How to Slash Your Grocery Budget: the Bakery Outlet

Rising grocery prices make buying groceries to keep your family happy and healthy expensive. As the primary grocery shopper for my family I have developed some strategies that help me save a bundle on the food products my family enjoys. I'm known to family a friends as a coupon queen. My family eats better than many of our friends, we have a stockpile of extras in the basement and I spend far less than the average consumer for the food we eat. Yes, I'm the mom holding up the line at the grocery store with my coupons. You might find it irritating when you're in a hurry but I don't mind the wait when the result is $300 worth of name brand groceries for less than $50.

I don't rely on coupons for all of my grocery needs. Truthfully there are seldom great sales or coupons for milk, fresh produce or bakery products. Over the years I've learned some good tips about saving on the bakery products that I'd like to share with you.

The biggest concern with bakery items is freshness. Unlike canned goods with a long shelf life or meat that freezes well, bakery items aren't designed for long term storage. Bread and other bakery items do ok in a freezer but will become dried out if left in a frost-free freezer too long. A compromise that works well at our house is to place extra bakery purchases in the spare refrigerator. This prevents mold growth and keeps the products fresh without causing the freezer taste my family hates. It also allows me to stock up when I find a great price at a bakery outlet.

The best way to save on bakery products is by shopping at bakery outlets. Most areas have at least one of these stores. Even if the outlet is not nearby your savings will be worth the gas expense. Since my closest outlet closed I try to stop at one whenever I'm in the area. I have spoken to the managers at several of these bakery outlets. Many of them receive bread as fresh as the grocery store although some of their other items are nearer their expiration date.

Our personal family favorite is the Pepperidge Farm Outlet. Each store is arranged and stocked a bit differently but they all offer some great pricing on very good quality products. For example, my daughters love bagels and we find the smaller sized bagels are great for breakfasts on the run. At the grocery store a package of these bagels are hard on my grocery budget at $3.49 a bag. At the outlet store they are priced regularly around $2 but one day I stopped in and they had a shopping cart full at the special price of $.99 per bag. I bought four packages and cut $10 from my grocery budget over the next two weeks. The Pepperidge Farm Outlet is also a great source for buns, dinner rolls, French loaf bread as well as sandwich bread. All of these are on my regular grocery list. A freezer section in the bakery outlet stocks Pepperidge Farm cakes and frozen Campbell's dinners. The trip to this bakery outlet is topped off with an entire wall of Pepperidge Farm cookies and Goldfish Crackers at special prices. In our area the store also offers an additional discount around holiday weekends, senior discounts and other specials. The Pepperidge Farm store has signs posted indicating that even if an item is past the "best by" date it is still guaranteed. We've not yet been disappointed.

The Wonder Hostess Outlet is another great bakery outlet for cutting your grocery budget expenses. The sandwich bread is fresh and generally marked at least half off grocery prices. The real excitement of the Wonder Hostess store is getting great snack cake treats at a discount. The apple pies are a favorite at our home. Grocery store pricing is over $1 but at the bakery outlet the price is half that. Keeping our budget low and eating healthy means we don't eat a lot of these snacks but the kids are thrilled to get them as a special treat and I can't beat the bakery outlet pricing.

Entenmanns is another company with bakery outlet stores. They stock bread items, Boboli products and a huge assortment of boxed donuts and coffee cakes at discounts similar to other bakery outlet stores.

Bakery outlet shopping is a great step toward slashing your grocery budget.