The Extension Connection

Saving Money at the Grocery Store by Shopping Less

• Lindsey Edwards

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Welcome back to the Extension Connection Podcast, where we connect our listeners to research-based resources to help them build better lives. Hey everyone. This is Lindsay Edwards, your family and consumer science agent in Polk County. And today I wanna talk to you about something that I've been doing a lot more at home and it has been saving me quite a bit of time and money, and that's shopping less at the grocery store. So let's talk about how you can save money and go to the grocery store less. I don't know about you, but going to the grocery store for me is sometimes one of my least favorite chores. I have to stop what I'm doing, get in my car, drive, usually no less than 10 minutes to get to a grocery store. That along with figuring out, comparing what to buy, all the different things that go into grocery shopping, whether you meal plan beforehand or do that after you go to the store. There's a lot of time and effort that goes into it, and what I've figured out is the less times that I can go to the grocery store, not only do I save time, but I'm also saving money because I'm not shopping. Regularly in buying impulse buys that I would normally purchase at the grocery store. So while I'm very grateful that we do have the ability to go to the store and to be able to afford groceries. I know that there's also a lot of food waste that goes on in the United States. Did you know that 30 to 40% of American food supply goes to waste every year? In an average American home of four people each year, a family loses on average$1,500 on food that has just been wasted. Whether it's gone bad or it's been thrown away, or it hasn't been used at all, that is a lot of money each year that could be put towards something else. So when we go grocery shopping less and bring less food into our homes, we're less likely to have as much food waste. The USDA is estimating that in 2025, which this is. Some old data. Overall food prices were to rise 2.9% and the grocery store food prices were to increase 2.2 to 3.3%, which I think we all saw in the grocery stores. Groceries have been higher than they have been in the past, which makes shopping more expensive. So any way, I know for me that we can save money on food cost is a benefit. With grocery store prices increasing and our food waste so high, what do you have to lose by decreasing your grocery bill and going to the grocery store less? One of the main benefits that I found with me and my family is. I work five days a week, and then if I don't go to the grocery store after work one day, I spend time on either my Saturday or my Sunday going to do grocery shopping. And it's just one of those chores that I don't wanna have to waste time on. So I've tried to make it a fact where I either go to the grocery store every three weeks or even once a month, I've pushed it a little bit further for certain months, to ensure that I, maybe I didn't have time that month to go or. I didn't have time every three weeks to go, so I just have pushed it out further and further each time to see how long I can stretch the food that I already have in my house. After doing a little bit of research, I found this fun fact off of the Clemson Cooperative Extension Home and Garden Information Center, and it stated that the Food Marketing Institute estimates that shoppers will spend$2 and 17 cents per minute in the store. Therefore, the most efficient way to shop is at one nearby store that has reasonable prices. By shopping at the same store, you learn their floor plan and can shop faster. So the faster and less time that you spend in the store, the less money you spend. So really the amount of time does matter and increasing that time increases your overall spending. The more you walk into a store, the more likely you are to impulse buy and staying the way is one of the best things that you can do for your budget. Let's get into, talk about the two main things that I've been doing to meet this goal. One is, how can I save money at the grocery store? And two, how can I shop less? So what are some money saving strategies that I can use to help me save money in the grocery store? Really, this all comes down to planning, planning, planning. The best way to save money is to not have any food waste. So to plan out your meals for the week is going to save you money. Doing this for an entire week or even two weeks, is gonna save you even more money. Because again, if I'm going to the grocery store every week, I'm more likely to impulse buy. I'm increasing my minutes spent in the store. Making a list, only purchasing the things that you need and avoiding impulse spending. One of my main things is I will make a list, but sometimes I forget it. Making a list in a place that you know you will not forget is also very important. Another thing that I think a lot of people skip over when meal planning or even grocery shopping is having a good inventory of what you already have in your home and in using what you have in your home. First in serve safe curriculum. We call this the Fi FO method first in first out. So if I'm buying a canned good. That I already have one at home that I'm making sure to use the date that's gonna go out the soonest first. So basically if I have an older can in my pantry, then I'm using the older can first before I use that new product