Economic times like these demand that we cut back wherever possible. One of the easiest places to save money will be at the supermarket. Finding bargains at the supermarket is actually one of my favorite things to do and it’s something I’ve been doing for years.
One of my first jobs growing up was a stock-boy at a convenience store. Back in the eighties most grocery stored offered double manufacturers coupons. Some grocery stores still do today. I’m sure everyone has seen the coupon sections in the Sunday newspaper. Well the owner of the store would remove all of the coupon sections from the remaining Sunday papers every Monday morning. He would cut all the coupons out for products he carried in the store and then he would file them according to category…Cleaning products, grocery…frozen foods etc.. Well every grocery store has sales every week. He would study the sale paper and match up sale items with coupons that he had cut out. For instance lets say he had a .25 cent coupon for Joy dish liquid. The sale paper would advertise that Joy was on sale that week for .99 cents. He would take all of his .25 cent Joy coupons and head to that market with a list of other items he was buying of course. They would double his .25 cent coupon and he would get the Joy dish liquid for .49 cents plus tax. This is much less than it would cost him to buy Joy from his grocery vendor. He would then price his dish liquid at say $1.39. He would make a healthy profit buy doing a little bit of extra foot work. We can do the same thing at home on a smaller scale of course.
Another great way to save money especially if you have a large family is to shop in bulk. Buying a membership at Sam’s Club or Costco can save you thousands of dollars a year in the long run. While you do have to buy larger quantities of food and cleaning supplies etc. You don’t have to buy large quantities of other things such as clothing, furniture, jewelry electronics or automobile tires etc.. The savings on these “Name brand” products is huge, and often times things such as electronics will be bundled with extras at no additional charge. Say you bought a computer gaming system for a gift. You would get the same system that you would get at any other electronics or department store except yours would cost less and it might come with a bonus controller or it might be bundled with a few games.
Next if you have room, I would recommend buying a large freezer. Many times you can take advantage of meats at reduced prices if they are going to go out of date soon. I don’t recommend buying brown meat by any means but other things such as hot dogs, bacon or bread can be easily frozen and will last quite a long time. You will also be able to buy larger quantities of meat that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to fit in a conventional freezer. you’ll be able to take better advantage of those “Great deals” when they present themselves.
Finally and many of you may not like this one… Changing our eating habits when times are tough is one of the easiest ways to save a bundle of cash. some may think that the fast food chains are offering us a great deal when they’re advertising those two for $2 deals or even if you’re just ordering of their popular dollar menus. That same $2 can buy up to twenty bags of Ramen noodles or maybe six boxes of spaghetti. Eating things like Pasta, rice, homemade and I stress homemade soups etc. can keep alot of bellies full and leave extra money for veggies.
I know I’ve been somewhat longwinded about this subject but I feel that during these tough times this is an important issue and the best way to get help is to help ourselves. I hope this article will help as well.
