Chic & Cheap

If you are anything like me, you’re trying to save money these days. I’m starting a new series with some of my tips and I’d love to hear any that you have to offer as well. My goal will be to post this as least twice a month.

This week’s topic: Grocery Shopping

The rule of thumb in this household is that we never go shopping without making a list based on the weekly circular or without coupons. There are always the necessities that may not be on sale, but for the most part we do not deviate from the list unless there is a deal of some sort. This also gives us the opportunity to try new things. For instance, there was a Yoplait Splitz yogurt that we had a coupon for. I had never tried it, but we got and love it.


Coupon Crazy!

In the beginning, this process was sort of a pain. I wasn’t a big fan of grocery shopping to begin with. Throw in preparing ahead of time and it made me cranky. This is now something I’ve got down to a science. Here is I handle it:

1. Buy the Sunday paper and clip coupons
2. Go through weekly store circular that comes in the mail from Red Plum and make a list
3. I’m annoyingly organized and make my list by sections of the store. I sort it like this:
-Fresh (Fruit, Vegetables, Bread, Meats)
-Helpers/Meals (Canned Goods, Sides, Pasta, etc.)
-Snacks (Pretzels, Soda, Crackers, Cookies)
-Frozen & Dairy (Frozen Meals, Cheese, Milk, etc.)

This helps me to find everything quickly and get in and out.

We also always use our shopper club card for additional discounts and the grocery store we shop at offers double coupons for anything under $1.

On our latest shopping trip, we saved over $80! I was floored that the bill came to $202 for a heaping cartful of groceries. This is enough for to last us month and we’re eating on about $50 a week (a little over $7/day for both of us). That’s money we would easily spend on one night out to dinner. If you read my weekend recaps, you know we still go out to eat now and then, but not anything close to what we used to. This has really saved us and when we do go out, it’s usually something cheap like pizza.



None of these tips are groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m just trying to demonstrate that using coupons, shopping the circular and being organized can save you big. In our case 30%.