Weekly Grocery Shopping Tip

Last week I wrote a post about how important it is to use cash when you shop at Sam’s Club, Costco, or any type of a warehouse store. I remember how intimidating it was when I first started using cash. In fact one of the first times I planned to use cash at the grocery store I lost my cash and had to go out to my car to get my debit card. I haven’t lost any cash since that time {I later found the cash in a very secret place in my purse LOL!} Using cash gets easier once it becomes a habit.

In the picture below you can see an orange circle around “food” with a bunch of scribbles.

I have found that it’s easy to keep track of how much money I am spending at the store if I keep an updated amount on the side of my grocery list. We pay tax on food here so I round everything up and then don’t worry about whether I’ll have enough money to pay for the tax.

Here is an example. I put the following items in my cart and updated my grocery list with how much money I’ve spent:

1. Water chestnuts (cost $1) wrote down $1
2. Garbanzo beans (cost $2) – scribbled out the $1 and wrote down $3
3. Coffee (cost $5)  - scribbled out the $3 and wrote down $8
4. etc.

Even if you don’t plan to use cash, it’s a good idea to keep track of how much money you are spending so you aren’t shocked at the checkout stand.

Grocery Shopping Results

(When I checked my pantry I found that we needed the following items ~ I may still stop at another store)

5 points from above {see blue arrows}

1. Lunch meat – buying lunch meat would not normally be in alignment with the goals that we set in step #1. However, during the busy basketball season, this works best for our family. I’ve opted to buy lunch meat from our local butcher shop due to the high quality, but I’ve found a few brands at the grocery store that I’m comfortable with as well. I wish I would have done this a lot earlier even though it’s not frugal or the healthiest alternative.
2. Water chestnuts – not on the list and we all picked them out of dinner last night. Mental note – don’t buy items unless they are on the list.
3. Seattle’s Best coffee – I “want” to have coffee in the morning so I “need” to have it on hand. However, this coffee would be a want at this point in our life. It was a great sale though!
4. “Not from food” – I don’t include supplies in our food budget. Even when I had a budget of $60 per week for groceries I still had a separate supply budget. My daughter occasionally eats a Clif bar before a game (this comes out of “kid” money.)
5. 2 packs toilet paper - FINALLY! I’ve been meaning to buy an extra pack of t.p. to put in my pantry, but it hasn’t been on sale forever.

Whoops – just noticed I forgot bananas and lemons on my list of stuff.

Check out more tips and trips at: GroceryCartCallenge, WorksForMeWednesdays, and Frugal Fridays.

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