Step 7: Put Your Groceries Away

For now, you can do this however you want. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. I am sharing the tips in this post for those of you who have followed along with the previous steps and are motivated enough to “go the extra mile.”

* Put frozen foods away first.

* If you bought meat/fish/poultry that needs to be put into the freezer, put that away next. If you bought it in bulk and it needs to be repackaged into smaller amounts, I would suggest putting it into the fridge until you have everything else organized.

* Put away the stuff that needs to be refrigerated (dairy, produce, etc.)

* Put away the rest.

THEN, if you’re ambitious and love the idea of saving yourself time and energy throughout the week, try the following:

* Repackage bulk meats, if necessary. If I get a bulk case of chicken breasts, for example, I repackage them in small ziplock bags with two breasts in each bag. If I have a huge case of ground beef, I repackage that in small ziplocks as well. OR…

* Precook ground meats. If you use ground beef or turkey in a lot of your recipes, fry it all up at once with the seasonings you usually use. Let it cool, then repackage it in smaller amounts and put it in the freezer.

* Do the same thing with chicken breasts. Chop it up and fry it so it’s ready for casseroles or other dishes. Package it in smaller amounts and freeze.

* Chop up veggies that you are planning to eat raw during the week. I have found that celery, in particular, lasts a lot longer when we do this. Invest in some good quality storage containers. I store sliced celery in a ziplock and just leave the zipper slightly open at one end. It lasts a good two weeks this way. Carrot sticks are stored in a plastic container with a little bit of water in it.

* Prepare all of your lettuce for the week. I like to make salad a lot. I use a mixture of green leaf, red leaf, iceberg lettuces, and spinach (if it was on sale). When we get home, my daughter washes all the lettuce leaves, spins them in the salad spinner, tears them up into bite-size pieces, and we store them in a good quality bin I bought specifically for this purpose. It has an air vent that allows the perfect amount for lettuce, and this also lasts a good two weeks.

* If there are other snacks or dishes that you want to have on hand for the week, go ahead and make them on grocery day, if you have the time. I have often done this with things like puddings, gelatin salads, marinated salads, homemade cookies or bars, granola, etc. This is not a necessity, by any means, but if your grocery day happens to be a day that works well as a general food prep day, take advantage of it and you’ll reap the rewards for the rest of the week.

Step 6: Go Shopping!

This is pretty straightforward. You’ve planned your shopping trip, so all you have to do is gather up your grocery bags (if you have reusable ones, which I highly recommend), and go! AND DON’T FORGET TO BRING YOUR LIST!

Your list is the key. The number one rule during grocery shopping is to STICK TO YOUR LIST! I cannot stress this enough. Don’t buy something extra just because you see it’s on sale and it seems like a good deal. If it’s not on your list, don’t buy it. No exceptions. If you’ve been diligent and careful on Steps 1-5, there will be no need to make exceptions to this rule! (You Faithful Frugal Fanatics are probably thinking, "That's not true! What about building the stockpile? What about the savings of buying at discount prices when you see a great deal?!" That comes later. This is just the BASICS. Let's not confuse the rookies!)

The rest of your shopping trip is simple.

There are the usual pieces of advice, like shopping on a full stomach. There’s the common sense stuff, like saving the frozen foods for the end of your shopping spree.

One thing I like to do, just because I am a little bit compulsive about a few things, is to keep like products as close together in the cart as possible, and then when I’m putting it all on the counter at the till, it gets bagged together. I like to shop in this order: dry and canned goods (so they go on the bottom of the cart and don’t crush anything else), meat and dairy (heavier items, some can be stacked, usually compact or flat packaging), produce, then frozen stuff. Depending on how much I have to get, I sometimes get the frozen stuff right after the meat. It helps to keep the meat cold. Then, at the till, all the produce gets bagged first, then the frozen and meats and dairy, then the dry goods. It helps to keep the food in good shape until we get home. Then, at home, it’s quicker and easier to put things away.
And that’s it for shopping!

P.S. Save your receipts! You’ll eventually be glad!

Step 5: Plan Your Grocery Shop

Plan your grocery shop? Does this step sound a little unnecessary? If you’re a total beginner at this, it might be a little meaningless to you right now. But it’s important to develop this step as a habitual part of your weekly grocery plan. As you learn the different techniques and tricks for saving money and spending less on groceries, you may discover that it is worth shopping at more than one store for your groceries. When you begin to do this, you will need to plan for it in order to make it worth your while and to save you time and energy and fuel.

With your grocery list in hand, decide which items you will purchase at each individual store.
I have three main stores.

