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Has your grocery budget taken a nose dive?Yoy know. . .
A sudden swift drop or plunge.
As you may know, groceries can eat up a big part of your household budget.
If we aren’t mindful, we can go throw an awful lot of food without realizing it, forcing us to go buy more groceries and mess up our spending.
A recent NFCC news release encourages people to know where our money does to put your in control.
Follow these ideas to reduce what you spend and stay on budget at the supermarket.
Grocery Tips: Simple Tactics to Empower Your Grocery Dollars and Save
1. First things first.
Determine what you can spend. If you aren’t sure, make a budget or use a free online calculator to quickly make a sample budget. Once you determine the amount you can spend, find ways to eat healthy on a budget. Also, download a cheap and healthy shopping list for starters. If you rather choose your own options, make your own meal plan template here.
2. Lean towards gift cards.
Yes, go get some gift cards for the grocery store for the amount you need for the month. Not all months are created equal so sometimes you’ll have to divide your monthly grocery bill accordingly. If the month has 4 weeks in it, divide up the monthly amount by 4 to get the weekly amount you should spend. Put that amount on 4 different cards. Then bring one card per week, so you can’t spend more than the allotted amount. You just have to make sure you grocery shop wisely to meet your goals. It’s easy to go on a whim and buy a bunch of snacks that leave you feeling hungry an hour later and make you end up back at the store. This will force you t be more careful in my opinion.
2. Fight for Your Right to Freeze Items
I never knew you could freeze bananas. Who would have thunk it? Do this in an effort to use what you have before it spoils. Sometimes we get a little overzealous in the produce section of the grocery store. Everything looks so colorful and tasty that we may buy to many items without realizing that we can’t even eat all of the fresh produce before it spoils. To avoid tossing them, keep track of what you eat daily by writing down the groceries you bought. Check off what you eat as you go. Keep the list on the fridge or close by to remember to do so. You can also just use your handy grocery store receipt to do the same. Get the full scoop about that idea here.
3. Loss Aversion to the rescue.
According to a recent New York Times article, it’s harder to part with cash. Use loss aversion to your advantage. As humans, we are hard wired to strongly prefer acquired gains as opposed to losses. It sounds like a no-brainer. Who wouldn’t rather win than lose? Any takers? (Crickets.) I didn’t think so. Make it your go-to method of payment when you are trying to stick to your budgeted amount for groceries or any other money goal you want to accomplish. It will make you stop and think before handing over those precious Benjamins (or even Washingtons, I suppose).
4. Be on the lookout.
Planning a decent meal for your family doesn’t have to be a headache. Scout out cheap dinner ideas and other recipes so you can meal plan for the week. Here are some useful ones I gathered up for ya. I like to have posts with many suggestions so I don’t have to search so much every week. Use these recipes to make no fuss meals and save in the process.
Budget Cooking Recipes [All Recipes]
Budget Meals: Feed 4 for $10 [Cooking Light]
How To Plan Your Meals When Your Week is Erratic [Money Saving Enthusiast]
Sweet Potato Tater Tots Recipe [Super Glue Mom]
Budget Recipes [Whole Foods Market]
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J.Money, Budgets are Sexy and Rockstar Finance