Top Five Tips for Saving Money on Your Grocery Bill

Everyone needs to save some money these days and one of the easiest ways can be to trim some money off of the grocery budget. Your family has to eat, and if they want to eat more then just Ramen a bit of strategy needs to come into play. Here are my top 5 tips for saving money on your grocery bill.

1. Timing is everything. Stores can be sneaky. They know that on some food items they have to mark them down to sell them but they don't put out bright neon signs letting you know when they do the markdowns. Travel to your favorite stores at different times of the day including right at opening time if it is not a 24 hour store and see if the meat, bakery, and other perishable items have been marked down yet, Then, when your know their schedule, try to do some shopping at that time of the day even if you can only get there at that time one day of the week. Meat especially can be had at a bargain price and since it is usually the most expensive thing in the budget, it can add up to big savings.

2. Get the best advertised bargains. Every week a store will likely have an incredible sale on one or two items and may even limit the item to 1 or 2 per person. If your family is a regular consumer of these items then you need to go to the store the day the ad comes out even if those items are all you buy for that trip. These type of sales are to lure customers into the store to buy more items, but by the end of the week or sometimes by the end of the first day, the items have all been purchased. Some decent stores will then restock the shelf or give rain checks, but this is not usually the case.

3. Coupon clipping can save a ton of money. I know most people cringe at the thought of clipping coupons. It seems so time consuming next to the amount of money that you save, but it is not true. The average Sunday paper will have over $100 worth of coupons in it for a cost of around $1-2 for a paper. And here's a big time saver, if the coupon is for something that your family does not use and would not like to try, skip over it, you don't have to clip out everything. Also, if your local stores will accept internet print coupons then there is a huge opportunity for more savings and you can print out only the coupons you want from Web sites like www.coupons.com , www.eversave.com , and even load coupons directly onto shopper's cards at www.shortcuts.com . Be careful printing out coupons, however, if the ink in your printer is expensive, because you could end up printing out a whole cartridge worth of coupons and if you do not use them that can be a huge waste of money.

4. Using different store programs to your advantage. As mentioned above, some stores will run out of an item that they have on sale at a good price. That doesn't keep you from getting the bargain, however, in a different store that agrees to price match. Also, watch out for double and triple coupon promotions and buy X amount of items get $X.XX off your total bill. When a promotion has a discount for buying a certain amount of items that doesn't mean that you can't use a coupon too and get even more savings. The savings can even be doubled at stores that use shopper's cards. You can use a coupon from www.shortcuts.com that is loaded onto your card and also use a physical coupon in the store, in effect using two coupons on the same item.

5. Buying in bulk and stocking up can add up to great savings. This tip is tricky because it is not always true. There are two main rules to follow. Number one, is this an item that my family will use up before it goes bad or they get tired of using it? Number two, is this bulk item or quantity of items a big enough savings over the normal price to make it worth having to store it all? Sure you got fifty pounds of oatmeal for only ten cents a pounds but will you ever use it and where are you going to put it? Sometimes good deals can sound better then they are. It is not a deal if the item is not going to be used, even if the item was acquired free. If you just can't pass up the deal, try going in on large deals with family or friends and split the quantity so that nothing goes to waste.