How to Cut 30-50% Off Your Grocery Bill

Ever get into line at the market behind one of the coupon queens? You know, one of those ladies that has a shoebox full of coupons in her cart. Obviously, all that clipping works for some people, but I'm not one of them. I tried it once. Turned out to be a huge waste of time.

Next, I followed a tip I picked up in some magazine to just go around to all the stores and buy the loss-leaders. This is time consuming, exhausting, and when gas prices rise, forget it. I quickly lost interest in this. Determined to cut expenses, I pressed on. Over the years, I've discovered a few things that really save me money and that I am comfortable doing.

Join a Shopping Club

I know, this is counter intuitive. Spend money to save money? But, if you do it right, it works. The trick is to join the right club. And that's different for different people. All the clubs will give you a guest pass and let you audition the store free of charge. Take a small notebook. Each club stocks different merchandise. Costco had almost nothing I buy, but Sam's had almost everything. Jot down prices so you can compare. I didn't need to do this as Sam's Club was the only local club store that had the products I wanted. Join the club that sells what you want for the lowest prices. If you are a meat eater, pay particular attention to meat prices. The savings here really add up. My husband and I recoup the fifty dollar yearly fee in our first two visits. Meat savings make up the biggest portion of this. Each additional time we shop at the store we are saving approx. $25 over what we would be paying for the same items at our local market. We shop once a month, you do the math.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that club store memberships won't pay unless you have a large family. At our house, there's just the two of us and we save plenty. We have a normal refrigerator/freezer. It's not even a side by side. So don't think that this won't work for you unless you have a huge amount of freezer space. Not convinced yet? Read the next money saving tip.

Maintain a Food Pantry

I can just about hear you shouting, "why do I need to buy all this food?" To save cash in two ways: On the front end you'll pay less per pound for most items when you buy in bulk. You save time and gas from not constantly running out of something and having to make another trip to the store. On the back end, let's say you have a minor financial emergency one week, you can eat out of your stash until that next paycheck shows up. Also, when you always have food in the house, you're less likely to go out to eat.

Don't tell me you don't have the storage space. We're only talking about three or four weeks worth of non perishables here. I've got toilet paper and paper towels in the bedroom closet. There's a bunch of Kleenex under the living room sofa. Several cases of tomato sauce, beans and vegetables live under my armoire. Get creative! If you want it, you'll find someplace to put it. Just like all the other stuff you buy that doesn't save you time and money. Speaking of which...

Stop Eating All That Junk!

Cook from scratch more often. Buy mostly staples. Convenience food is expensive and full of bad things like high fructose corn syrup--the worst form of sugar--and partially hydrogenated, artery clogging oils. Before you add me to your list of arch enemies, let me just say that I don't expect you to cook everything from scratch or to give up all your favorite nibbles. Perhaps you're buying a can of cola out of the vending machine at work each day. If you give that up--just that--that's one dollar you'll save every day. Assuming you work a five day week, that's five bucks a week. That 's almost $260 a year. I say almost because I'm I'm allowing for vacation time. I know what you're thinking. You like your cola. You can't, you won't give it up. OK, OK. Try this. Buy it by the case and take it in to work with you instead. You won't save a full dollar a day, but you'll still come out money ahead of what you're spending at the vending machine. Now, to really get on your bad side, my last tip:

Grow Your Own

You'll never have to grocery shop again. Just kidding. You don't need to turn the back yard into a small farm to save money. You only need to grow a few of the easier-to-raise vegetables to supplement your family's diet.

When I was a child, my mom (who didn't particularly enjoy gardening) planted a tiny patch of tomatoes, peppers and collards right outside our kitchen door just for this purpose. She edged it with orange and yellow marigolds to discourage the bugs. Years that she didn't feel like digging up this postage stamp sized plot, she'd plant the aforementioned veges in pots and set them on the stoop for convenience.

Vine-ripened tomatoes taste better than anything you'll ever get from the market. Peppers are just as easy, and did you know that the ones in the stores have been sprayed with a chemical which is a neurotoxin? I've been raising my own since I found that out.

Think about planting a fruit tree, if you have the space. If you don't, grow one in a pot. Most varieties of citrus adapt well to pot culture. They're not fussy as long as you give them lots of light and don't allow them to freeze. I once had a potted lemon that bore about 30 pieces of fruit at a time. What happened to it? I put it in the ground so it could get bigger, bear more lemons, to save me even more money.