Looks Like We’ll Have To Save Money In 2012 As Well…

You don’t have to give up on all your favorite grocery brands and go totally generic. Learn how to use coupons so you can buy your favorite name-brand items for pennies on the dollar by combining coupons with sales. Base your purchases on price rather than brand and you will be saving.

 

Marked-down groceries are typically soon-to-be-expiring items (dairy products, meat, and produce). Not all stores offer markdowns, and store policies can vary widely. The best way to find out is to ask the produce manager what they do with produce, dairy, or meat products that are nearing their sell-by dates.

 

Dollar stores often have great prices on spices as well as plastic bags. You can buy Nature’s Own sandwich bread and hamburger buns for just $1 each at the Dollar Store, more than 50 percent off what you would pay at the grocery store. Check their prices from time to time.

 

Buying grains, dried beans, as well as many other basic ingredients with long storage lives in large quantities will usually save you at least 20 percent, if not more. Call up a few friends and neighbors, buy in bulk and split the costs if you don’t have enough storage space or if there’s no money in the budget. It is normally much more cost- effective to purchase meat and staple ingredients in bulk.

 

A crock pot is a great tool in your moneysaving campaign. You can pop ingredients for dinner in it in the morning and have a hot meal all ready by 5:00 p.m. Many of the newer crock pots even have time-delay features on them so that you can set them to turn on later in the day.

 

Meatless doesn’t have to mean calorie-free or tasteless! When my husband and I were living on a beans-and-rice budget while he was in law school, we couldn’t afford to buy a lot of meat. We often served breakfast foods for dinner. Or we’d have soup and a roll.

 

Why buy bread and buns when you can bake them yourself? Check out the pros and cons of owning your own bread machine. But borrow one to make sure it will work for you before you go out and invest in one.

 

Train yourself to use two-thirds of the amount you usually do and you’ll save 33 percent. Use half the amount of washing soaps, detergents, condiments, etc. and you start saving instantly!

 

Eat all your own stocks of food before you go shopping. Learn to make meals out of items you already have on hand.

 

Walmart and Target both match competitors’ prices. Just bring the competitor’s ad in to verify the price. So if you see a great deal on grapes or bread at a grocery store miles away and Walmart is just two blocks away, bring the grocery store’s ad to Walmart and get the same deals.