Costco is a RARE stop for me, and in fact, I probably won’t renew my membership there. While there are several items that are cheaper to buy at Costco, I don’t think it’s worth my while to renew. And besides, my mom goes there REGULARLY, so if there’s something I really want from there, I can get her to pick it up for me. (I know that’s cheating, but it’s the truth!)

Sobey’s is my favorite regular supermarket store. It has better quality meats and produce than the discount stores, and it’s less expensive (in general) than Safeway or Co-op (the other two main supermarkets around here). It's still more expensive than Superstore, but occasionally they have great deals that make it worth the stop. And sometimes Superstore doesn't have what I'm looking for, so Sobey's is my "old faithful" in those instances.

A majority of my grocery shopping is done at Superstore. (Extra Foods and No Frills are basically the same thing, but Superstore is the closest to my home.) This is a discount store, almost like a warehouse store. It’s big, and the store brand (President’s Choice) is excellent quality on most of the products I buy. They also have a lot of no name products, which, naturally, are very inexpensive. If you shop here, remember to bring your own bags because they charge you $0.05 per plastic bag! Also, if you do your banking with President's Choice Financial, or have a President's Choice MasterCard, you can earn points on every item you buy here, as well as for bringing your own bags. The points add up quickly and can be used to buy groceries for free!

So, with my list in hand, I mark my items according to store. If I’m using my Master Grocery List, I will highlight all the Costco stuff in one color, and all the Sobey’s stuff in another. Everything else is assumed to be a Superstore purchase.

Another method is to do this step along with the previous step. Make your grocery list for each store individually.

Just use whichever method works for you. And again, it takes practice to figure out what you like best.

Step 4: Make A Grocery List

You can choose to make your grocery list as you are creating your menu plan, or you might want to focus entirely on the menu plan first, and concentrate on the grocery list after the menu plan is complete. Either way works. Just pick what works best for you.

The trick for this step is to make sure you don’t leave anything out. The point of the grocery list is to insure that your home will have everything you will need for the next week in order to feed your family nutritious meals. If you run out of something, you either have to put your creative juices to work and improvise, or you will have to go to the store, which will cost you more money in gas, and probably add unnecessary expense to your grocery budget.

An easy way to make your grocery list is to print of a copy of my Master Grocery List. Over time, you may wish to create your own Master Grocery List using the ingredients that you buy most often. There are also many other versions of lists like this all over the internet. Using a Master Grocery List is easy and saves time because you don’t have to write anything down. You can use it in one of two ways:

1) Based on your menu plan, CROSS OUT the items on the Master Grocery List that you DON’T need. Everything else that is left is your new grocery list, already written out for you. If you use my list, there are little checkboxes that you can use as you’re at the grocery store to mark when you’ve got the item in your cart.

2) Based on your menu plan, use a highlighter to mark the items on the Master Grocery List that you need to buy. Items not marked are not needed.

If the Master Grocery List idea overwhelms you, feel free to just write out your list on any old scrap of paper. This is the logical choice particularly when your list is very short! However, if your list is longer, I highly recommend sorting your list according to the layout of your grocery store as much as possible. List dairy items together, produce all together, frozen foods together, etc. This will save you time in the store and help you to stay focused and not add any extras to your cart!

As this whole process becomes second nature to you, you will learn to incorporate the weekly grocery flyers into your meal planning and grocery lists as well. You will slowly start to develop a stock while sticking with a very low budget which will enable you to keep your weekly grocery shopping list a lot shorter. Don’t worry about this for now. Just be aware that it’s something to work toward.
With your grocery list in hand, you’re ready to move on to Step 5!

Step 2: Evaluate Inventory

Once you have taken inventory, you will know exactly what you have on hand. Looking at your list, determine what meals or dishes or snacks you can make without having to buy anything new. For now, just do this from memory, knowing what your family is used to eating. With practice, you will become more creative with this task and come up with whole new dishes on your own, simply by trying to use what you already have on hand.

Depending what your inventory list looks like, you might be surprised to find that you have enough groceries in the house to keep you all fed for the next week. If that’s the case, good for you! That gives you a whole week to plan and prepare for the following week! The more time you have to plan, the better your plan will be!

If your list is a little sparse and you’re having trouble coming up with some meals, my suggestion for you would be to take a look at my Master Grocery List.  Print off the Master Grocery List. Cross out anything that you have on your Inventory List. Now, whatever is left would be items that you will want to purchase on your next grocery shopping trip, if at all possible. Depending on your budget, you might need to evaluate what the most essential items are. I cannot do this for you. And don’t worry – with time, you’ll become very good at prioritizing as you learn what ingredients you use the most and as you develop creativity in the kitchen! Also, if you are in the “Sparse Inventory” category, you will want to spend more time on Step 3: Plan A Menu.

