Saving Money in 2009

One of the biggest changes my family has made to save money is to make a grocery budget and stick to it. I can't tell you how many years, we aimlessly threw money away at the grocery store, buying what we are buying now, but not paying any attention to the sales add or using coupons. We have now made it down to $60/week. I alotted more in the beginning while I was getting used to decreasing our budget. The $60/week includes food, paper products, toiletries, cooking supplies, pull-ups, wipes, medications, and personal products.

How, you may ask, is it possible for a family of 4 to live on $60/week? It really isn't all that hard with some work and dedication. I have learned how to shop frugally from some of my favorite blogs (see my sidebar).

Here are some of the shopping tips that help me out the most:

I buy multiple copies of the Sunday's AJC and keep mostly all of the coupons(see my post later on how I clip and organize these),

I look on blogs that post sales items for the different stores and matching coupons;

I am familiar with the different stores policies, for example-

Publix and Ingles double all coupons that are a value of $.50 or below,

Publix accepts any competitor coupons(Target, Ingles, Food Lion),

At CVS, Publix, and Ingles if an item is 2 for $5, for example, you don't have to buy two items, you can only buy one and pay $2.50,

At Publix and Ingles, if an item is BOGO (buy one get one free), then you can only buy one if you want and pay half price, you can also use 2 coupons if you get 2 items.

When something is BOGO and I have coupons that double, then I can get the item very inexpensively. When this happens, I usually buy 5 or 6 for what I would have paid for one full price. This way I can stock up and not have to buy that item for a while.

I usually also have a price in mind that I will not pay over for a product, such as $.30 for Betty Crocker boxed potatoes, $.30 for Uncle Ben's rice, $1.98/lb for ground beef, boneless chicken, or ground turkey, $2.00 per 8oz of cheese and so on. I usually also get all of my Green Giant frozen vegetables for free! A good idea I have found, that I plan on putting into practice, is keeping a food log with the prices of a certain item from different stores, that way I can keep track of what store usually has that item for the cheapest. With so much going on these days, and so much to remember, this log will definitely help out in the memory department.

I hope these tips really help and feel free to ask me any questions!

Do you have any money saving tips you use at the grocery store that you would like to share? Please feel free to do so!