Groceries are one of the biggest ticket items each month in our family budget. With inflation and the prices going up (and up, and up), how can I save money on groceries?!

The four main things I would suggest doing immediately are Stop Paying for Convenience, Stop Buying Name Brand, Comparison Shop and Join Loyalty Programs.

Stop Paying for Convenience

To save time in our life, we pay for convenience. But what line do you draw in the sand when paying “x” amount to save a little bit of time? You save time by buying a 12-ounce bag of sliced apples to throw in your kid’s lunchbox. You paid $3.99 for that convenience. Did you know that you could spend the same amount — $3.99 — and get an entire three-pound bag of apples?!! Figure it out this way…if you would give your child an apple every day for two weeks of school (ten total days) you would spend $39.90 for the convenience of sliced apples. Or get the three-pound bag of apples for $3.99 (usually get around ten apples)? Is it worth $35.91 extra for the convenience? Yeah, it’s not.

Cheese is another area where I save money. I love cheese – especially cheddar cheese. I can get a 7-ounce pack of cheddar cheese slices for $3.79, or I could get an 8-ounce chunk of cheese for $1.69 at my normal grocery store. Or I could go to my grocery store #2 and get that same chunk cheddar cheese for $1.49. Let’s say I buy a chunk of cheddar cheese each week. If I would go to grocery store #1 and get that pre-sliced cheese, I would spend $197.08 for the year. If I would just get the chunk cheddar cheese still at the same store, I would pay $ 87.88. That is still saving $109.20! Now, let’s take that a step further. I go to my second favorite grocery store (and I only go there twice a month) and buy two chunk cheddar cheese each time I go. I would pay $ 77.48 for the year. I would be saving $119.60 per year just for doing this one minor change!!!!

Stop Buying Brand Names

My husband does not mind using store brands instead of name brand products. He agrees that they probably can or jar the same product in the same facility as the brand name and he really cannot tell a difference in taste, EXCEPT for his Peter Pan Peanut Butter. They only time, and I mean, only time, I buy him his Peter Pan Peanut Butter is when it is on sale. And then I stock up on it. If he runs out of peanut butter, he does not get any more until it is on sale.

One notable example of this is pasta/spaghetti sauce. A name brand sauce costs between $2.39-$3.29 per jar. Let’s take the average of $2.84 a jar. The store brand jar at my #1 grocery store is $1.79 a jar. At my #2 grocery store I can get their sauce for only .89 a jar!!!  Yep, that is right.  Let’s just say that I buy one jar a week for 52 weeks a year. That would be $147.68 spent if I get it at my #1 grocery store. If I would buy the store brand at my #1 store and purchase it for $1.79 ($93.08), I would still save $54.60 per year. If I take that one step further and go to my #2 grocery store and buy at .89 ($46.28), I will save myself $101.40 a year!!!!!

My husband loves his iced tea. Green iced tea to be exact. When I first started getting it, I was paying $2.69 per gallon. He was and still is going through four gallons of iced tea a week!!!  So, if I would continue and keep buying the brand name iced tea all year long, I would spend $559.52 per year!!!  UGH!!  The store brand iced tea (he claims it tastes the same), costs only $1.99 per gallon. I am saving $145.60 for the year just by switching to the store brand name.

When you reach for the brand name products and think, well it is only a couple of cents difference, take a step back. Put that name brand can back on the shelf and pick up the store brand instead.

Comparison Shop

As I mentioned above, I go to #1 grocery store once a week and #2 grocery store every other week. I also go to three other stores if I find a deal on something. How do you keep all the stores straight? I use an amazingly simple spreadsheet. (Click here Comparison Shop Stores printable). Across the top I list the grocery stores that are in my area that I normally do my grocery shopping. Down the side I list what items that my family uses every week. For your sake, start with your biggest money zappers – usually meat.

My family will eat ground beef, boneless skinless chicken breasts, chicken roasters, chicken thighs, and pork. I gather all the store flyers that usually come out on Wednesday and pull the stores up on my phone/computer to check out what is on sale that week.

Boneless skinless chicken breasts have been so overpriced for the past couple of months, so we have been enjoying chicken thighs instead. I managed to score ten pounds of chicken thighs for .79 per pound at grocery store #3!!  Grocery store #2 had ground beef for $2.99 AND chicken roasters for .95 per pound! I got I big tray of ground beef and two roasters since they were on sale. (If you are not sure how to prepare cuts of meat that you normally do not eat, google recipes, Pinterest, whatever, they are a ton of recipes out there on the world wide web!!)

You might be thinking you wasting your money running to all these stores since gas prices are even higher now. Well, I plan my route every day on where I need to go. Let’s just say I must go to the bank. My bank is near #2 grocery store. Post office is near #1 grocery store. So, technically I do not go out of my way. I just learned to plan better.

Loyalty Programs

Join the loyalty programs at all the grocery stores that you shop. Take the couple of minutes and just do it. I put the little card that they send you on my key chain, so I always have them with me.

Not only do you receive the sale prices when using your loyalty card, some grocery stores offer other rewards such as money off gas, free turkeys at Thanksgiving, money off groceries, etc.

This past year at #1 grocery store I saved over $900 by just using my loyalty card. On top of that, for every $100 you spend, you can choose on free grocery items or .10 off a gallon of gas. Around Thanksgiving I usually save up my points for the turkey, the rest of the year I use it for saving on gas.

Use these four tips to start saving money on your groceries today!!  As Ben Franklin once said, “A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned”.  And as my hubby says, “Saving Money Is Making Money!!”