25+ Clever Tips to Save Money on Food (How to Reduce Your Grocery Expenses Quickly)

there is one specific area of expense that we all are required to have that really can be sneaky and cost us a lot of money and one of those things that we can do good this week but next week ooh I went way over in budget that area is food we all have to eat right well the costs are crazy we know that but you will hear many people say these days well it is what it is there's no way to get past it it's just a ton of money to go to the grocery store and get food so there you go I disagree I still think that you can strategically plan there are things that you can think about and do during the week and during the time you're going to the store that can specifically still save you money sure it probably won't save you as much as it did four years ago but it's still a significant savings that most people just don't take the time to look into so in this video I'm going to tell you 25 plus there's more than 25 of them great ways to save on food remember that everybody's situation is completely different the members that are in their household the amount of them where they are in their life so just because one or more of these tips don't work for you in particular that's okay that just means that it's not for you it may be great for somebody else so just listen to this list have a piece of paper or your notes app out on your phone and when you hear one that you want to think more about or identify or maybe go ahead and put into place then jot that down and then resume the video now let's get into in no particular order these tips number one I'm going to start off with what happens in my house I will go every Saturday morning and start writing out my grocery list and I'll say to my husband hey anything that we need that we're out of can you help me think of it because my brain's overworking right now I'm trying to you know make sure I write everything down and he goes yeah purple bag Doritos m not so much there is something called a reverse shopping list or you could call it a master grocery list this is where you kind of do things in Reverse where you're the type of person you get the same cereals every week the same cream cheese and bagels the same peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the same vegetables the same uh fruits the same Frozen items you know what you use throughout the week regularly well put those items down on a list the items that you know you need in your pantry to do your cooking for the week and you have that list you only have to create it once and what you do is when you go through the week as you run out of an item or you see something spoiled or you see that you're getting low on an item you're going to check that off or highlight it that way when you go to the day that you go grocery shopping it's a reverse list you actually just see the things that you need to fill up your pantry this is your pantry plan and you need to stock up on these 10 to 15 items this is a absolute great way to save money and if all the other meal planning options and planning options haven't worked for you in the past this definitely is one to give a try number two is another one that I want you to kind of reverse and start looking at it a different way and it's to rethink what dinner is and no I'm not necessarily talking about breakfast for dinner every single night but I'm talking about you know I go back to the movie A Christmas Story if you've seen A Christmas Story make sure you click on that like button down below because it's just a classic you know they run it for 24 hours during Christmas but I think about the meal when the mom's in there cooking and I feel like she's always in there cooking you got the meatloaf the mashed potatoes remember Ralphie it wasn't Ralphie whatever his his brother's name was shoving the potatoes cuz he wouldn't eat them he was Meatloaf meatloaf but all of these things we think of dinner as a meat a vegetable a starch and all these things take different preparation times different pots and pans and it's a big orchestrated meal because that's what dinner is supposed to be especially during the week or the times when maybe you everybody's running around and it's late rethink what that dinner is dinner doesn't have to look like that all the time sure that is a great treat to have especially at the weekends when you have more time to cook but if you don't rethink it dinner can be sandwiches where everybody picks their topping and some chips as a side or it can be a big nice salad or yeah you can even do that breakfast for dinner I mean who doesn't like pancakes and eggs it's delicious and families enjoy it number three is to find a blogger that specifically blogs about the specials at your particular grocery store they are out there when I found Harris Teeter deals.com I was ecstatic Harris Teeter is a local grocery store that we do go to because maybe Aldi or somewhere else doesn't have the specialty items that they may have they may have better fruits and vegetables at that time and we go through and it can be fairly expensive and throughout the week really I don't have the time to sit and browse through the circular and then match the circular up to whatever coupon could be or determine if something that is on sale is really a sale or they're just trying to you know go around and jack up the price and then bring it back down bloggers like this know those stores they do the work for you so I'd easily just go on to the haiser website I will look at their weekly app and then I'll compare it to harer deals.com I will go through there and she'll say this is a great deal make sure you stop on stock up on this if you