I spend about $150. on groceries each week, and then I spend about $15 or $20 per week on lunches at work. I try to limit meals out with the girls to once or twice a month. My goal is to cut my food budget and contribute what I save there towards my house nest egg account.
I will readily admit that I have never been much of a coupon clipper. My grocery store prints coupons along with the receipt that seem to be refelctive of items that I have already purchased. Unfortunately, I don't always remember to use these coupons. (silly, I know)
Now I have become aware of how much money I am leaving on the table by paying full price for my groceries. My goal is to find ways to cut my grocery budget by at least 25% by using coupons. I will also make more of an effort to bring my lunch to work and limit eating out at lunch to one day per week, or $15 per week.
One of the challenges is that I am a vegetarian, and I don't eat many prepared foods, which is most often what the coupons are for. I buy my produce fresh and prepare almost all of my meals from scratch. So, I will will see how much of a dent coupons are going to make in my grocery store spending.
Action Items from Couponmom.com:
-start using a grocery price book where I track the prices of the items we use regularly
-remember to bring this book (and use it) as I shop for groceries
When I reach these goals I will be able to add $170. additional to my house fund.
For those who are also interested in finding creative, easy ways to cut their grocery budget, here are a couple of sites that I have found to be useful. If you know of any others, please feel free to share them.
http://www.dreamlinesavingsolutions.com/grocery-savings.aspx
http://www.couponmom.com/
Taming the Grocery Budget Beast
March 26th, 2008 at 09:40 am
March 26th, 2008 at 10:02 am
March 26th, 2008 at 10:54 am
March 26th, 2008 at 01:14 pm
March 26th, 2008 at 01:28 pm
In winter, well, it's tougher. More frozen food, more pasta and beans and rice, and the fruits and veggies are just expensive and not as nice. Still worth it though. I predict you'll do a lot better during the warm weather.
March 26th, 2008 at 02:42 pm
http://hotcouponworld.com/forums/index.php
These ladies in the site are professional coupon shoppers. They saved a ton of money for me. The best thing about this site is, it's FREE!!
I checked couponmom site before, but I didn't find anything new there.
One thing about coupons is that coupon themselves won't save you much money. They work the best when combined with store sale/promotion/rebate, etc.
For example, Kellog had a rebate form for their Special K products. You buy 4 items, and get $10 back. I had $4/4 coupons for Kellog cereal, and Rite Aid had Buy one get one free sale for Special K. I bought 4 boxes, paid $5.94. ($4.97 for 2 boxes x 2 = $9.94 - $4 coupon = $5.94) And, I am getting $10 back by Kellog rebate. On top of that, Rite Aid is sending me $5 coupon that is good for next Rite Aid purchase for anything. So, I made $9.06 by buying 4 boxes of cereal.
This is one of very nice cases that I can triple dip (Kellog coupon, Kellog rebate, and Rite Aid rebate) the deal, and the reason I love couponing.
March 29th, 2008 at 06:54 am
March 29th, 2008 at 11:25 am