In the spirit of the new year, I would like to be more organized and

B

barb_b

Well-known member
"Smart" about my grocery purchases. Care to share any tips / tricks on organizing what you will buy for the week and where? I saw first hand yesterday that I should be using coupons, I am just not good at it. Woman in front of me on line was getting ready for the new school year to begin, and she had similar items in her cart. She saved $15.00 just by using coupons.... Do you decide ahead of time your weeks meals? Look for best pricing?

I tend to be spontaneous w/ my meal purchases, i.e. whatever is on sale....Looking for the butchers specials, which saves $, but as a result, I tend to go to the market far too frequently.

I am so bad at it. I think I know a lot of the answers, but appreciate hearing how you do it / organize it.

TIA and Happy New Year!

 
I don't watch sales. First of all, we do not subscribe to the paper. Since there is only two of us

I plan our meals, and buy what I need for about two weeks. Our meals are usually based around what is in season from April through December, because all produce comes from the Farmer's Market during this time.

The rest of the time, meals are based on what our family favorites are and what I have in stock. Before going to the meat market, I bring up their online weekly flyer and check to see if anything I want is on sale.

I used to use Raley's coupons for food which they sent to my email but I rarely shop there anymore because the store near me left town, and the larger store is on the other side of town.

I do keep my pantry well stocked, and two bins full of fresh produce. Plus my freezer is full of home made soups, applesauce, pasta and meat sauces, tomato sauce, pestos, Hatch chilies, chicken and beef stocks, and raviolis made in San Francisco by an Italian family. Usually a run to the store, to two good size markets only 7 minutes away for milk, OJ or other small purchases can be done with other errands.
When we had the kids at home, I grew a large garden and did lots of "putting up".

 
My grocery store offers 50% off meat that's getting toward the sell by date. It freezes

beautifully and if I just focus on money saved from meat, it adds up.

When you see people saving money with coupons, ask yourself what they're buying. If there's a coupon, usually it's processed food. The stuff I normally buy... meat, bread, cheese, and veg never have coupons.

 
True that many coupons are for junk foods but not all, I've used many coupons for

cheese, butter, sour cream, and eggs, laundry and cleaning supplies. Right now there are coupons for the baby tangerines, pomegranates and pom juice out there. I like Ibotta because they offer about 25 cents off several assorted fruits and vegetables and dairy items every week or so. However, I'm noticing less of those recently. When I accumulate $25 in my account I take out a $25 gift card for Amazon, there are other options available. I got two gift cards last year and am a dollar away from another one. This is just buying fruits, vegetables, dairy and the occasional other items they have that I would buy anyway, such as cereal, crackers, juice, etc and some cleaning supplies. I think it's worth checking out. I also use Checkout 51 but don't like it as well and am slow to accumulate $ on it. They send you a check for $20 when you've accumulated that much. I have collected only $40 from them in more than a year. I have combined printed coupons with these digital offers as well, such as for laundry detergent, sour cream, yogurt and other dairy products as well as eggs (Egg Land brand).

I think there is a loss of privacy involved with both Ibotta and Checkout 51 as they get copies of your cash register receipt, but in my case, I figure they are welcome to it.

 
Another idea is to find a blogger who blogs about your favorite grocery store. Many times they will

blog about the specials and coupons that are available. Many of them also have coupon databases where you can search for product coupons by name. When I lived in Publix country, I followed a blogger called I Heart Publix. I still use her coupon data base in conjunction with some in my part of the world. She saved me a lot of money, especially with the heads up on unadvertised specials and a couple of days before new grocery ads went into effect, she blogged the specials and coupons that were available for them, usually with a link directly to the coupon. Here in Texas, I use HEB Bargain Hunter, and Southern Savers as well as a couple of others. It's definitely worth checking if there is a blogger that does that for your favorite store. Your store web site is also a good source of info. HEB has hundreds of unadvertised specials every week and they are on their website. They also have coupons to print and one can sign up for emails from them which include great coupons, including ones like $2 or $3 off $10 or $12 in produce or meat, etc. Sometimes it's the baking aisle, or coffee, etc and sometimes it's stuff I don't buy, such as soda or snacks. These coupons are only available by email. I don't know if other grocery stores have anything like that or not, but it's worth checking out their web sites.

It doesn't sound like a lot individually, but over the course of a year it can count up and I kind of enjoy doing it.

 
Get a Food Saver and use it for specials. Coupons "can" save money but I find

few are things I would buy regularly--usually convenience kinds of things, IMO.
Shop ethnic markets for better prices on many things.

 
If you have a Smartphone, Grocery IQ app (free) and seasonal sale lists...

Grocery IQ app (free) will build your list & include coupons if you want.

As far as when to buy, do a search for "Seasonal Sale List" or "Grocery Seasonal Sale List" online and there are many lists as to when things go on sale so you can stock up.

For example, I've heard the best time of year to buy a tv is to wait for sales around the Super Bowl.

http://www.groceryiq.com/

 
Also, I go to Safeway and they allow me to load coupons on to their store card.

This works well for me, since I've never been one to use coupons. Each Wednesday (and/or before going to the store) I go to their site. They have some coupons based on what I already buy that I just click to add to my store club card, which I then swipe when checking out. It also adds discounts for gas depending on how much buy. One month I got 60 cent per gallon off (pretty good for a single gal)!

 
safeway has digital coupons you can add to your customer card and then they are automatic

when you happen to buy the product. I load on the products that I often buy, or might buy before the coupon ends and then if I use it, great.

 
Safeway also has $5 Friday specials, and meats are often a steal

we bought family packs of chicken thighs or legs or quarters for $5. big family packs. great buy for up here. and pork tenderloins or turkey tenderloins are often featured. I have quite a stash in the freezer so we have committed to "shopping" out of our freezer for meats in 2016 until we whittle the stash wayyyyy down.

 
Agreed, I use the Safeway loyalty card. They had great deals early on. I used to get

$10 off your entire bill if you spent $50, etc. Plus it tracks what you buy and I think it gears the discounts in your favor. Sometimes I'll buy a really random thing, then I start seeing discounts for it. But overall, I use Safeway the most.

 
Traca, maybe I missed a post, but I was wondering how you were coming with that family

you were making several meals a week for? Last I read was that you had found pizza boxes in the kitchen and the lady of the manor told you, it would be a learning curve for them.

 
I save the most when I shop the perimeter of the store--meat, fruit, veg.

Also (whispers), we buy fresh bread at Whole Foods because the quality exceeds what we can get at our supermarket. Maybe this is unique to NYC, but prices on many things are lower at Whole Foods--they also mark down meats and seafood like crazy if it's within a day or two of the sell-by date.

But, given the lawsuit concerning inaccurate weights of prepackaged items, I always ask an employee to weigh anything prepackaged, these days, to check. smileys/wink.gif

 
I swear we are separated sisters! I love saving as much as I can

and love the look on John's face when he see's the total I cut off of a shopping bill. I haven't heard of either of these sites so thanks for that.

 
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