Saving Money, Eating Well

This is a tip that most people seasoned in the timeless art of grocery shopping are fully aware of and no, we're not talking about clipping coupons.

We've all grown accustomed to opting for the familiar name brands for all of the products we use everyday. After all, things such as cereal, over the counter medications, cookies, laundry detergents, ice cream, soda pop and the like are things that are heavily advertised during various times of the day on various media outlets and which are the first to pop into our minds, with the help of catchy jingles, when in pursuit of such items.

However, consider this; at a particular national grocery chain, they might sell a two-liter bottle of name-brand soda pop for $1.60. In the same aisle, they will sell you their store-brand soda for the price of $.87 per bottle. That's a difference of $.73 per bottle; a savings of 46 percent!

Now, consider that this is the same across the board for all the other products with the option of either a national brand or a store brand. If you were to, say, not just opt for the Safeway brand soda over the Pepsi Cola and do the same for replacing your Tide laundry detergent, the Oreo cookies, buying the Malt-O-Meal instead of the Kellogg's cereal and so on, this will do quite a bit to stretch your budget to proportions you maybe never fathomed possible.

Don't believe it? Well, don't take our word for it; see for yourself. Next time you do your bi-weekly or monthly grocery shopping, pick out ten national brand items from your most recent grocery store receipt. Next time you make the trip, replace these items with their comparable store brand counterparts. You saved quite a bit of money, didn't you?

From then on, this proves that if just replacing a few items here and there with their comparable store brand counterpart will save you that much, imagine what it can do for you if you need to save a substantial sum of money when your budget is tight? And if you're still not convinced, at least it's better than risking the paper cuts of clipping coupons, right?