Money Saving Food Shopping TIP:

Your local newspaper usually has flyers from many different stores. The major grocery stores will always have flyers near their entrance that list the weekly specials. Be warned: these so-called specials may or may not be on sale. Just because it is listed in an advertisement doesn’t mean it’s a good deal.

Big box stores normally list clothes, electronics, dog and cat products, house wares, and many other items in their flyers. Since the food section is usually about one-fifth of the store, their standard prices may be lower than other store’s sale prices. Take some time to visit the nearest big box store and compare prices. Also remember that the store’s own brand is often just
As good as name brands and normally costs a lot less. That is true with any product in stores that sells their own store brands. If you have always bought a certain brand of baked beans and haven’t even looked at other brands, look at the store brand. Often the ingredients are the same, or close to the same.

Another thing you have to consider is the size of a product. Will there be enough food in this can or package to feed my family? Will there be too much food and the excess be wasted? There is a solution that can save you time and money. Compare the price and size of the canned product to the vegetables in the frozen food section. Frozen food also comes in name brands and store brands. Often buying a large bag of frozen vegetables is less expensive.

Carry a small calculator with you to determine cost per ounce of the canned and frozen vegetables to learn which package would be cheaper. Simply divide the cost of the product by the size to get the cost per ounce.

EXAMPLE: If a can of green beans is 15 ounces and cost 50 cents per can, then divide 50 by 15 and you will find out that it costs 3.3 cents per ounce to purchase that product. A frozen package of green beans may be 64 ounces and costs $1.75. This ends up costing 2.7 cents per ounce.

Many stores already have these prices broken down and listed on the shelves under the price. Another advantage of buying the frozen package is you can measure out the amount of food your family eats and only prepare that amount. This not only saves money, it prevents waste, and it also means you don’t have to store the leftover food in the refrigerator.

Practically everything in the grocery portion of the store will have a store brand or generic brand that saves you money. This is true with canned goods, cereal, hot dogs, bacon, medicine products, cleaning products, and many other items. Taking a few seconds comparing labels can save you a lot of money each shopping trip.