5 Rules For The Smart Grocery Shopper

Here are the basic rules I stick to in order to feed our family a gluten free, healthy diet, and stay on budget:

1. Shop in season

Learn to shop and eat in season. There are lots of great free lists on the internet to help you if you aren’t sure what is in season in your little corner of the world. The fruits and vegetables that are in season are usually available at local places which means the grocery store or farm stand doesn’t have to have them trucked in from far away. That makes them cheaper for you and usually healthier too.

2. Plan your meals

Going to the store without a plan isn’t a good idea when you’re trying to save money. Before making any purchases, you need a plan.  I make a plan every week. Planning my meals around what is in season and what’s on sale at our local stores.  Meal planning can be a family activity. I often ask my husband if there is anything special he’d like to have for dinner that week.

Planning meals for the week also gives you a chance to use anything leftover in your pantry or freezer.  Before I start looking at what’s on sale, I always look to see what’s already in my cabinets.  For instance, if I have a can of black beans in my cabinet, I will find a recipe to use those ingredients first. Doing this often saves me lots!

3. Shop farmer’s markets when you can

Farmer’s markets and local fruit & vegetable stands can be a God send! Often they aren’t open year round, but when they are, you can save a lot by dropping in to shop for your produce before you go to your local grocery store.  Once, I was able to get all the fruits and vegetables we needed for a week (We eat them both at least once a day!) for $20 at our farmer’s market.

There are other benefits to shopping at the farmer’s market too. Buying your produce there usually means you are helping local businesses and farmers. Also, many times you can find organic produce for the same price or less than you would at the grocery store from a local farmer.

4. Careful with the coupons

My sister is a major coupon queen! She gets all sorts of deals with her coupons and I’m sometimes jealous of the super low grocery deals she is able to get that way. However, she usually has to be willing to try different brands and often her food is processed and not very healthy.  If you have dietary restrictions, like we do, you might not be able to make the concessions that you would need to make in order to get a substantial grocery savings from coupons.  If you aren’t a super coupon queen, coupons can actually end up costing you money by convincing you to buy items that aren’t on your list or tricking you into buying a more expensive brand because of the coupon, even when the savings don’t equal out.

Even though I’m not a super coupon queen, I do use them when I can.  I use coupons for items that we already buy.  I like to give credit where credit is due, so I often write to our favorite companies and praise their products. Usually, they thank me by sending coupons for the items we already buy. Once, one of our favorite snack suppliers sent us 30 bags of cheese puffs as a thank you for our praise. We got several months of free snacking just for saying thanks to a company we already purchase from on a regular basis!

5. Don’t be afraid to go to more than one store

This was a tough one for my husband. He hates to have to drive to more than one grocery store when it isn’t absolutely necessary.  After he realized we saved $100 on a pretty regular basis by going to multiple stores, he determined it necessary.

A favorite of ours is ALDI. We usually go to ALDI first because sometimes they don’t have the same items from week to week and they are always getting new things.  I get as much of my list completed there as I possibly can.  That usually cuts our bill down by a lot! Sometimes I am able to get the entire list at ALDI. My husband loves when that happens!

I hope these tips help you manage your grocery budget.  I’d love it if you would share your own tips for keeping that pesky grocery budget in check in the comments below.

Written by: Sara Parise