Business and Finance Times

Month after month, we have been spending on our groceries and it can average to around $400-500. This is spent only on food and dining, and not on household items. For our family of three, I know we can spend a lot less than that.

There are free sites that can help you with your grocery shopping and finding good deals. But unfortunately, for us due to our location, those sites do not have any affiliates with our local grocery store. We don’t subscribe to our local newspaper as it’s too expensive. So, to get those flyers, it means a trip to the grocery store and pick the flyer. Then, we have to come back home, review the flyers and creating a grocery list, and go to purchase items. With our schedule and the time when the flyer comes out, the time doesn’t adjust too well for us. So, here’s what we are trying to do.

Once a month, we purchase all the inventory items of our food. I have made a list of all the necessary items that we will need during the month to make meals and I mark those items that have to be fully stocked up. Then we head to Wal-Mart to do shopping. Wal-Mart has some items on sale that our local grocery store will not usually put. Last time, when we came to Wal-Mart, we had a cart full of groceries for $150. I am not sure if we have ever spent that much on one trip before.

Now, we have the normal items that will stay for the whole month. Then it’s the small weekly trip to the grocery store to buy fresh fruit, milk, bread and meat on sale. We don’t buy fresh meat from Wal-Mart anymore because it can get quite expensive for us and our budget is not to exceed $50 each trip during the weekend. So, here’s what we have spent at the end of the month.

$150 + 50 + 50 + 50 = $300/month

So far, it is working awesome. One major problem that we faced was that we were making too many trips to the local grocery store during the week. All those little trips can add up quickly and result in buying items that we really don’t need like frozen pizzas for a quick dinner. This is an unnecessary expense that can fully be avoided. Once we have limited the number of our trips, we are more focused with our purchases and we are getting a little more creative with our meals to use what we have and saving money from our budget.

Limiting our grocery store trips is challenging us and I like it. After some time, I would like to plan our menu also. I used to do that before and this saved a lot of money. But because of my work, I couldn’t devote much time on it. I will have to start doing it again.

The main thing is about saving money. There are many strategies of executing it. You have to spend some time looking at your spending and figuring out the plan that works well for you.