Step 1: Take Inventory

The first step to spending less on healthy groceries is to take inventory. You need to figure out what you already have to work with.

Get a piece of scrap paper or a plain old notebook and a pencil or pen. Go into your kitchen and open your cupboards. List EVERY food product you have in there. If you have half a box of salt, list “Salt – 1/2 box”. Then move to your fridge and do the same thing. Don’t forget to open those drawers and look in the door. If you have storage containers with mystery contents, now is the time to open them up! Be brave! Next, move on to your freezer (don’t forget this door either) and, if you own one, your deep freeze. If you store food anywhere else in the house, be sure to check there, too.

This list is going to be your starting point. It will become a foundation, or a building block upon which you will base all your meal plans and grocery lists for the next few days, weeks or months (depending on what you’ve got in stock).

Below is a copy of my very own personal inventory, as of today. Items marked with ** indicate that I will run out very quickly, so should put that item on my next grocery list, if possible. Items labeled (HM) are things I made from scratch.

GroceryInventory

If this seems like a lot of work to you, be comforted in knowing that I don't do this to such a degree anymore. I have learned to take inventory as I go along over the course of a week and I naturally plan my menus according to what I have on hand. I encourage you to make this list just as you are beginning and learning. It will be a surprising picture to you of what you already have to work with, and how little you actually need to buy at the store in order to come up with a few new meals!

Using Flyers To Plan Your Menu

Using the weekly grocery flyers to plan my menu has been a key to keeping my grocery bill down. After first “taking inventory” of what I already have on hand, the next step is to look at what the sales are that week. For me, I get my weekly flyers twice a week – on Thursdays and on Saturdays. My Sobey’s flyer comes on Thursday and my Superstore flyer comes on Saturday. As I’ve mentioned before, I have found these two stores to be the best bang for my buck. There are rare exceptions, and I’m always scouting for better deals, but for now, this is my method.

Flyers can be tricky. Generally speaking, the items advertised on the front and back pages of the flyer are the best deals. Inside the flyer, there are sometimes other sales and good deals, but the front and back pages are the best. Also, flyers often list items with the price, leading you to believe that it’s on sale, when in fact, it’s the same price as it always is! This is one reason why it’s a good idea to keep track of what you’re spending for your usual items. Some people use a price book for this. I have yet to start mine, but I plan to do that in the near future. You can do a search online for pricebooks and come up with a wealth of information.

Anyway, after perusing the flyers and getting a good idea of what will be on sale when I do my grocery shopping, I plan my menu using as many of the sale items as possible. For example, if canned tuna is on sale for a great deal, you can bet we’ll be having tuna sandwiches and probably at least one other tuna meal that week. Also, if you have enough room in your grocery budget, when you come across a really amazing deal, stock up on the item if it’s something you use regularly.

For Canadians, www.flyerland.ca has most of the flyers you would need to plan your grocery shopping wisely. There are all the major grocery store flyers on that website. Make use of them!

Another advantage to keeping tabs on the flyers is that you learn the patterns of the sales. I’ve noticed that many of my regular items are on sale in approximately 6-week cycles. This is helpful because I can then buy 6 weeks worth of the item when it’s on sale, if I have the room in my budget, enabling me to never pay full price for that item. It’s also helpful because I can wait for an item if I know it will be on sale in a week or two. If I’m wanting to buy chicken legs and I know they are on sale in two weeks, I won’t plan meals that use chicken legs until the sale week arrives.

Practice using flyers and save!

Outsmarting Grocery Pricing Trickery

- Pay very careful attention in the produce section. Notice the difference between prices listed as $_/each and $_/lb. Today, I had one leek on my grocery list. In the produce section of the store, leeks were all bundled in groups of three. Most people assume that the price posted above the leeks is for the whole bundle. NOT SO! The price posted was per pound! I only needed one leek, so I took apart a bundle and placed only one leek into my cart. And so I paid for only the one leek that I wanted! And I paid much less than I would have for the whole bundle, which I probably would have ended up forgetting about in my fridge and wasting! And one of my key mottos for keeping the grocery bill down is “Waste not, Want not!”