get this buy one get one and you add this coupon that's on the store app it comes down to x amount per unit it is fantastic so go to see if you can find somebody who has that type of a Blog for the particular grocery store that you use in your area they have already done the time the work so why don't you save the time and they blogs are part income for them so viewing their blog is also extremely helpful for that blogger number four is one I know you've heard before I know I've said it I'm going to say it again because people still just won't you know Branch out and try it but it's buying generic buying store brand items and testing them out they can be 20 to 25% lower in cost than a name brand and often times the name brand when it's on deep discount or a sell or buy one get one is still a higher unit cost than the store brand and for those people who you know for me I was raised on whatever was cheapest so I don't have a palette that knows the specific difference in this mayonnaise versus this mayonnaise that's for certain but there are so many people that get stuck I get stuck on words sometimes that get stuck on words like taste guess what sometimes taste might not be within your budget if you keep going over budget in your grocery store items that you're getting maybe you might have to try the offbrand number five is to stretch your food and what I mean in particular for this one I'm going to give you some examples is when you have to buy a certain ingredient but you have to purchase it and the amount in that package is more than you need for that meal so for instance we love this dish that I found on Pinterest called veggie lowain it's absolutely delicious and it calls for carrots well I'm not to spend money to buy individual organic carrots I will buy the regular carrots in the bag well the bag comes with how many about eight or nine carrots and I only need two carrots for this meal so what I then do when I'm planning out that week is I'll plan another meal where I utilize the rest of those carrots maybe we are doing a dinner where we're doing sandwiches so I'll cut them up and make carrot sticks to have with it or maybe there's and then there's another night where we're having a a side dish where I can make um what we call candied carrots where we sliced them up we put them with a little I think it's honey butter and sugar and we put them in the oven that way I've got carrots three different ways during three different meals and I've strategically bought this one thing I needed for the meal that I really wanted and I've continued to use it through the week same thing when you go and buy a roast chicken and often times here's another tip roast chickens are what people call lost leaders and if you're not sure what that is it's where they don't make a lot of money on on them the store doesn't but they know you're going to come in the store to get that chicken and probably chances are you're going to buy a couple of dishes to go with it on your way out because it's easy it's delicious so the loss leader is that they don't make any money necessarily on that roast chicken but they get you in for other reasons so my point is they you can get that roast chicken already cooked for less than it would probably cost you to buy a chicken and do it all yourself so you take that roast chicken and again stretch it you're going to use part of the chicken and eat it with a meal maybe that's side of carrots maybe some mashed potatoes with that and then you're going to move on to the next Meal which maybe you make chicken tortilla soup or chicken tacos with what's left over if you don't go through the entire Rose chicken so whatever it is how can we stretch out that item to make sure we use intentionally all of what we have to purchase number six is to at least make a plan before you go shopping now this may not be a meal plan if you do that wonderful many of people have told me many of you have told told me it's been great for you but I still get the comments about meal planning is not for me that's fine you still need to plan before you go shopping you know need to know what you're going to get this it means looking in your fridge what do you have looking in your pantry what do you have looking in your freezer what do you have looking at the ads or that blog I talked about earlier what is it that's on sale that I can get because if you just go in without a plan you are going to go ahead and plan and fail and be way past your budget number seven is you might have to shop at multiple stores now I want to specifically say here the disclaimer of if they're close together it does not help if you go to multiple stores that are Miles Away not only does it waste your time you could have food that goes bad because it's a hot day and you have to get something cold at one store CU it's closer than this one or vice versa and you just spend too much time driving so miles on your car and the cost of gas I'm talking when you have competing stores that are close to each other for instance a great tip that actually came from one of my daughter's teachers she saw the teacher out and she said oh well I'm at this store I was just at this store I go and buy this here and I buy this here and I thought you know I knew I liked that teacher cuz she knows the Frugal ways and what the the teacher does is she goes to one store and this store first again they're right across the street and in the middle of the store where all the things that are not cold or not fresh she will purchase those there because at that particular store they are lower cost now the particular thing about that store is the fruits and vegetables and the meat it's never really good it doesn't last