There are many frugal living tips, but none will impact your pocket greater than learning how to save money on shopping. Whether we like it or not, we have to buy food, cleaning products for our personal use and keeping our homes tidy, clothing, and whatever else is necessary for our everyday lives.
One can save money shopping in many easy ways. When my wife and I were saving for our wedding we drastically reduced our expenditure on shopping in every way we felt possible. We cut back on buying groceries. We drastically reduced the number of take-aways we bought. We bought non-branded items.
However, whilst we worked towards our wedding, we realized a number of tips and pointers that really benefited us. In this part I will address tips to shopping for food.
Save Money By Planning Your Shopping
I’ll bet when you go out to the shops you have a few things in mind that you need. However, I imagine that when you get there you forget what you came for because you are swallowed up by the many advertising campaigns the supermarkets bombard us with.
We found that planning one week at a time we could purchase what groceries and other items we needed to get through that week. We found it good to plan our meals in advance. Not only did it remove the question each evening of, “what are we having for dinner?“, but it meant we did not have to waste money on putting fuel in the car to travel to the supermarket several times a week.
Without a plan for what you want or would like to each through the week, it is easy to eat anything. If we eat anything, in our busy lives, it’s either going to be at a restaurant, because we don’t feel like cooking, or it is take-away or it’s buying processed oven meals. All of these on a regular basis are not only detrimental to our health, but also a significant financial drain.
We decided upon a compromise though. We’ll plan our week, and allow an occasional take away. It’s important to have a balance because the feeling of being in a military routine of eating to a plan is not everyone’s idea of fun!
Advantages to Planning your Shopping
-
You will save money because you are only buying items that are deemed necessary to get by through the week
-
You will reduce the amount of waste food because you are not buying excessive quantities
-
You’re stress is moderately reduced because in advance you know what you have in the house to cook a meal
-
You don’t have to put up with the regular stress of shopping at a busy super market
-
You avoid temptation to squander cash on food that may end up half eaten
Disadvantages to Planning your Shopping
-
It’s a bit of a military routine that some people thrive on, others don’t
-
You may not feel up to having food from your plan
-
Unless you account for it, you haven’t extra food for unplanned event
