How to Save Time and Money on Grocery-Shopping Trips

Using a tried-and-true system to shop has saved us hundreds of dollars a month in time, money and gas while grocery shopping.

Long before gas prices started to rise, my husband and I had to learn how to economize on groceries. Being restaurant workers during our early marriage years, every penny counted. Now, with gas prices on the rise, though we no longer work in restaurants and have more money than we did in those long gone years, watching our consumption is even more important, both financially and ecologically.

The 10 step method we use for our grocery shopping is simple, effective and easy to follow, once you make the initial commitment to save yourself money and gas.

1. Commit yourself to grocery shopping only once a week.

Pick one day and time that works best for your schedule. If at all possible, make this a very early morning excursion. I can't begin to stress the importance of this first step.

Think how many times you go into a grocery store for one item and come out with just that one item. When we enter a grocery store we always seem to find that one other thing we forgot we needed. By making a commitment to shop only once a week, you eliminate those impulse buys. If you can shop early, you also get first dibs on the sales items and you do not face the crowds at the checkout lines. This one trip a week also saves us a considerable amount of gas for those constant "running back and forth to the store" trips to get something else we need and had forgotten.

2. Pick stores closest to your home and round-robin your shopping.

We shop at three different grocery stores all within seven miles of our home. By choosing more than one store, we are able to comparison shop between them, getting the best deals for our money, buying items on sale in one store that are not on sale in another. By doing a round-robin in one single shopping trip, we get all our grocery shopping done in one trip, saving ourselves both time and gas money.

3. If the store has its own savings card or discount card, use it.

At each of the three stores we shop at, we have a discount card. Using that card at the checkout counter has sometimes saved us as much as $50 in one store alone. Contrary to popular belief, getting one of those cards does not always increase your junk mail. Read the store's privacy policy on their application to be sure. With our three stores, we have never had any problems with this. However, they do track our purchases and at our stores, this means the coupons that print out with our receipt are geared more toward what we normally buy.

4. Create a grocery list.

This is another mandatory step. We have a weekly grocery list on the computer in Word. When we need something or think of something we want, it goes on the list. If we forget to put something on the list, it waits until the next week. A list like this prevents impulse shopping, is easily maintained and allows you to be specific in the next important step. We also have an arrow and each store's initials at the top of the document. This comes in handy for the next step.

5. Read store flyers

If you follow step #4 and make that grocery list, here you will be looking for coupons and sales that specifically match your list in the store's weekly flyers. You then go back to your grocery list and specify which store has the best buy on that particular item so we know exactly where to get it. In our Word grocery list, we copy that arrow with the store's initials and paste those to the right of the item that the store has on sale. By doing this, we know exactly which store we are supposed to buy that item in.

6. Use coupons

When some people hear coupons they think of endless snipping and cutting and bits of paper all over the place. No such thing. One rule of thumb for your coupon clipping is never save coupons for things you don't use. If you don't eat "fried bat wings", a phrase I remember from an old Erma Bombeck book, don't ever clip out a coupon for them.

For storage, we keep our coupons in an old Dryper's Baby Wipes container. We like this particular container because it has a lid, is big enough to hold a pair of scissors, a highlighter and the coupons. Once a week, we go through the store flyers and cut out any coupons for things we always use. The coupons always go into that container. You also may receive coupons from many stores along with their receipt. If they are coupons for things you use, throw them in the container.

The day before we go shopping, we go through our list and grab any coupons that apply to that week's list. We then print out our list and put our usable coupons with the list, ready to take to the stores.

The highlighter is for highlighting any expiration dates on the coupons. When a coupon expires, you need to toss it in your recycle bin. This can also be done in that once a week preparing session.

7. If it is not on sale, don't buy it. If it is on sale, stock up.

For some individuals, there may be a space issue here. I understand this, and for those of you who have this problem, you'll have to do the best you can. If you do have space for a small freezer purchase or a pantry storage unit, they are well worth the investment.