long uh ites not necessarily a good price and it's just not good okay so she grabs the things that she has there she puts it in her chunk goes over to the next grocery store which is across the street at that grocery store she gets the fresh things the milk the Frozen the um fruits and vegetables the meat the things that yes that grocery store is more expensive but she's not losing money because if she'd bought them at the other store they would have gone bad quicker or not been as high of quality however because she's gone to two stores they are it's equaling out and saving her a ton of money I tried it and oddly I mean obviously I've been doing this fgo channel for five over 5 years and I've had plenty of experience prior to it I had not thought of doing this because I always thought it would be too much of a hassle so I tried it we did it the teacher's way we went my daughter and I and we got the not the middle items that we needed you know if there was flour or olive oil or bread Etc from the one store and we ended up spending I think about 50 $50 we used the little buggy we were in and out we got the car went across the street again used the little buggy and we spent about another $55 and got the fresh items let me tell you when I normally go to this one store it's well over more than that double because of the cost of those middle items and I was shocked at how quickly it was it it quick it went it didn't take too much time at all so again long story short with this one if there are multiple stores near you it might worth be worth just doing an experiment to see if this process works as well for you as it did for me and obviously does for the teacher who told us about it number eight is to reduce food waste as much as possible and there are so many tips here but just intentionally remembering that food waste can make up thousands of dollars a year there are tons of surveys that talk about you know depending upon the size of a family how much actual food waste they go through and so all of these savings tips that I can give you about how to save money at the grocery store it's worthless if you end up throwing it away because you make too much you don't save it you don't end up eating it because you're like eh I don't really like it that much if you do that then it's it's not going to be worth any of the other tips if you don't try to sit there and focus on reducing the waste of the food number nine is to set a food budget if you create no other budget at least decide on a number that you're going to spend and stick to at the grocery store this is the one budget item out of pretty much any other budget item in your budget in your expenses that I can think of that can fluctuate so different from week to week from day to day a lot of people just end up freestyling it let me tell you if you want to Freestyle it what's going to happen is you're going to end up using the credit card and going into debt for your groceries because you're not going to have enough money to keep covering it number 10 is one of my favorite things to do with number nine and after I create that food budget I kind of create a gap between it so let's just use round numbers and say that your budget is $100 well aim to spend about $90 of that that way you've got $10 to play with what I mean by this is just because something is in an ad doesn't mean it's the only thing that's on sale at the store you could go to the sale the store and find a fantastic deal on something else and uh I've already decided on everything and it's going to be the budget I'm going to be over budget if I get these things so leave that budget buffer that Gap and what this looks like for me is if I go to the store and cheeses at my particular store are buy two get three free that is a fantastic deal and it's really easy to Che to cheese freeze cheese you can cheese freeze you can freeze cheese another time this happens is soups or canned beans be on a really deep discount like 37 cents or less a can and you can buy up to 10 so I'll buy 10 of them at that time if I know I use them a lot things such as uh kidney beans or black beans or chickpeas are fantastic or sometimes even tomato soup can be on sale at that big of a discount but creating that budget Gap is going to be able to let you spend on those things when you see the really deep discount items number 11 is to take a calculator with you or you can just pull out your phone and pull out the calculator on your phone and as you go through the store put down in that calculator a rounded up number so let's say an item is $437 you're going to put $5 of course you've got to uh identify tax here so it's not going to be specifically that you you know get to your budget and you're over by the exact amount you rounded up because you do have the taxes however round up no matter the cost being you know round to the low the the nearest number if it's $310 you're still going to round up to $4 this is also a great thing to do if you have a little helper with you little helpers love to help my daughter right now her favorite thing is reading she's obsessed with reading so she loves to take the grocery list and find the things that we're picking up and mark them off but I honestly think that I'm going to go and stick a calculator in her hand and see how it goes because I think she will enjoy it as she's getting more into the math fundamentals now and seeing how it works out in the real world so it's also an education thing for them but what happens when you do this is once you've reached that budget you know let's again say $100 then you're done and then you get the the checkout and what if you come in at $90 or even less great wonderful by the end of