Want to know a quick way to shave a little bit off your grocery bill each week?
Check the sale ads when you’re planning your menu.
Most larger store chains have their sale ads online, so you can quickly pull them up and browse them when making your menu. Not only will this give you some extra inspiration for meal ideas, but you’ll also be more apt to plan meals around what is on sale at the store instead of just going off of whatever sounds good.
It so simple, it only takes 10 extra minutes or so, and it can easily save you an extra $10 or more on your weekly grocery bill.
For more practical help, be sure to check out my Menu-Planning on a Budget: Part 1 and Menu-Planning on a Budget: Part 2 posts.
Most of what I buy is on sale. We don’t plan menus (partly because the kids cook and they like making their own decisions) but rather we eat whatever is in the freezers or pantries or what was on sale the previous week. We make sure we stock all we need for our basic recipes…and if we don’t have a certain recipe, we get creative.
This is a great post. I just told my hubby today that i need to get the paper again so i can sale shop as we call it 🙂 . I can feel the hit it has taken on the food budget by not doing it 🙁
This is a must for my family nowadays! I also use allrecipes.com, where you can search a recipe by entering ingredients you have (or are on sale). It saves so much time if you plan!
I save a lot on fresh produce by shopping this way. This helps us eat more variety, too, because the sales change depending on the season. There are a lot of grocery items that I only buy when they are on sale, so I don’t count that as savings.
Crystal, thank you for all your tips on saving money. When you think about saving $10/week X 4 weeks X 12 months = $480 a year. That is a lot of money!
I appreciate your view and philosophy but most importantly your grace and humility. Bless you and your family!
I do this, but I use a coupon forum called afullcup.com. They have all the stores for the nation, for the most part. For the stores I shop at, people match the sales with coupons and post about price markdowns, clearance sales and so forth. Often other people catch great deals that I might not otherwise find by glancing at the ad. Between Money Saving Mom and afullcup.com, that’s all I need to find the best deals! 🙂
I go online for all the local grocery stores and click on everything that is on sale that we need or use. It makes me a list and I print it. Then unless it is a weird sale like -get $5 back if you buy 10- I take all the printouts to Walmart and price match the items. One store, lots of saved time and very easy.
I do this! It doesn’t take much time and it really saves a lot of money, especially on meats and produce!
It is one of my goals this year to get better at remembering to do this before I leave for the stores. I tend to get to meijer and pick up their flyer and change the menu plan right then and there if they have a great deal.
One of our local stores has a feature with their online ads where you can hover your mouse over a sale item and it will show a link to a recipe using that item. They don’t have recipes for everything, but I find it helpful when they have a type of fish or cut of meat I’m unfamiliar with. Even if I don’t like the recipe, it gives me an idea of how I might use that item with a similar recipe in my recipe collection.
Our stores also usually have extra sales that are only advertised online.
Great idea!
Just heard about this idea in the Tuesday Q&A and I am certainly going put it into play this week.
Looking forward to seeing how well we can eat healthy while being shopping savvy this week. 🙂