When something we use is on sale, we stock up in reasonable amounts. No need to go crazy here...just purchase a few more than you would normally get. You can actually freeze many items you don't normally think of as freezer material. Milk and butter and bread are perfect examples. When milk goes on sale, we buy 2 or 3 gallons instead of our usual gallon. Milk will defrost safely in a refrigerator over a few days time. Just shake it every once in a while to distribute the ice crystals. Even milk in cartons and not jugs can be frozen. Butter freezes very well and doesn't take up that much space in a freezer. Bread also works well and thaws quickly as long as you don't have it frozen too long. Bread will get freezer burn rather quickly. If you're not sure if something freezes well, try a very small amount and test it. If you don't like it once it is thawed, you know that is something you can not stock up on.

For meat, many stores have a spot where they put extreme sales of their meat about to hit the expiration date. When you find out their timing in placing these items on sale, this is when shopping early helps. These sales can give you fantastic deals on meat and are wonderful purchases. As long as it is something you would normally eat and you freeze it immediately upon your return home, these sale meats are a bargain.

For fresh vegetables, we also eat what is on sale. Some weeks, we may be eating more broccoli than other vegetables and some weeks it may be more peppers or carrots. The more creative you can get with vegetables the better you can work with these sales. You can also freeze the fresh vegetables, much like you would do with items from your own garden.

Buying exclusively sale items will save you a considerable amount of money. Always look for these sales on things you need. You'll then have them when you need them and not have to purchase them at the last minute. The other thing this method does for you is to make you aware of what a good price is in the first place. For many of us, we don't really know what the price of anything is. We need it and we buy it without even thinking about whether there is a cheaper alternative. We look at the sales signs in the store and believe it is a good sale. If we start to watch these things, we'd know when a sale is not really much of a bargain.

8. Be willing to experiment.

Try a small amount of the store brands or off-brands for some items. If you like them, they are generally cheaper and you'll know to look for those in the normal quantities again. If you don't like them, don't buy them again. The goal here is to quality shop and save money, not buy the cheap stuff and hate every minute of it. If it doesn't make you happy, you'll never stick to these methods.

9. Get yourself some plastic wrap and some freezer bags.

You can sometimes save money by buying larger quantities. If you purchase one of these sales on bulk, you then divide and freeze these in normal portions for your needs. For instance we may buy 7 pounds of hamburger and then create individual quarter pound hamburger patties before freezing it. If I need a pound of hamburger meat for a particular recipe, I can take out my four patties from the freezer, defrost them individually and combine them into what I need.

This is also used for those vegetables you bought on sale, if you don't plan on using all of them in that one week.

10. Grab your old souvenir tote bags and bring your own grocery bags to the store.

More and more individuals are doing this and some stores now give you a discount for using your own bags. I have also found that groceries are much easier to carry in my old canvas tote bags than they are in the regular plastic or paper grocery bags.

Doing this also makes ecological sense. Fewer bags need to be trucked to the grocery store, fewer bags end up in our landfills, and less plastic needs to be manufactured, thus using less petroleum.

One other tip I'd like to share. I don't include this in the ten steps because this method is only for those who understand how to use your credit card like a debit card or check book. If you can't pay off your balance at the end of the month, then you do not want to go this route.

Some grocery stores (Kroger and their affiliates like Fred Myers and QFC) have a credit card that pays you back in grocery money for their store. We got one of these and have used this credit card exclusively when we shop. Each month, they send "grocery checks" that you can use at their store in lieu of cash.

Because we use this card like we would a checkbook, we do not overextend our credit. Because we pay it off each month, we never pay finance charges. Yet, because we do use it for our purchases, we get points that add up to grocery money.

Many individuals understand this principle for frequent flyer miles. With us, I'd rather have a company help pay for my groceries than give me points for flying. I eat more than I fly. Of course, this too, must be an individual choice and I strongly urge anyone who has issues with credit cards to skip this step. Credit cards can be a severe nightmare if you must pay finance charges on your purchases.

Following the steps above will save you time, energy, money and gas for your car. When you first start using these methods, it will take you a few weeks to really start noticing a difference. Much of that is because we are not normally familiar enough with the prices to understand what constitutes a good sale. Hang in there. Be patient and stick to your methods and you'll find yourself not only being more aware of what reasonable sales look like but also making a green choice change that saves you time and money in the long run.