ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

How to Save Money on Food in the Supermarket

Updated on December 17, 2012

There Are Many Ways to Save at The Supermarket

There are practical and easy ways to save money on your food bill. With commonsense ideas you can cut your costs and still feed your family nutritious meals. When you buy food that is pre-made, pre-cut, and pre-packaged, you are paying more for the same food you can prepare yourself. In a Consumer Reports comparison shopping test, the person who bought readily prepared food spent almost $80 more, than the person who did the work to chop and prepare the food themselves. Buying convenience packaged food can add significantly to your grocery bill.
Before you buy single serving sizes, bagged vegetables, pre-sliced cheese and ready made salads, compare the cost this convenience may add up for you. If you can save $80 on your food bill by chopping and preparing yourself, how long will it take you? Now think about how long it will take you to earn $80 after taxes? It might start to seem worthwhile to do the work and save the money.

Compare Prices

Another way to save is to look at the cost per unit prices.
The supermarket shelves list the price for the item and to the left bottom is the unit price. When you are looking to buy an item in the store, look at the per unit price and you can easily compare brands and sizes so you will know which item is giving you the better value. The trick is to make sure the unit prices are talking about the same unit. For example, make sure if one unit pirce is per ounce, that another brand is using per ounce, and not per quart prices. This way you can easily see which products will you can save money on. Sometimes bigger quantity isn't a cost savings

Be a Price Savvy Shopper

Buying store brands can usually save you money on the same products. Sometimes generic products are made by the brand name company they are sitting next to on the shelf. It has beeen extimated that you can save almost 33% by buying store brands instead of name brands.

You will also realize savings on your food shopping bill when you try to buy what you need, and avoid excess food purchases and leftovers. In a study done by the U.S. Dept of Agriculture, they found that Americans throw away more than 1 pound of groceries per day. Food sitting in the refrigerator waiting to spoil is a waste of food and a waste of money. Try to anticpate and schedule when you will be making the food you buy. When you buy vegetables try eating them soon after you purchase them to avoid the spoilage factor. If you make a larger quantity of food than you will be eating, freeze the extra right away to keep it as fresh as possible for your next use. Try to turn those leftovers into other creations so that you get more meals from the food, instead of having to toss it. When you have leftovers, but don’t know what to do with them, you can go online, type the food into the searchs bar or go to a recipe website and get ideas of constructive and easy ways to turn those leftovers into a delicious meal.

Every week the local supermarkets send out flyers, or you can check online flyers. Check these flyers to compare who has the best deal for the week for the food you need. With the price of gas, it usually doesn’t pay to run from store to store, but one of the markets is bound to have sales on the items you are looking to purchase for the week. Be aware, when supermarkets advertise a low price on one item, they make mark up another item that you are not aware of, and your savings may not be as good as you first believe. The savings depends on what you are buying. As with everything, you need to be an alert buyer to achieve the greatest savings.

There are Many Ways to Save Besides Coupons

It is also a good idea to grocery shop with a list of what your needs are. This will help stick to a list of what you need and may help avoid impulse buying.  The list also helps you remember what you need, so that you don’t have to make a return trip to the supermarket, which would cost you more gas and make it inviting for you to buy more food.  The more you are in a store, the more you are likely to buy something else.

The wise say it is best not to shop when you are hungry.  That is because you are more susceptible to buying food you don’t need. You have less resistance to impulse buying and your food bill will certainly be higher.

Coupons are another obvious way to save at the supermarket, provided you are buying the products you need, not buying the products just to use the coupons.  You can get coupons from the newspaper, your magazine subscriptions, online, in the mail and on the back of your cash register receipt.  One of the first places to go online is the supermarket website where you shop.  They sometimes have printable coupons. Some supermarkets also match the savings or food store coupons to be competitive. If you use manufacturer coupons, it will obviously give you significant savings when the stores are offering double and triple coupon savings. Use the food store ‘s membership card. These cards automatically take the discount off of the sale items and you don’t have to clip any coupons.

There are better ways to freeze your meats
There are better ways to freeze your meats

Freezing Tips to Save You Money

When the food store is having sales on canned goods, stocking up on the food you use will save you money. Canned goods have a longer expiration date so you have more time to use it.

Items that are sold in bulk can save you money, but you have to do the calculations to make sure it really is worth it. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. You also want to make sure will actually be using the quantity you are buying, otherwise you will have more waste and could have possibly overspent based on what you actually ended up using.

Sometimes you can buy reduced fruits and vegetables that the supermarket is looking to get rid of because of imperfections. This is a great way to use vegetables in a soup or fruits in a pie. Dented cans will also save you money, look for the place your supermarket keeps the marked down food.

When you are standing in the aisle of the supermarket, very often the items below and above eye level will be cheaper. This is because the manufacturers know people who are in a hurry will grab the items at easy reach and can profit more from the non price comparing customers.

Don’t be shy. If there is a cut of meat that you are not sure how to cook, ask the butcher. They will be happy tell you jhow to cook it for the best taste. Cooking it the right way can make all the difference in taste, and save you money because the meal worked out well. Cooking mistakes can be costly.

Snacks, chips, cookies add up in calories and cost. If you can make the cookies or cake yourself you will see a major savings in your grocery bill.


Buy what is on sale, and freeze it. If meat is on sale as an example, you can either freeze it right away, or make it and freeze it so it is ready for you to serve. If you figure out your meals around the products that are on sale, you can eat for less for the month. As far as freezing meat, the U.S. Dept of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service advises you to store meat in heavy duty aluminum foil, freezer paper, or plastic freezer wrap to keep is fresher. It is safe to keep the meat and chicken in the supermarket packaging, however it is not air tight, so its freshness will not keep as long. When thawing meat it is best to defrost it in the refrigerator on a plate at the bottom of the shelf so the meat juices don’t contaminate on other foods as it drips.
Properly defrosting frozen foods will keep your food tastier. Preventing dripping on other food, will help you avoid throwing out contaminated food.

Make cutting costs  on your grocery bill a habit and your savings will add up
Make cutting costs on your grocery bill a habit and your savings will add up

Make Saving Money Natural and Easy

Refilling water bottles with tap water will save you more money than you may realize. Try to drink water instead of soda and sugary drinks to save on cavities, calories, and cost. Making your own iced tea and lemonade are also a great way to cut your food bill.

Trying to avoid the temptation and impulsive purchases are another way towards saving money. As you stand in the checkout lane, picking up a last minute buy can be more costly than you realize.  The displays are intentionally set up to tempt you into buying small items without thinking about it. You may think it is only a couple of dollars, but at the end of the year, resisting buying these items can add up to bigger savings than you think.

Saving money on your grocery bill can be a natural and easy process. Making conscious decisions and smart purchases will save you money with very little effort. Where you do put in the effort, like chopping your own fruits and vegetables, making your own iced tea, and checking the flyers for sales, you will also see significant savings over the course of months and years. Satisfying results will make you happy you worked a little to save the money.

Supermarket Savings for Everyone

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)