the month if you continue to do that you've got an extra $40 to $50 in your budget that you can take and spend somewhere else number 12 is to always always always sign up for the Loyalty program at your grocery store these are giving away to coupons you know back in the day the paper coupons you know the couponing extreme coupon funing basically that's it's a dying industry as far as that goes and the coupons are now being loaded on the app the sales are through the app this is easier work for the grocery store because it's just the scanning of the app but also they will have benefits these are things that you're buying anyway I'm not talking about credit card benefits I'm talking about things like if you spend $100 you get 10 cents off of your gas it's a fantastic deal I know one time what we'll often do is because the gas station that Associates with the store that we use is not always the most convenient to us so we'll wait until our money kind of stacks up on it and we know we're going past it and we will fill up I have saved up to over a dollar a gallon by the amount of monthly points I've had stacked up on my card so always sign up for the loyalty card and see what those perks are number 13 is regarding bulk buys this is one you often see as a frequent tip for grocery now I want to say bulk buys are great keep in mind that these are things that you want to get that are a longer shelf life or just non perishable items consumable items things like toilet paper uh soaps dishwasher things maybe some canned goods things that last longer pasta Etc if you have larger families certainly those big huge things of fruit and food might be also beneficial for you but make these bulk by trips less often and obviously it's easier to do if it is doing it less often because you're stocking up on things that aren't as perishable so that's just my tip right there for bulk buys do it intentionally and make sure that you're getting the benefit there number 14 is to do what they did back during the Great Depression and this was to use fillers things like making meatloaf where you would add oats to it to make it go further you'd have more portions are things that were used to make fillers to stretch that meat further because the cost of meat was so high so think about this when you're making other foods not just meatloaf but other foods that you could maybe add some oats or potato flakes or something to to stretch them a little bit further number 15 counter to number 14 you don't stretch the meat maybe you eliminate the meat for some meals and you substitute them for non-meat proteins like beans and lentils things that are still Whole Foods even somebody who Absol abolutely loves meat can understand replacing that portion of a plate every once in a while maybe a meatless Monday with some delicious versions of these meals and honestly you can do so much with lentils and with beans and with chickpeas that are delicious and great still great sources of protein and are way less expensive number 18 you probably heard when you know somebody's maybe having a baby or they've lost a loved one that neighbors might come together and make freezer meals for them things that they can easily pull out and make and have a yummy meal we need to rethink doing this on a more frequent way basis for ourselves maybe on the weekend that we have a lot of extra time we make meals that are really freezer friendly which are easy to find if you just go on Pinterest and put freezer friendly meals and a ton will pop up and specifically individually portioning these so enough for a family or individual individual portions that way it's easy and you only have to to pull out one at a time and not a big you know casserole of it if you know you're not going to eat it because it won't refreeze so portioning it out and making some freezer meals for yourself especially if you know the holiday season's coming upon us it's going to be rush rush rush go go go taking some time out to go ahead and do that for yourself number 17 this is one quick one that I'm going to remind you always look at unit prices and there are some grocer stores may not have unit prices if you find that you can go and Google unit price calculator a lot of times there's a free app that you can download that is a unit price calculator you just put in the cost and then you put in the unit PR or the units how many ounces the bottle is ETC and it will give it to you it's a little bit more work than a store that automatically shows it to you but again as I talked about earlier with the generic brand I my eye doesn't go to the cost of something anymore it goes to the unit price because I've Just Seen way too often how the cost of something isn't the true reflection or to true best deal it's the unit price where you find that number 18 I'm going to say it because I say it a lot and it's just straight meal planning now this there's so many people that say meal planning is not for me okay if you have you tried it if you if your budget is really straight into the grocery store let me tell you this is one way to make it quick and it's so simple all right let me tell you the quick way to do it take a piece of paper out write down all the meals you make all the time yeah you always find yourself making grilled cheese tomato soup making meatloaf and mashed potatoes inside of carrots a big salad all the time Family favorites write them all down I don't care if it's only seven or eight I don't care if it's 50 now you can do this on a monthly basis or you can do it on a weekly basis whatever's up to you you do it every 3 days however often you go to the store maybe the better option take your calendar out take your list out plug it in done