{"id":13098,"date":"2010-09-02T22:41:15","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T02:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/?p=13098"},"modified":"2010-09-02T22:41:15","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T02:41:15","slug":"5-simple-ways-to-cut-your-grocery-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/frugal-living\/5-simple-ways-to-cut-your-grocery-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Simple Ways to Cut Your Grocery Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"grocery<\/a>
\nLast month I challenged myself to cut my grocery bill by 10%. The reason for the reduction was to give our family extra money for stockpiling. I ended up cutting almost 20% from our bill, but part of that was because we all got sick and no one made it to the store!<\/p>\n

As promised, here are some simple tips to help trim your grocery bill each month.<\/p>\n

Match Sales with Coupons<\/h3>\n

Ten years ago this was a lot of work! But today, with so many blogs doing grocery store match-ups and coupons there is no reason you can’t get things for free or nearly free at your local store. This tip requires some strategic shopping and usually involves shopping at several stores to get the super deals, but if you have the time it is worth it! If you are a true coupon newbie, check out the Getting Started with Coupons Discussion<\/a> in the Frugal Living Community.<\/p>\n

Menu Plan<\/h3>\n

A simple menu plan will save you hundreds of dollars a year on groceries. Even if you don’t like structure, you can create a menu list for each week. You don’t have to assign meals to specific days, but rather come up with 5 meals you want to make that week. Make sure you have the ingredients for those meals before the week begins. You can wait until the night before to decide your dinner by looking at your menu list. You know what they say, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.”<\/p>\n

Cut the Meat<\/h3>\n

Did you know that the USDA Food pyramid only recommends 2 -3 servings of Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs, and Nuts a day? A serving size of meat is 2-3 ounces! Given those guidelines a pound of beef could easily feed a family of five. Consider substituting beans<\/a> for meat or using beans to stretch the meat in two to three meals a week. Beans are cheap, healthy, and taste great if you make them correctly. Meat is expensive and is harder to find on sale. By reducing your meat you can reduce your grocery bill.<\/p>\n

Buy Generic<\/h3>\n

Many, many years ago my husband worked in the produce department at a grocery store. This store sold two brands of milk, one was a “name brand” and the other was a store brand. People would pay $1 more a gallon because they believed the name brand tasted better. My husband learned that both brands were made and bottled at the same factory! It was the exact same milk! If you can’t get a deal on name brand items consider switching to generic. Most of the time these items are just as good, they just don’t spend millions of dollars in advertising so their price is lower.<\/p>\n

Take a Calculator to the Grocery Store<\/h3>\n

Think you are getting a great deal? Get out your calculator and make sure. Many times a certain size item is on sale and has a coupon, but there might be a similar item in a different size without a coupon. You can only know which is cheaper by finding out the cost per ounce. While this is usually on the shelf, if you have a coupon this changes the equation. Before you buy, do the math.<\/p>\n

Coming up next week: 5 Simple Ways to Menu Plan<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

photo credit: The Consumerist<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month I challenged myself to cut my grocery bill by 10%. The reason for the reduction was to give our family extra money for stockpiling. I ended up cutting almost 20% from our bill, but part of that was because we all got sick and no one made it to the store! As promised, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-frugal-living","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/frugal-living\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/frugal-living\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/frugal-living\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/frugal-living\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/frugal-living\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/frugal-living\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/frugal-living\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/frugal-living\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/frugal-living\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}