that I have brought into my house. I'll go through seasons where I will tell my family, we're on a grocery spending freeze and we have to use the food that's in our home first before you go and buy more off of the grocery store shelves. I know for me, we have a pantry full of non-perishable foods. And again, we're very grateful to have the ability to do that. But then we also have a freezer, that we've utilized to stock up when things are on sale and that sometimes some those frozen foods we forget about. So using those up is important as well. The more my basket team through NC State gives a few tips and tricks on their website, more food.org. They talk about also the importance of picking where you shop to stretch your food dollar. Knowing the stores around you and which ones offer the best prices for what you shop for regularly, and using your loyalty, rewards programs, coupons, that sort of thing. I know here in Polk County, we don't have very many grocery store options that are close. You're willing to drive. There's definitely more options. if you're trying to shop. In Polk County, you have the IGA and you have Food Lion. Those are your two shops. And then obviously outside of that we expand our grocery store knowledge. But having a regular grocery store that you go to is important because you know that store, you can look up those sales and again, it's gonna save you time and money. Another tip is to never go to the grocery store hungry. There's actually research that shows that you will spend more money if you're hungry, and it's usually on high calorie. Not very nutritious foods, so be careful to not go hungry. Another tip is to, if you have children, avoid taking them. You will impulse buy more often with a child. And believe it or not, a lot of grocery stores are actually marketed towards children. The aisle that has the cereal, and it's a perfect example, the cereal that is at eye level. Is children's cereal. The healthy cereals are usually on the very top and the very bottom, the ones that the kids don't like. When I used to teach in the classroom, I would teach about like marketing that is done towards kids. And we actually looked up an example of a cereal box. And if you look at the eyes, the eyes are actually pointed down in a way to look directly into the eyes of a child, which is quite interesting. Just keep that in mind. When you're shopping, kids will make you purchase more. Do avoid food waste, buy. Only what you eat. So don't buy something just to try it. Buy things that you eat and don't purchase food that you are not going to consume. Again. This is where that meal planning comes into play. What I mean by this is if I'm going on a health kick and I buy something like Brussels sprouts and I really don't like Brussels sprouts, but I'm trying to eat healthy, most likely those are gonna. Potentially go to food waste. Purchase the healthy option that you know you will consume. Okay, let's talk about the number one thing that I'm trying to do again, go to the grocery store less For my job teaching cooking classes or nutrition classes, I go to the grocery store a lot so the last thing I wanna do when I get home from work is go back out to the grocery store. This is something that I've had to practice and perfect. Over the years. I have been. Grocery shopping as a part of my job for the last 14 years. So this is, this has taken me quite a bit of practice, but I think I have now a good method and I feel like I have a pretty easy way to accomplish this. Again, the number one thing I do is inventory. I check my freezers, I check my pantry. While I'm meal planning, I incorporate those foods I have, if I have pasta already, I'll make a pasta dish. If I have a roast in the freezer, I'll make a roast. If I have chicken, then that's going on the list. I make a list of the things I already have, proteins, grains, canned goods, and then I plan out my meals. People do meal planning a bunch of different ways. I personally don't like to assign a meal to a specific day, so like I don't like to write out a week. Then right Monday we're having spaghetti. Tuesday we're having tacos. I just like to plan out the specific number of meals that I need. If it's like a two week, week period, I'll plan out 14 meals and then depending on how I feel that day is what we will eat. I usually on Sunday will take out my frozen meat out of the freezer and stick it in the fridge, and I usually have probably about three or four meats defrosting in the fridge every week. And then I can pick as the week goes on what I want to eat. Also, don't judge me, but sometimes a frozen pizza, is an option that we use in our household. If I just don't feel like cooking at all, I would love to say that I cook everything from scratch for my family every single night, but both my husband and I are work full time and we have two children. The reality of this is I just don't have time nor the energy to cook from scratch every single day. With this being a two to three week process, I might have to do a meal plan. That is really more specific than I would like. So what I mean by this is dependent on the vegetables and fruits that I buy. You have vegetables that are extremely perishable, and then some that stay good in the fridge for a long time. An example of this is if you buy fresh spinach. It's gonna probably go bad in a week, but if I buy Brussels sprouts or even kale, it's gonna stay good in my fridge for probably two to three