Feeding your family can be expensive. In fact, the average U.S. household spends more than $8,000 a year on food (about $5,000 for meals prepared at home and $3,000 for dining out).
Luckily, there are ways you can save money on groceries if you’re willing to put in some work. We’ve compiled nine tips to help you save on food costs.
1. Learn How to Find Coupons
It may seem old school, but many stores offer their best deals and coupons in a printed circular that they produce or in local newspapers or magazines. Before you toss yours in the recycling bin, dust off your scissors and clip offers on items you’re planning to purchase.
Many stores have digitized their sales offerings, as well. You may be able to pull them up on the website to scan at checkout, download them to your phone, or save them in an app, depending on the store.
To get access to the digital coupons, you might need to make an account online and/or have a loyalty card with the store. Fortunately, these are typically free, so all it costs is a few minutes of your time to get set up.
2. Understand Coupon Lingo and Store Guidelines
Stores often have their own guidelines and policies when it comes to coupons. These policies may state what types of coupons they’ll accept and how many coupons you can use in a single transaction. Some stores also limit the number of coupons you can use on a single item.
But not all the news in these policies is bad. You may also discover that a store will allow coupons to be doubled on certain days, that they accept competitor coupons, or that you can get a rain check on your savings if the item you’re trying to purchase with a coupon is unavailable.
Pro tip: make sure your coupons are unexpired (although there are some stores that will accept them if they are expired – it never hurts to ask!) and that the barcode is fully legible, not physically cut off (on a paper coupon) or cropped out (on a digital coupon you’ve saved).
3. Organize Your Coupons
If you decide to dive deep into couponing, you’ll want to get organized and keep your coupons all in one place. Some popular techniques include using a binder to store your coupons or filing them in a small box.
Divide your coupons by type and expiration date. You can create categories such as:
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Meat
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Produce
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Cereals
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Snack Foods
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Pet Supplies
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Cleaning Products
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Personal Care Products
If you use a binder, store the coupons using photo or baseball card sleeves. You can use tab dividers to separate each section. Put the coupons that are going to expire soonest at the front of the binder so that you remember to use them first.
Another option is to create a separate section for coupons that will expire that week and place it at the front of your binder. Go through the binder each week to take out unused, expired coupons and to move soon-to-expire coupons to the front.
4. Know What to Clip
When you’re clipping coupons, don’t be afraid to toss (or recycle!) the ones you don’t need. Even better, give them to another shopper looking to save. If you know of other people who regularly coupon, you might set up a coupon swap with them. You can give them coupons you have and know you won’t use, and vice versa. Some organizations, such as libraries, may have coupon exchanges set up, as well.
So, how do you know what you won’t need? The answer is simple – if it’s a product you wouldn’t have purchased without a coupon, you likely don’t need it with one. Stocking up on items you won’t use, just because they’re on sale, will likely result in unused items and unnecessary spending.
5. Get Familiar with Your Go-To Grocery Store
Become familiar with the coupon and sales policies at the grocery store(s) you visit most. One way to do that is to create a price book using a spreadsheet or notebook, so that you can combine sales and coupons and get the best price on items you use regularly. Stores usually mark down items cyclically. Knowing when a particular item will be on sale at a store can help you avoid paying too much for it.
Creating a price book lets you keep track of sale and non-sale prices of products you buy often. Whenever you buy something, record the item’s name, amount or size, the price you paid, and the date of purchase. Do this every time you buy the same item, and you’ll start to see the sale pattern.
For example, a jar of spaghetti sauce might be $2.50 when it’s not on sale. The next week, the store might mark it down to $2. The week after, the sauce might be buy one, get one free. Two weeks later, the sauce might be $1 per jar. Finally, the sauce might return to its non-sale price of $2.50.
Using your price book, you can see that the best price of a particular brand of spaghetti is $1 per jar. If you stock up on the sauce during the weeks when it’s on sale for $1 and use a coupon for it, you’ll pay the lowest price.
If you see a good sale, other shoppers will likely pounce on it, too. If you get to the store and see the item is out of stock, don’t panic. Instead, ask a clerk if they offer a rain check.
A rain check is a piece of paper that promises you the sale price on a product once it’s back in the store. It might take a couple of days or a week before you can purchase the item, but you can still save money getting it for the best price.
6. Buy in Bulk
It can pay off financially to buy the products you use the most in bulk. Typically, bulk buying means a lower unit price, so you end up saving money over the long run. You might have to pay more for the product upfront, but you can reduce the upfront expense by purchasing when items are on sale and combining the sale price with a coupon. Bulk buying on double or triple coupon days helps you save even more.
Before you buy in bulk, make sure you have enough room in your home to store the items. If you purchase a large bottle of shampoo, you might pour some into a smaller container to keep in the shower and store the remaining bottle under the sink or in a bathroom closet. If you purchase dry pantry goods in bulk, you can keep them in jars or airtight plastic containers in a closet or cabinet in the kitchen.
7. Let Go of Brand Loyalty
Store-brand or private-label products are often just as good or better than name-brand products. They are usually a fraction of the cost of name-brand items. Unless an item is on sale or you have a coupon that makes the brand-name version cheaper than the store-brand option, your best bet usually is to purchase the store-brand version.
While you aren’t likely to see manufacturer’s coupons for store-brand products, many supermarkets will mark down their own brand of items from time to time or will offer store coupons for those items. Keep track of sales and coupons with your price book so that you can maximize your savings.
8. Let Go of Store Loyalty
If you usually only go to one grocery store, it’s time to consider shopping around. Different stores have different sale cycles and policies. You might find a better price on an item you buy regularly at a different grocery store than you usually frequent.
To see what’s going on at supermarkets in your area, look for an app that lets you compare item prices and discounts across multiple stores. These apps also let you “clip” digital coupons and search for rebates.
While you should shop at multiple stores to get the best deal, be conscious of how much you’re driving. If you’re eating up gallons of gas, it could negate any savings you find.
9. Use a Cash Rewards Card
Get the most for your money by combining couponing and sales shopping with using a credit card that offers cash rewards to earn money while saving. Our Founder’s Card gives you 2%* or 1.5% cash rewards on every purchase, every time. You can use the cash rewards you get to save on future supermarket purchases. Or save them for something fun! It’s up to you!
*You can earn 1.5% cash rewards on purchases. You can earn 2% cash rewards on purchases if you maintain a PSECU checking account and qualifying monthly direct deposit(s) of at least $500. Some exclusions may apply. See the Visa® Founder's Card and Visa® Alumni Rewards Card Rewards Program Terms and Conditions for full details.