Jogging My Memory

Grocery shopping can be a time consuming and expensive endeavor, especially for those of us that are looking to feed ourselves (and families) healthy foods. It can be even more complicated when you account for special dietary considerations, such as food allergies or being vegetarian, vegan, or flexitarian as I’ve recently become.

Fortunately, there are ways that we can make grocery shopping an easier and cheaper matter. There are three primary ways that I make grocery shopping easier, shorter, and cheaper:

• Looking for deals by clipping coupons and checking the weekly ads for the stores you shop at
• Planning meals in advance
• Making a detailed grocery list (1 for each store you shop at, if you shop at more than 1 store)

 

Clipping Coupons and Checking the Weekly Ads

There are a variety of different places you can find coupons including:

1. The Sunday paper
2. Individual Grocery Store Websites
3. http://www.couponmom.com/ (you have to download a coupon printer)
4. Individual Brand Websites – If you sign up on the Kashi and Morningstar Farms websites you can receive monthly emails with a coupon. Stonyfield Farms has printable coupons on their website, as does Organic Valley.
5. In-Store Ads. Whole Foods puts out a newsletter which is available for free in their store, this month’s has $35 worth of coupons in it! (I may have picked up a few of them!)

There are tons of different places to find coupons. The key to using coupons is to only cut out (or print out) coupons for items that you typically buy or items that you want to try. It is also important to look at the actual value of the coupon, if you have to buy 4 of an item to get the discount and it is an item that could go bad before you are able to use it all up, then you shouldn’t use the coupon to buy the item.

Planning meals in advance

I’ve been on and off with planning my meals, but since I am living by myself right now it is much easier to plan 2 weeks worth of meals. This allows me to only shop for what I need rather than purchasing a variety of items and just trying to come up with meals that use the ingredients I have.

Last Saturday I planned out all my lunches and dinners until September 5. I didn’t plan out breakfasts, because I have a few staple breakfasts that I rotate through. Planning makes cooking easier for me, because I don’t have to try and cook a single serving of something. Many of my meals in the past week and through this next week are leftovers.

After I planned out the meals I made a list of the ingredients that I would need for each of the meals. I went through that list and identified what ingredients I already had.

Making a detailed grocery list

After I indentified the things I already had, I was left with a list of the items I needed to buy (genius I know!)

From here I look at the list and pick out which stores I need to go to to get the things I need. It may seem a bit ridiculous but I typically have to go to three stores to get all of my groceries: Sam’s Club, Trader Joe’s, and Whole Foods. There are things I know are good to buy in bulk (hummus, veggie burgers, Arnold’s Thins, feta cheese, Clif products) and those I get at Sam’s Club. Trader Joe’s is great for basics/staples like pasta, fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, sauces, and of course the Trader Joe’s brand items (their burritos are awesome, and we all know I can’t live without their meringues). And then we have Whole Foods. I love how I can find any healthy product I could imagine at WF’s from 1o different kinds of Greek Yogurt to about a hundred different bars, they have it all – or at least most of it. While their prices are steep, they do offer good sales on items very frequently, and as I mentioned earlier their recent newsletter had $35 of coupons in it! They also have the 365 products which are very reasonably priced.  

Once you have your stores picked out, you can start making your lists. Lists can be done on the computer, on a sheet of scratch paper, in your phone, on a notepad, whatever is convenient for you. I use a Post It Note Pad to create my list. I write the name of the store and under it I write what items I need to get from that store. I try and be fairly detailed including brand names and quantities of items, so that I don’t buy too much or too little of something.

If you have the time, you may want to go through your coupons and pull out the ones you will need and attach them with a paperclip to your list or put them in your purse or wallet, so that you make sure you have them at the store. You can even make a note next to the items you have coupons for so that you remember to use them.

Once I’ve made my lists, and collected all my coupons and my re-usable grocery bags (if you don’t have some get some, they’re good for the environment and make carrying loads of groceries much easier!), I head to the store. I like to do my shopping on Sundays at times when I don’t think there will be a large crowd, because I like to take my time. I love grocery shopping in case you can’t tell.

I am flexible with my grocery list, because there are times when I forget things and then see them in the store and realize that I need them, or if there are insane deals on something I might grab a few.

Here are some of my latest grocery hauls:

Note: The huge WF’s trip on 8/23/2009 included $11.03 for my salad bar dinner. I saved $6.05 using coupons.

The last WF’s trip from today was meant to pick up some Clif Z Bar’s (they were on sale on Sunday for $1.99/box), but when I checked on them they weren’t on sale anymore (big disappointment!). I wanted more peaches so I got those, and I picked up some running fuel. I decided since I’ve got 7+ mile runs, that I should be fueling during the run (Caitlin had a great post on this earlier this week). I’ve had a GU before and hated it so I decided to try out a couple different types of blocks.

One thing I haven’t totally addressed is budgeting for grocery shopping.

I have a set amount of money budgeted each month for groceries and dining out which is $165. This month has been horrendous budget wise because I had to restock the aparment with the basics, condiments, pasta, etc., Tyler and I had a road trip – restaurants galore, and I had flights – hard to bring some foods on plane, easier to buy in airport. Keeping track of my receipts helps me keep track of how much money I have spent, as does my account on Mint.com (Tyler and I both use and love it for budgeting). It may be helpful to keep track of what the items that you buy most frequently cost and do a rough estimate of what your grocery trip may cost, or to total things up as you put them in the cart so that there aren’t any nasty surprises at the end.

I think it is very possible to eat healthy even to eat mostly organic on a limited budget. Planning out meals in advance, and coupons are very helpful, as is eating fruit and veggies that are in season!

Anyways, I hope that you have found this post helpful, and that it gives you some ideas for making grocery shopping more enjoyable. If you have any questions or comments please post them and I will try to answer them in a very timely manner! Have a wonderful weekend!