Grocery Hacks to Save Money

On average, Americans spend around $5,174 a month on groceries, which is about $431 a week. With rising prices everywhere, you may be noticing that your grocery bill is taking up a large portion of your monthly income. If you want to find ways to save money at the grocery store and avoid bankruptcy over your food bills, here are some helpful grocery hacks to save money.

Get a Grocery Rewards Card

Some rewards credit cards are grocery-specific rewards that help you earn a higher percentage of cash back on any grocery-related purchases. Some of the best grocery rewards cards offer up to 6% cash back at grocery stores such as Whole Foods, Krogers, Shoprite, and other big-name supermarkets. However, most of these cards do exclude wholesale clubs like Costco and BJ’s as well as stores like Target and Walmart.

Plan Ahead

A lot of saving money on groceries is about what you do before even stepping into a store. When you don’t have a plan for what you need to buy, you can easily waste money on food items you don’t need and aren’t going to use. Before going grocery shopping, you should plan out all of your meals for the next week or month, depending on how often you shop. Once you have planned each meal you can determine what ingredients you already have, then make a list of what you will need.

 

It can be helpful to plan meals that utilize the same ingredients. For example, if you are going to buy a whole chicken, you can try to plan a meal for dinner and a meal for lunch that both have chicken. If you don’t like to eat the same thing multiple times a day, you can also freeze the leftovers and incorporate them into a meal later in the month. Meal planning will help you determine an efficient and cost-effective grocery shopping list.

Be Flexible

It is also helpful to be flexible about where you shop and willing to go to a few stores to get the best prices. International grocery stores often have items that would be considered speciality at a bigger store, for a fraction of the price. You can also usually find great produce and spices at these stores that are better quality and much more affordable.

 

Another way to save is to be flexible about the brands you choose. More often than not, the generic store-brand version of your favorite name-brand products is of nearly the same quality and contains the same ingredients. Give the generic brands a try when you can to see how much you really need the name-brand version, you will probably find that in a lot of cases there is no real difference.

Consider Substitutes

Meat is probably one the priciest items on your list, but there are a lot of substitutes for meat that can save you a lot of money. If the meat at your grocery store is not on sale and you don’t want to pay the high price, consider a meatless substitute instead. Legumes and beans are incredibly cheaper than meat and can be very tasty in the dishes you already love. Even not eating meat once a week can save you a lot on your grocery bill, and it’s great for the environment.

 

Additionally, while foods that have already been prepped such as sliced vegetables or frozen meals save you time, they’re costing you a lot of money. For example, if you love making smoothies with frozen fruit but find that buying it like this instead of fresh is way more expensive, consider freezing your own fruit. If you set some time aside in the week to cut up some of your favorite fruits and vegetables, package them up and put them in the freezer you won’t have to worry about buying these foods for a while.

 

Jenn Walker is a freelance writer, blogger, dog-enthusiast, and avid beach goer operating out of Southern New Jersey.