Grocery Shopping Are you all prepared for your weekly shopping? Did you know that by shopping once a week you could save 50% on your bill! It's true! BUT, you need to prepare. How? Let me tell you my secrets...
First of all, start out by cleaning the fridge. Get rid of all those nasty wilted vegetables and leftovers that are growing green things on them! You need the room for your groceries! :) Next, take inventory. What items do you have on hand? What are you lacking to make a meal out of it? Write a grocery list along with a menu... In other words, if you have some chicken in the freezer, what dish do you want to make with it? Say you decide to make Chicken Parmesan... do you have all the ingredients? If not, add what you will need to your grocery list. What about side dishes? What will you have? Do you already have it or do you have another item for your grocery list? Continue this until you have a week's menu created and a list of ingredients you'll need. Don't forget items for breakfast and lunch. This can be a killer budget wise because of all those nice individually packaged lunch bag items! Instead, try to buy the bigger packages and pack lunch-sized amounts in baggies. It doesn't take that much more time and saves a bundle. Also, don't forget any snack items you need. There are plenty of ways to cut dollars on this area. Can you make it from scratch for cheaper? A cake mix is MUCH cheaper than a store bought cake. Can you substitute something else with the same pizzazz? Instead of buying mini pizzas try making your own using a can of refrigerated biscuits as the crust. (be sure to do a price comparison though.. if it costs more to make your own pizza's by all means buy the others.. esp. if it's on sale with a coupon..which we'll discuss later on.) Next, Go do inventory on your dry goods. Do you have enough laundry soap to get through the week? How about paper towels, toilet paper, dish soap, napkins, personal products, toothpaste, deodorant, hair spray, shampoo, soap, cleaning supplies.. ? Did you remember to put down food for your pets? Litter? Are there special items you need?.. Do your kids need school paper? Do you need computer paper? Stockings for church or work? Stamps? Envelopes? Is there a birthday or other special occasion you need a card for? Write it all down. I know you're getting quite a list and it looks scary! That's ok.. now get out your weekly sales flyer from the grocery store. What's on sale? Try to match what you buy with what you have on your list? Is a certain brand of french fries on sale? Mark it on your list. When you have this done, you might want to look at the "loss leaders" that are listed on the front page of the flyer. Are these staple items that you could stock your pantry with? I almost always buy at least a couple of these items. I can then plan next week's menu around them or adjust this week's menu to include them! Coupons. There is a trick to coupons. Do you know what it is? Only use a coupon on an item that you are buying anyway unless it's free and then only if using that coupon gives you the lowest price!!! This is important! If you never buy TV dinners, don't buy them because there's a coupon for them! But if you are buying cereal, and it's on sale, and you have a coupon for it too, that could be a great deal! Likewise, just because something is on sale and has a coupon doesn't mean that's the lowest price for the item! Try not to be too brand loyal. Try store brands and generics. I have had great luck with most store brands and you know what? Most of them are made by brand name companies anyway! They just change the labels!! That's the truth! So give it a try. Sometimes it's much cheaper! Finally, put all your coupons and your list into an envelope. You can use a new one or recycle an old one that one of the bills came in. This will keep it all together for the store. When at the store try to stick to your list as closely as possible.. but, if the store is having a REALLY good sale on something, don't pass it buy if you can help it because you can add it to the pantry for next week's meals! Sometimes, stores have daily specials that are unadvertised. Keep your eyes open. Once you get the hang of this it's really easy and much nicer than going every day to the store! Plus you will save big time because you won't be in there everyday buying things that you don't need! (impulse buying.. stores really rake in the money on this! Don't give them your hard earned money!) Also, keep your menu close by, on the fridge or taped inside a cupboard.. this will help immensely when planning dinners for the day. Happy Shopping! This article was taken from the website http://www.geocities.com/heartshome_2000/kitchen.html *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Journey from clutter List Website http://journeyfromclutter.com Members Only Page http://journeyfromclutter.com/MembersOnly/MembersArea.htm Unsubscribe: email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word 'unsubscribe' in the 'Subject:' field to be removed from the main list. To Unsubscribe from the Digest version of the list send the unsubscribe message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