this is going to save you heaps of money heaps heaps of money number 19 is one of those things that we want to put as much resistance towards procrastination or you know going out to eat or the excuse more rather of I'm too tired number 19 helps with this and it is to prep for your meals for the week and this does not have to take a long time this is simple as maybe Sunday afternoon so maybe your typical you work Monday through Friday maybe Sunday afternoon you take the chicken breast you chop it up into little cubes and you chop up your bell peppers and your onions for your you know for your chicken and vegetable rice meal on Tuesday and then maybe for instance like me last Sunday we had black bean burgers on Monday so I went ahead and took the black beans put them in the oven got them a little dried out chopped up and sauteed my onions and my um what do you all those things bell peppers as I just mentioned put them all together I patted them out put them in the fridge so that Monday when I got home all I had to do was pop them on the grill things like this help again put resistance against that excuse well I've already prepped it it's only going to take a few minutes prepping during that time is going to save it's going to save you you're going to eat better and you're going to save money number 20 is one that many of you over the years have said has been well more recently since it became a more widespread thing grocery pickup has been the way that you know you're going to stay on budget with your food because most of the places there's a minimum maybe it's $35 and there's no fee after that you put in your what you're going to uh what you want to buy you can sit there on the app or on the computer and you can plug it all in you can see everything check it off your list make sure you have everything there you can see the running total yes I'm within budget I can even still see if something else is on sale I've got a little bit more room in my budget so I'm going to put a few few more cans of those soups that were on sale in my cart and what this does is again keeps you out of the store keeps you from Temptation if that's an issue for you keeps you from smelling those Bakery Goods or smelling that rotisserie chicken that I continue to talk about that I don't I no longer eat cuz chicken and me do not mix very well and that keeps you from making those purchases and it has saved so many people money now there are a few as with anything caveats always check your order to make sure everything is in there that you purchased always check your fruits vegetables and things make sure they're good quality if they are not when you're home call my store when I have done this and I don't do this all the time but when I've done this in a pinch maybe a busy weekend they will actually credit me for the full amount of the item and I can go and get a brand new one number 21 is to stop looking at what's just in front of your face what's in front of your face at I don't know the typical average height of an adult human is not always the best price often times that is the item that is the most profit for the store so it's going to be the their lowest cost their highest uh C their lowest cost your highest cost the most margin that they make so you're going to want to look up and look down because again very similar items but you're going to save a ton of money just do it experiment a bit if you have some extra time at the grocery store and just look at the unit price differences between what's at your eye level and what's not number 22 is when you're making a meal or when you're planning to do it this is one thing we love to do is we will make two or three extra portions so we'll make enough as if there were two or three extra people and that way my husband and I have additional meals that we can eat through the week for our lunches and it's not one of these situations where you meal prep by you bake a whole bunch of you know rice vegetables and whatever other protein source and you have to eat that 6 days in a row and nobody really wants to do that hey if you can do that great fantastic but a lot of people have an objection to that they want a little bit of variety and doing this where the meals that you make a little at a time you make more than what's needed then you can actually eat different and more variety through the week so that you don't get burnout on it number 23 is to shop the perimeter of the store spend as little time as possible in the middle aisles there obviously are things that you will need in the middle aisles let's say like cooking oils or spices or pastas Etc certainly but stay out of the middle aisles as much as possible that is where the most processed food and sometimes the more expensive items sometimes really not good but cheap items so I've heard the argument well the stuff on the perimeter is really is much more expens expensive it's Fresh Foods holer more nutritional foods for you and yes they might be more expensive not always but hear me out on this when you fill yourself up with processed salt sugar foods that you find in these middle middle aisles I'm talking about boxed prepackaged meals what it actually does is sure you might save money on that item but it actually makes your body hungrier because they are empty calories therefore you end up eating more therefore spending more so you actually are not coming out ahead in the end this is why I say to shop the perimeter of the store number 24 is to create a Zone in your fridge for your leftovers this is because otherwise The Leftovers are going to get pushed by something else to the back of the fridge where they're going to grow all kinds of fun stuff that's you know not