It’s time to refresh your grocery store shopping strategies!

Wow! Have you experienced the sticker shock at the grocery stores lately? You’re certainly not alone. Gas price hikes, world food shortages and disappearing bee populations have created havoc for us shoppers. Unlike luxury items we can forego, everyone must eat. You may well wonder how you might better manage your grocery budget to offset these changing marketplace conditions. Here, we offer several ways to make your grocery dollars go quite a bit further.

The strategies presented here are a bit unconventional, but if you combine all of these techniques, you can expect to reduce your bill at the grocery stores by anywhere from 30-50%. No kidding.

The first way to save big involves shopping all of your neighborhood grocery stores, not just your usual favorite. Pluck those grocery sales flyers out of the newspaper each week. Go through each one and plan your menus around what’s on sale this week, rather than planning your menus first. The sales vary weekly, so your menus will be automatically diverse. If one store has the best produce, visit that store and shop their produce sales. Apply the same technique for meat. Coffee is another good example. You can save up to $3 for a large can by stopping by the store you dislike, but which has coffee on sale.

You may wince at the thought of extra gas and time, but the money you save on food makes up for both of those factors. If you took a calculator to each of your neighborhood stores and added up the cost of your entire list at each store, your overall bill would be about the same. By splitting your list into say, four stops, you’ll realize a 30-50% overall reduction by shopping each store’s sale items. For example, Joe’s store has chicken for $0.99 per pound this week, while your favorite store is selling chicken for the regular $1.89 per pound. With a five pound purchase at Joe’s, you save $4.50! Stocking up with ten pounds, your savings comes to a whopping $9.00.

Although the grocery stores would like you to believe that those manufacturer’s coupons are only good at their store, it’s simply not true. The grocery business is quite competitive. Most often you’ll find another store which sells the product for less all the time, accepts that coupon. Again, you save.

Dollar type stores are famous for selling toiletries such as shampoo and toothpaste for just $1, compared with grocery store prices of $2-3. Why pay $4 for disposable razors when you can get them for $1?

If you don’t have the time to do all your weekly shopping in one day, spread it out. If you have an errand on Tuesday which is a block away from one store, buy those sale items in a quick convenient stop.

Plan your menu around sales, shop all the stores and use those coupons judiciously at the right store. Your reward is dollars in the bank!