What is the biggest obstacle between you and saving money on groceries? Most likely, it’s time.
Who has time to go from one store to the next gathering the bargains? To cut coupons and find coupons online?
That was my biggest obstacle. I work over 40 hours per week, teach a weekly class at church, and tend to two preschoolers and a husband. If anyone had the time, it was not me.
But I was determined to stop letting dollar after dollar go down the drain. I was determined to make a plan that would work for my schedule.
So here’s where I started:
1. I continued to do the bulk of my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. As I learned early on, Wal-Mart doesn’t have the best deals generally, but their prices are better than grocery stores’ retail prices. (See Related post: What’s a Deal.)
2. I added 1-2 additional stores when I had time. This is done mostly on my lunch break. I would watch the sales ads and pick up a few items as they came on sale. Usually those trips were 15-20 minutes tops. I started with Walgreens and added Kroger. (Later I started adding Harps and K-mart if I had time and something was a great deal.)
Challenge: Acquire the store ads for the store(s) you want to try to add. But don’t add more than 1-2 stores initially.
Before you can add 1-2 stores to your shopping agenda, you need to know the deals so you won’t get hooked into impulse buys and also so these are “quick trips.” You can do this by reviewing the stores’ regular sale ads. Walgreens’ ads are on Sundays in the newspaper, but by signing up for their email list, you can get a sneak preview on Fridays. Kroger and most other grocery store ads come out on Wednesdays. You can also get these emailed to you. Or download the store’s app on your phone or tablet.
This really isn’t as time-consuming as it may appear to be. And it is very rewarding. Knowing that you’re snagging the best deals on products you normally use anyway, to the financial betterment of your family, is – forgive the pun – priceless.