving $8/day, every work day, gives you a savings of $2,000/year!
11. Don’t shop hungry
Everything looks good when you're hungry. The high-markup, highly-processed, high-sugar foods look the best. So you can either avoid the grocery store when you haven't eaten in a while, or alternatively, bring a list and stick to it with a vengeance. Having a plan when you shop is a lot better than not having a plan.
