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Welcome to Money Talk for Real, podcast where I talk about making money, spending money, and everything in between. I'm Nick, and in this episode, I want to talk about groceries and more specifically, grocery shopping, and maybe some grocery shopping hacks that can actually save you money. A little facts, a few facts here on groceries. They truly are rising. We all know that. The consumer price index shows that food costs are up 1.9% since this time last year. The Economic Research Service has forecasted that overall food prices will be up 2.9% this year in whole as a whole for 2026. The food at home prices are projected to rise 2.4%, while the food away from home prices, obviously meaning restaurants, drive-throughs, et cetera, are expected to rise 3.6%. So that right there should tell you that yes, the cost of food has risen and is going to keep rising, but you're still better off to eat at home, which means you need to get groceries. Part of these rising food costs, the the biggest thing is the beef. The beef is remains to be the key driver in this. Beef and veal prices were 12.1% above a year ago in March, and the USDA forecasts a 6.3% increase for 2026 as the cattle supplies stay tight and the demand stays firm. But again, let's talk about some hacks. If you've ever gone grocery shopping recently and walked out and you just thought to yourself, wow, how did I spend that much? Then obviously you're not alone. Groceries are one of those things where it kind of just feels like you're not doing anything crazy. You're just buying normal stuff, and somehow your total just keeps going up. And the worst part is this is one of the easiest places to waste money without even realizing it. So what I want to do in this episode is break down grocery shopping hacks that I think can actually save you money. Not the extreme couponing stuff, not the diehard, you know, whatever, not the unrealistic things, just real practical strategies that you can maybe actually use. And here's the thing: this isn't about never spending money on food. It's not about eating like you're struggling, right? It's just about being intentional. I've used that word several times before, and I'll probably use that word several times in the future, but groceries are tricky. You kind of, you know, you go every week, you spend a little here, a little there, and over time it adds up to a huge amount, like everything else in life. So if you can get this one area right, you can save hundreds of dollars every month without really changing your lifestyle that much, I don't think. The first mistake, and this is a big one, is going into the store without a plan. You heard me talk about the importance of a plan and the importance of having structure with many aspects of personal finance. But if you just walk into the grocery store and start grabbing stuff, you're guaranteed to overspend. That goes without saying. That one is obvious. Because what happens is you start buying based on what looks good in the moment, not what you actually need. Grocery stores are they have to do marketing as well. You know, it's not just the shiny objects of jewelry and watches and clothing. Grocery stores need to market to you as well, and it works. It just maybe doesn't work in the same part of your brain that you think it does because you're hungry. So you tell yourself, well, I need food, so I'm gonna buy it. Well, maybe you don't need that food, right? There, the marketing tactic is working. Do you ever, and let's put it into you know a relatable example here. Do you ever just go in and think, you know, you go in for like five things and you walk out with 15? That's exactly what this is. Even something simple like writing a list down, maybe planning out three to four meals or planning for the week would be better where you only have to go to the grocery store once a week. And then also just knowing what you already have at home. Not everything with food obviously can last forever, but a lot of things have a long shelf life, meaning they can stay in your pantry without going bad for a long time. Those couple things will save you money by themselves. But if you don't have a plan, then the store is going to make the decision for you with their marketing strategy, right? They're trying to get you to buy stuff. Number two, you've heard this before, I'm sure. Don't shop when you're hungry. This sounds simple, it sounds cliche, but it's real. Do not do it. Because when you're hungry, everything looks good, right? You're you're starving. You could eat anything. You're not thinking logically, you're just reacting to the hunger that's inside of you. So you start grabbing snacks, you start grabbing extra food, you start grabbing stuff you didn't even plan on having, right? Hunger can turn a $60 trip into a $100 trip really quick if you're not careful. The next thing I would mention, piece of advice here, is to make store brands your friend. Buy the store brands. This is one of the easiest wins. I've talked about it before. Generic branding, not name brands. A lot of the time it's the exact same product, just a different label, a different marketing, you know, brand. I've talked about that. If you're paying for the name brand, you're paying for all the work that that company put into building up the brand. You're not necessarily paying for better quality, you're just paying for branding and marketing that goes behind that brand. Examples of this in food specifically could be pasta, it could be cereal, it could be canned goods. Those are three that just came to the top of my head. Those generic branded products are usually a price difference between that and the name brand. In a lot of the cases, again, you're paying more for the name, not the product. Stop buying convenience food. And you might not necessarily be able to distinguish in your mind the difference between convenience food