Fresh Ideas on Grocery Shopping

Posted on April 21, 2006 10 Comments

I don’t know why, but it struck me as amazing that groceries for a year can cost you more than a year’s worth of new car payments. The cost of eating is something I seriously struggle with – I hate cooking and I love eating out. I also, for whatever reason, really dislike leftovers. I need to suck it up, don’t I?

Anyway, I thought this was a great article, filled with fresh ideas about saving money at the supermarket.

SPENDING SMART
Trimming the fat out of grocery spending
By Gregory Karp, Allentown Morning Call
Posted January 15, 2005

Which is more expensive: a new car or food for a year?

Many people would say purchasing a car costs far more, but that’s not necessarily true. Even a $25,000 car, with a five-year loan, costs less than $6,000 a year.

Yet an average family of four in the United States spends more than $8,000 on food each year, according to the most recent government consumer expenditure figures.

So during that five-year period, you would spend about $30,000 on the car purchase and more than $40,000 on food, not even figuring price inflation for food.

The point is that many consumers put in hours of exhaustive research when buying a car, making sure they get a good deal. Yet those same consumers might not give a minute of thought to examining their food spending.

Simply put, food is by far the best place to cut wasteful spending. And it’s the best example of how little things add up.

“Your biggest monthly expense is usually your mortgage or your rent. Second is usually groceries for an average American family,” said Teri Gault, founder of TheGroceryGame.com, a fee-based site that advises subscribers on what grocery products to buy–and when–for maximum savings.

“If you can cut that second-biggest monthly expense in half, groceries, that makes a huge difference in the family budget,” Gault said.

Here are tips for cutting food costs: Next week we’ll examine practical strategies for using coupons to save hundreds or thousands of dollars a year on food.

– Eat in. This sounds obvious, but people spend a bundle dining out. An American family of four spends $3,362, on average. That not only includes sit-down dinners, but pizza deliveries, Chinese takeout, lunch in the company cafeteria and morning coffee from Starbucks. The point isn’t to eliminate dinners out for celebrations, such as a job promotion or birthday. Instead, try to eliminate the eating out caused by lack of meal planning. You do that by planning meals.

If you just like eating away from home sometimes, plan to swap dinner parties with friends, neighbors and relatives. “It gets you out and doesn’t cost you as much,” said Pat Veretto, the guide of Frugal Living on About.com.

– Don’t buy what you need. Instead, buy what’s on sale and stock up. Supermarket sales typically run in 12-week cycles, and prices vary widely over that time, Gault said. When you run out of something, restock from your own pantry full of discounted food instead of paying whatever the grocery store is charging that week.

Of course, perishable items are an exception, and consumers with limited storage space in their home can stockpile less. Investing in an extra freezer to stockpile frozen foods can quickly pay for itself, especially if you buy a used freezer, Gault said. Of course, the stockpiling strategy also works for non-food items, such as paper towels, batteries and shampoo.

– Know your prices. The Sunday supermarket flier from the newspaper advertises center-cut, bone-in pork chops for $1.69 per pound. Is that a good price? You wouldn’t know unless you keep a price list, which is just a notepad list of grocery prices.

You don’t need to note all the items you ever buy, just the ones you buy repeatedly. “You need a price list so you know what’s a good deal and what isn’t,” Veretto said.

– Bring a calculator. If you see a sale for five 12-packs of Diet Pepsi for $10 and a case of the same soft drink for $4.99, which should you buy? A calculator can help you convert shelf prices to unit prices.

For example, buying the 12-packs of Pepsi costs 17 cents per can, $10 divided by 60 cans. Meanwhile, cans from the case cost nearly 21 cents, or $4.99 divided by 24. Sure, it’s only 4 cents per can, but if a family drinks a case a week, that would translate into a savings of $50 a year in soft drinks alone.

– Use the triumvirate of grocery savings. Weekly sales, coupons and loyalty cards are the three ways to get good deals on groceries. The goal is to use them in concert to obtain many items half off or more and some items free.

Pay attention to items advertised on the front of the weekly flier. Those are often loss leaders, meaning the store is selling them at a loss to get you into the store, hoping you’ll buy more expensive items to make up for it. “The key is to buy the loss leaders, and you don’t buy anything else,” Veretto said.

– Avoid warehouse clubs. If you use all the advice above, shopping at a warehouse club or Wal-Mart Supercenter will actually be more expensive, Gault said. The possible exceptions are eggs, butter and cheese, because those items frequently don’t go on sale at regular supermarkets, she said.

That said, if you’re unwilling to put any effort into food shopping, warehouse clubs and Wal-Mart will be cheaper than paying whatever prices the supermarket happens to be charging when you need an item.

Gregory Karp is a personal finance writer for The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa., a Tribune Co. newspaper. E-mail him at yourmoney@tribune.com.

For additional discussion on spending wisely, see the Spending Smart blog at http://blogs.mcall.com/spendingsmart/.

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I'm a working girl on a budget. Follow my journey from chronic overspender to power saver!

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