meant to be eaten because you're going to forget about them and then the whole point of making extra is a moot point because you now don't eat it because you don't know it's there if you have designated a specific area in your fridge it's a lot harder to say oh we don't have anything to eat oh I'm just going to you know pull something out of the freezer oh can you just pick up some takeout on your way home we don't have anything you open it up and go yep right there it is it's in its Zone create that zone so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle number 25 goes along with number 24 and it's to pick one day a week where you clean out this Zone that's where everybody knows that this day so for instance you subscribe to a uh method of taco Tuesdays you know salad Wednesdays I don't know uh chicken dish Thursdays and on Fridays maybe you call it cleanout Zone Friday you eat all the leftovers doesn't matter what's in there that's what we have to eat we have to clean it out pull it out see if you can make something unique out of it or you know what put it all together I am not one who subscribes to the fact that you can't eat peas and pizza I don't get it I don't care eat it it's they're both delicious on their own and certainly together whoever said they don't go together I don't care I'm going to eat it anyway clean out that zone this is best to do the night before you go to the the store so for instance for us it might be on Friday night because we go to the store on the weekend that way you can clear that zone out you can see clearly what's in the fridge at that point so if you've got some extra items left over maybe there still are some few car a few carrots you can more easily see what is available when you are doing the planning for your week the next four are rapid fire these are quick but they're smart and they're going to help number 26 is to always check your receipt you don't may not do it in the store if there's a long line of people and the cashier looks like she's about to pull her hair out go out to the car go over the receipt see if there's any duplicates see if the price changed it some anything that pops out at you if something huge pops out at you it could be a huge red flag that way there's no resistance again you're going to go right back into the store and get that cleared up at the customer service checkout number 27 is to organize your pantry one of my favorite ways to do this with cans because we have pull out um we have open pantry and you pull out the drawers so it's not a closet and you walk out walk in and there are shelves so what we do with our cans is we write the expiration date and we write what it is so short form so green beans is GB chickpeas is chickpea whatever it is on top of the can that way you know and you can easily find it this is a world of difference for me if I'm getting ready to make beanballs which is like a version of Meatballs uh with my kidney beans I can open up my P my pantry and say oh yep I'm good I see two that say kidney number 28 is to grate your own cheese the thing about cheese is it's a lot less expensive if you buy it by the Block versus shredding it or buying it pre-shredded also what you don't realize is there's like a film that they put over pre-shredded cheese so that it doesn't Clump together with the moisture so it kind of keeps the moisture in which doesn't always work well with your recipes if your recipe needs the moisture from the cheese in order to help bring moisture to the dish so if you choose to buy pre-shredded cheese the dish could be a little dry or not the way you expected it based on the recipe so that is why buying the the cheese in the block quickly taking a bit of time you could also use this as one of the items that you prep for the week you're having pizzas on Wednesday so on Saturday everybody sits and shreds the cheese for that Wednesday meal put it in a container and you'll have it ready number 29 is the last one and it's to pack snacks a lot of people talk about packing their lunch or maybe even packing their breakfast but also pack snacks I am a big snacker I've been a snacker since I had my daughter meaning I don't eat big meals I snack more often because when you're pregnant with a 9.4 lb baby uh and you're only 5 fo4 there's not a lot of room for your stomach so you have to eat small meals often so I kind of used to it so I eat small meals often so packing snacks is just something that's been a smart thing for me rather than stopping at a gas station or a drive-thru to get something really quick because I'm hungry I hope you enjoyed this video I most certainly enjoyed putting it together for you because I think again this is a significant budget item that you can really save a lot of money if you put some thought and some intentionality behind it I would love to know if you all have any fantastic money-saving tips when it comes to food put those down in the comments below as I've mentioned throughout this video I've learned so much from you and I want to continue to learn from you so please share your knowledge with not just me but everybody else who loves to dive into the comments of these videos If you enjoyed it make sure you hit that Thumbs Up Button if you haven't hit the Subscribe button yet make sure you hit the Subscribe button it's free all you have to do 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Channel: JENNIFER COOK

Views: 80,836

Keywords: save money, how to save money, how to save money fast, how to save money with low income, frugal tips, frugal living, frugal ways to save money, reduce food cost

Id: Z9_E6luHCow

Length: 34min 26sec (2066 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 15 2023