and necessity food. But convenience food is one that adds up fast. So this could be things like um maybe pre-cut fruit. That's a convenience. You can buy the regular fruit, maybe pre-made meals, that's a convenience. If you take the time, you plan better, you could buy the ingredients and make the meals yourself where you're not paying for the convenience of the meal to be pre-made. Um, individually packaged snacks, a lot of times that's convenient. You can buy typically or make typically the same snack, just not pre-packaged. So it will be a little bit cheaper. You're paying extra for these things for someone else to do the work. Whereas if you could just find a little bit of time, pre-plan a little bit better, maybe wake up a little bit earlier, or even just do it on the weekend and get ready for the whole week, you could do a lot of these things without paying the convenience of that. And I get it, it is easier, it is quicker, but it will cost you every single time. At some point in your financial journey, you have to distinguish what's more important, your time or your money. And if you are struggling financially, I would assume that your money is more important than your time. You can probably find the time easier than you can find random dollar bills laying around, right? Convenience is gonna come with a price. Next thing, use a meal rotation. This is a bigger kind of a this is a good hack, is to repeat meals. And I know you might say, well, that gets boring. Yeah, it does, but it's also sucky to live life with no money. So you don't need a brand new gourmet meal every single week or some Pinterest recipe every single week. Find what works, find what you can tolerate, what fills you up, what's nutritious, and frankly, what's going to be cheap to eat and cheap to make. You don't need a new meal every week. You can if you if you rotate these same meals, and again, I'm not saying eat the same one every day, but just tick pick three to four, maybe five meals and rotate them out. And the benefit of doing that is that there's less waste because you learn more as you make it more, and it's easier to plan because you already know what you're gonna have to eat for the meals. You already know the ingredients that you're gonna need. And then lastly, if you're if you're rotating meals like that, you can buy in bulk. And buying stuff in bulk, whether it's food in this example or anything in life, typically is going to save your money, save you money. Um, a lot of people can certainly overcomplicate this, and it leads to just buying random stuff that doesn't get used. Simplicity, a lot of times, will save money. Now, also watch for waste. This one hurts. Uh it hurts me personally. I do it quite frequently, and I it makes me sick every time I do it, just to think about it, is throwing money away, throwing food away, which is throwing money away. That is money going straight into the trash. I hate that. Um, produce going bad is an example. Leftovers not being eaten, eaten. Um, beef or chicken or something like that going bad that's not frozen that you have to now throw away. The fix here is to buy less or just use what you already have. Again, not shopping hungry, maybe you won't buy as much, and you'll be able to buy less and use what you already have at home instead of just buying new stuff every time you go to the grocery store, even though you might not even need it. Wasted food is wasted money every single time. Let's talk about the price per unit. And what I mean is the price per unit of ingredient or price per unit of the meal. That is a bigger focus point for me than the price tag. A small shift that can make a big difference is looking at the price per unit. Bigger doesn't always mean cheaper. And look at the small number on the shelf tag. Okay, the sticker price can trick you. The unit price is what tells the truth. Here's an example if you buy a six-pack of chicken breasts and the six-pack is they're not this cheap, but let's pretend like they're $12. That comes out to $2 a piece for a chicken breast. Or you buy a 12-pack for $20. Well, that's now cheaper, right? It's $20, it's more than the $12, but it's cheaper per unit. That's the example I'm talking about. Every time you go into the store, um look at that, look at those smaller, uh, the small numbers on the shelf tag. Usually there's a unit price number next to the main number uh on the price tag. Next, I would limit how often you shop. Again, if you can only shop once a week, that's great. Because let's be honest, every time you go into the store, you spend money. So the less that you can go into the store, the less money you're gonna spend. More trips to the grocery store means more temptation. If you can do one trip a week, that's great, but I would do two trips maximum per week if you can help it. The less that you're in the store, the less chances that you're gonna have to overspend and buy junk that you don't need. Again, none of these are complicated, but if you actually apply them, you'll notice a difference pretty quickly. The best part is you're not really cutting everything out, you're just being smarter about it, using what you already have. More thought goes into it rather than doing. You have thinkers and you have doers in life. And this is an example that I would spend more time thinking and planning than actually doing going to the grocery store and impulse buying food. Groceries are something that you're always gonna have to spend money on. We all know that you're gonna have to eat until you die. So you might as well get better at spending money on groceries and better at grocery shopping. If you want more ways to save money without overcomplicating it, follow this show. Please leave me a five star review, and I'd be curious to know what's something you feel like that you have overspent on the most. Thanks so much for listening. I'll catch you on the next episode. This is Money Talk for Real.