- Make notes on your grocery list about what the exact sale item is (while looking through the store flyers). There are two main reasons for this:

1. At the store, you might find that what you thought you could buy on sale, is not always as it seems. For example, this week’s store flyer told me that Primo brand pasta was on sale for $1 per 454g package. With careful planning, and on a super tight budget, one might put one pasta package on the grocery list. However, when I arrived at the pasta aisle, there was not a single package of pasta smaller than 900g. The price of the 900g package WAS $2.00, which works out to the same thing as $1.00 per 454g, but the flyer was deceiving.

2. Sometimes, if you get to the store before they have posted the sale prices, you won’t know which brand is the one advertised at the sale price. Today, cans of tuna were listed in the flyer for $1 each. When I got to the store, they hadn’t posted the sale prices yet. There were three brands of tuna to choose from. I have been paying close attention to this store and its sales for a long time, so I had a pretty good idea of which cans were on sale,  but sometimes they get tricky. Other times, it might be only a specific type of product. One week, canned tuna was on sale, but it was only the cans that had garlic and herbs in them! Sneaky, sneaky!

MONEY BACK with coupons!

I don't have a photo today, but for the first time EVER, I used a coupon and actually got PAID to "purchase" an item! YES! It was a measly penny, but still! Superstore had Colgate toothbrushes on sale for $0.99 and I had a coupon for $1 off a Colgate toothbrush!

Once again, I looked at the flyer this week and looked at the coupons I had and combined weekly flyer savings with my coupons to save more than $15! I got items like Old Spice deodorant for $1.23, Old Spice body wash for the same price, deodorant for $0.99, Scope mouth wash for $1.99, Colgate toothpaste and toothbrushes ranging in price from FREE to $0.89, and LARGE bottles of Tresemme shampoo and conditioner for $3.99. Oh! And a pack of Danone Crush yogurt for just over $2!

So once again, coupons made my shopping trip!

I GET IT! I saved over $25 with coupons!

I am giddy with excitement about my first planned coupon-shopping trip! I didn’t think this was possible. I’ve been following Mrs. January and wondering how in the world she does it! But now I’VE DONE IT! Let me share with you!

For all of this, I paid a whopping $9.26!!! Here’s how:

First, I organized all of my coupons, making sure none were out of date and sorting them by category. I became quite familiar with what I have as I went through this process.

Then, I looked at the weekly flyers and found items that were on sale that I had coupons for. I planned what I would buy and where and made sure I was getting a massive deal on each item.

Next, I went shopping!

Shopper’s Drug Mart
Clover Leaf Tuna on sale for $0.79 each.
I had 7 coupons for “Buy 2, Save $1″.
At Shopper’s price, that’s two cans for $1.58, minus my coupon, is 2 for $0.58, or $0.29 each!
Total paid: $4.05
Total saved: $7 (actually more, because these were on sale already. This is just what I saved off the SALE price!)

Zeller’s

Dove (4x90g) on sale for $2.99 today only
Coupon for $1 off makes it $1.99.
Gillette Shave Foam on sale for $1.79.
Coupon for Buy 3, Save $5.
Buying 3 at sale price brings it to $5.37, minus my coupon makes it $0.37 for all three, or $0.12 for ONE! WHAT A DEAL!
Bounty Extra Soft Paper Towel $1.99.
Coupon for One Free Package!
Total Paid: $2.88
Total Saved: $11.49

Superstore

Arm & Hammer Toothpaste on sale for $1.49
Coupon for Save $1
Coupon for Save $0.50
Coupon for Save $0.75
Bought 3 at $1.49 brings it to $4.47, minus the coupons brings it to $2.22.
THEN, Superstore always has a Deal of the Week. If the cashier forgets to mention it, you get it for free. Well, my cashier forgot, so I got a package of Halls Cough Drops that were on sale for $1.99 for FREE!
Total Paid: $2.33
Total Saved: $4.24 (more because this is what I saved off the already-on-sale price)

So, today I got a roll of Bounty paper towel, 3 cans of Gillette Shaving Cream, 4 bars of Dove soap, 14 cans of Clover Leaf tuna, 3 tubes of Arm & Hammer Toothpaste, and a bag of Halls cough drops, all for a grand total of $9.26!!!! 

Not only that, but I didn’t even have to pay for the Superstore purchase out of my own money, because I took advantage of their deal last week of buying $250-worth and getting a $25 gift card. Today, my Superstore purchase came out of that gift card, so REALLY, I only spent a total of $6.93 of my own money today!!!! THIS IS FANTASTIC!!! It works out to MORE than $25 saved!!!!!

(Big thank-you to Susan for all the coupons you sent me! They sure are coming in handy!)

So, I’m convinced, now, that coupons really can help us Canadians! I hope to experience a few more of these victorious shopping trips in the future!