weeks. I'll plan for those vegetables to be the second or third week of my grocery shopping list. Same thing with fruits like grapes. Any kind of berry, they're gonna go bad faster than something like an apple. If it's refrigerated, it's gonna stay good longer. okay, so back to my list. The other thing that I guess I really wasn't factoring in when I first started doing this was lunch and breakfast as well. I was only meal planning my dinners and during the school year, this works out pretty well because. My kids will either just eat like a piece of toast, they eat something quick running out the door or a granola bar running out the door for breakfast, or they eat school breakfast and school lunch. And then my husband and I usually just have leftovers. But during the summer this has to change. Then I have to do a little bit more planning.'cause I do have those breakfast and lunch. Again, taking that in consideration. I personally like to do the same breakfasts for three or four days, and then on Saturdays we'll do something special like waffles. It just makes it easier for me, and my family doesn't mind to eat the same thing for three to four days in a row, that works out perfectly fine. And then lunches can always be something like sandwiches, or again, if it's not leftovers for us, it's gonna be the same type of food. One thing that I do, but that is not necessary, is I try to make, this sounds so extra, but I try to make my grocery store list in order of how the store is laid out. I shop at the same store every time I go to the grocery store if possible. And if they haven't rearranged it. Then I can pretty much tell you where the things that I purchase are in the store. When I'm making my grocery list, I like to make it in the order that I'm gonna walk, because then I'm less likely to forget something that was on my list. That's just an idea if you want to make your grocery shopping even quicker and easier. Then when I go to the grocery store, Well, let me back up. On average for two weeks, I'm spending between 200 and$225 for four people. If I go three weeks, I'm trying to spend less than$350, which averaged out over a three week period is, roughly around$110 a week. When I looked up the USDA food plans that they have, they have some cost breakdowns of food plans, they have thrifty, low cost, moderate, and liberal food plans. And I'll attach the document in the show notes of this. You can look up your family by age and gender, and then it gives you an amount of money you can spend for a week. For example, in the Thrifty Food Plan, a person my age should be spending$53 and 20 cents a week. But in the liberal food plan, it would be$88 and 60 cents a week. You add up all the people in my family in total, on the Thrifty, which is the cheapest food plan, we should be spending$222 a week according to the USDA. Then on the liberal food plan, we should be spending$373 and 80 cents a week. So just from me doing a little bit of extra planning, planning out our meals and smart grocery shopping, I'm spending more than$200 less a week than what they say I should be spending. So that's a huge cost savings and also the time, the time that goes into it. Once you do the planning, it's gonna save you a lot of time as well. It allows me to have more family time. Instead of grocery shopping or doing chores, we're spending time doing something fun. Decision making is another thing that goes into all this meal planning, grocery shopping, that sort of thing. If I can lessen the amount of times I have to make a decision, it saves me some brain power. Instead of making a decision five times, if I can make it one time. Then it's less brainpower that I have to use. I do this with lots of things in my life. Like when I choose clothes, I choose all my clothes for the week on Saturday, and I hang them up in my closet together. And then each day of the week, I'm not trying to go through in the mornings what I'm wearing. I just pick one of my outfits. So same kind of concept with the meal plans. I already have a list of everything that I'm cooking and all my food in place. All I have to do is grab it that night and make it. I don't have to make that decision again. And that for me saves my sanity sometimes. Even if you don't wanna implement any of this or you think I'm crazy for all this information, just take the tips and tricks that we talked about in the first part because just those things can save you money in the grocery store. And also, one thing that I didn't really like harp on. About like grocery shopping and shopping for healthy foods in the grocery stores. We do wanna try to stay around the perimeter of the grocery store. If we stay around the perimeter, that's where our fresh foods are. So whether that be like fruits and vegetables, dairy meats, they're all gonna be around the outside are more processed. Foods are the innermost aisles. If you can just do that, it's gonna give you a more. A healthier grocery buggy full of food if you shop the perimeter of the store. As always, I hope that you find this helpful and encouraging episode for you today and that you can take something that you learn and apply it to your own shopping habits. I'm gonna put a bunch of resources down in the show notes. Thank you for listening today to the Extension Connection Podcast. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at the Polk County Extension Office, and I will talk to you next month on the Extension connection.