I’ll make a wild assumption here that I’m not the only person trying to stretch her grocery-shopping dollars these days. If you’re like me, some months the elastic gives out.
Here are a couple of tips that may help, one I use now and one I’m starting next week.
If you need only a small amount of a certain type of produce, check out the salad bar at the grocery store for the pre-cut version. Yes, it costs more per pound, but if you only need a tiny amount, it’s fewer dollars out of pocket and you don’t have to worry about using up the leftovers or worse, tossing them. (Tossing = BAD, in my book.) Buying from the salad bar is also helpful in one of those pre-vaction periods when you don’t want to be stocking the produce drawer before an extended absence.
As I passed the gift card aisle at Kroger the other day, it occurred to me that a good cost control mechanism might be to purchase a store gift card in the amount of my monthly budget and then make all my purchases using the gift card.
This won’t cover all my food purchases since I shop at a local produce market for my fruits and veggies. My produce store doesn’t have gift cards, so I’m going to try the envelope method for those purchases. I’ll just put the budgeted cash in a clearly designated envelope and pay from there. Oooh, and I can write my expenditures on the envelope to keep up with where the money goes! (Some days, my genius astounds even me! LOL)
If nothing else, this will keep me mindful of the necessity of choosing certain foods. Like, say, Bear Naked’s Chocolate Granola.
Have you tried any new grocery budgeting ideas recently? I’d love to hear about them!