Spending less at the Grocery Store

I read Ashley’s sister in laws blog and was inspired to write about how I save money on groceries. My shopping technique is to shop more often, and focus my shopping on the special deals at each store. If there is a great sale, I buy as much as I can afford and have room for. For example, Once in a while, a store will have cereal at half price and I’ll literally load up my cart with cereal. If I have coupons it makes it an even better deal. I have a store that doubles up to a $1.00 every day so I can get cereal for 50 cents a box when I combine the coupons with sales. The key, is matching coupons to good sales. The idea is to use your coupons when an item is on sale and stock your pantry when something hits rock bottom prices. Keep your eye open for unadvertised deals and coupons in the store. You can often get many things on your list for pennies on the dollar or even free. We also plant a garden and freeze and can the excess. We make pickles and pickled okra. We raise chickens so we have fresh eggs. We raise our own beef which taste much better and is less expensive than buying at a supermarket. I can’t remember the last time I paid more than 15 cents for toothpaste. I have enough Crest, Colgate, and Aqua Fresh to last for a very long time. I have three packs of Dove, Caress, Zest and many other packages of soap that I only paid tax on. I have at least 75 toothbrushes that only cost me tax. The list goes on and on. I have two large shoe boxes full of razors that were free. Free edge and skintimate shaving cream. The internet is a great source for coupons. Not only can you order exactly the coupons you want you can also print them. Tylenol recently offered a $5.00 coupon on any Tylenol product. Clorox offered a $3.00 coupon on the new Anywhere spray cleaner. This made it 9 cents a bottle. I rarely pay more than a few cents for name brand cleaners. If I do happen to run out before a sale I make my own cleaner with tea tree oil. Another very important tip to saving money at the grocery store is to keep an eye on the register. Grocery stores are not always reset with current sale prices. Your chances of being charged the full price on a sale item are high. According to an article I read in Woman’s Day magazine Americans lose anywhere from 1 to 3 billion dollars a year on scanning discrepancies.