Here are ten shopping secrets that will relieve the stress of shopping and will save you money at the check out. These shopping techniques apply to soft goods, hardgoods, durables, perishables and imperishables.

1. When you grocery shop, it is a tried and true rule to not go to the grocery store while you are hungry. Hunger is a stimulant and stimulants just like an alcoholic drink will make you make irrational decisions. You may have made up a list of what you need on a weekly basis but the hunger factor will make those impulsive items placed strategically in the walkway to get to mostly used grocery items. Make it a habit to not head off to the grocery store thinking to beat the crowds and come out of the store with a $200 bill when your plan and the items on your list added up to $100. This rule can also apply to dry goods such as cloths. Do not wait until the day of the event and go out shopping in a needy situation because you have absolutely nothing to wear to the wedding. You are in fact hungry for something to wear and because of the urgency, my end of spending more. When you hear of the event do not wait to the last minute to shop for something
to wear. In fact, make a mental note of what you already have in the closet that you can maybe accessorize to pep up an old outfit instead of spending money on an outfit that you probably will have only once. An appetite will make you spend more at the grocery store and a needy situation of something to wear because of urgency will cause you to overspend way above your planned intentions.

2. Make it a habit to not shop for an item while you still have the ingredients to make a meal. You should not make it a habit of shopping weekly if your last shopping trip netted you enough food to last more than one week. Augment what you have in the kitchen cabinet and in the refrigerator instead of buying new meals and seeing the same boxes of spaghetti for example go unused. Your savvy shopping of using coupons the previous week netted you some great bargains that you purchased with the plan of making a meal. Do not let you shopping savvy go to waste. Use the items bought with saving coupons to make meals and to continue to save money. You will need to have a list when you shop so you can plan meals to use the unused items to help stretch you money. Your plan is to spend less and to use what you have in the cupboards and the pantry. You do not have to wait until the cupboards are depleted but make a plan to use an item that has been
sitting on the shelf that with a few supplements will make a great meal.

3. Haggling is not only designated to be used on the used car lot with the shady salesman. You can haggle just about anything that has a price tag on it. If you find a purchase such as a dress that has a small flaw, you may ask to speak to the manager and ask for a discount. Because of the recession, shoppers are finding that a coat is a coat whether you purchase it from Macy’s or the local thrift store. Take advantage of the thrift store’s proclivity to need new merchandise. Most of these places offer added discounts to the items that have previously been marked down. Goodwill stores has a new incentive because of the influx of shoppers who need to save money because of the recession. Each time a donation is dropped off, the shopper is given a card that is stamped. After four stamps, the Goodwill stores card can be used to get a whopping twenty percents off of reduced merchandise. Imagine visiting a thrift store and then getting to
the check out with a twenty percent increase in savings. The twenty percent savings gives you the incentives to clean out the closets and to find what you can to donate for such a great savings discount. The transaction is a win win situation.

4. Shop smart and think twice before jumping into your car to go shopping for a need that you can probably do without. If your child needs school supplies for the following day, check around the house and see if you can find the items as you would have been smart enough to stock up on school supplies when Office Max had the back to school sale. Some items were offered as cheap as one cents so all you need to do is to go to the organized school cabinet and located the needed item instead of jumping in the car and heading to Walmart. If you walk into Walmart more likely than not, you will pick up more that just the pencils. It is something relaxing about going into a place full of stuff that makes you want to pick up other stuff that you had no penchant of buying. That is why you should limit the number of trips you make to the stores because the idea of getting away from your old stuff and looking at all of the shiny new goods will make you want to drop it in your card. You may find yourself saying that you deserve to have that Mr. Goodbar of pure chocolate and peanuts. The store is having a sale on a whole bag of the chocolate at a discount so why not stock up for the rest of the week. You will quickly forget that you went to the store to get a set of pencils that your child requested.

So you are shopping smart by following three rules. Stock up on school supplies when the sales are prevalent in the months of July and August and sometimes as early as the last part of June. Do not frequent stores through the week because you may think that you deserve a truckload of chocolate considering your stress levels and you probably do. The smart thing to do however is to not go to the store to be tempted and save your gas in the mean time. Stores are designed to make you want to buy with bright lights and impulsive items where you have to walk around. Do not be tempted. Try not to make any
visits to the stores in the middle of the week.

5. Let other people who can afford to pay full price for items that you are in need of. It is alright to head to the clearance and bargain racks. With the state of today’s economy, it is smart to save money. You have to stretch each dollar and save for what may be an eventual job loss that is effecting quite a few Americans these days. It makes sense to purchase a coat out of season and from the clearance and bargain racks. The coat provides comfort whether you pay full priced which is overly priced if you knew what the store paid in wholesale costs. Do not tell yourself that you can not buy a coat in the spring or summer. Buying what may be needed ahead of time is called planning. Be a good planner and purchase that coat from the clearance rack because the attire is out of season. Coats will be back in season in a few months and you will be proud of yourself being smart and buying ahead of time saving all of that money. The only difference in items from the clearance rack and the regular priced rack is that management thinks that the item will not be purchased because it is out of season, so they reduced the price. Management did not reduce the price for you. But that bit of knowledge is alright because you are going to be smart and place that coat in the cart beside your beach equipment and save your money.

Follow these smart ways of shopping and any one of these steps will put you on the right path to shopping smart. After reading these five steps to smart shopping, saving money is no longer a secret.