Last week, I talked about saving money with general purchasing. Now I want to talk more specifically about groceries. As I mentioned before, coupons have almost become a pastime. So now, you have to be more creative when planning your grocery shopping trips.
When it comes to buying meats, I try never to pay full price for any type of meat unless full price happens to be really cheap! Club memberships can really come in handy when it comes to meats. I buy a lot of meats like extra lean ground beef and boneless, skinless chicken breasts at Sam’s Club. They have really good quality meats at reasonable prices all the time. You just have to be prepared for buying those things in bulk. I’m still feeding 5 people most of the time, 3 of whom are adults, so I can get away with buying 7 or 8 pounds of chicken at one time and still use it up in a few days. I’ll generally use a couple of pounds in a recipe and then bake the rest with seasoning on it and just keep it in the fridge for my kids to use after school or after work when they need a quick lunch/dinner or snack. They can quickly shred it and use it in a wrap, on a salad, mixed with hummus as a dip with pita chips, or to throw in a quesadilla. These are all things they can make for themselves, and there’s no real cooking involved since I’ve already cooked the meat. It saves them time and ensures they can have a healthier snack or meal on the go.
I like to shop for most meats when they are marked down on or just before their sell-by date. Keep in mind that a sell-by date is not the same as a use-by date. It’s worth checking the USDA’s recommended guidelines for how many days beyond a sell-by date you can still safely use certain meats. I’m careful about food handling procedures, so I’ve ready those guidelines repeatedly and follow them religiously. I’m not above using them to my advantage, though, to get some meats at what is the last minute for the store to sell it. This generally saves me half off the original price, and as long as you have a deep freezer handy, it’s a great way to stock up so you have a variety of meats on hand when you need them. I particularly like to shop for these marked-down bargains at Albertson’s and Kroger. At my Alberton’s I know I can go in the evening after 5 PM and have my pick of the meats. If they haven’t already marked them down for the day, then I know I can check the dates and carry what I want to the meat counter and ask them to mark down anything that has to be sold that day. I can usually buy a healthy amount at one time in this way.
As much as I detest grocery shopping at Walmart, I do find that taking advantage of their free grocery pickup service can really come in handy at times. The downside is that you can’t use any coupons with the pickup service. I’m not sure why they can’t work that out…I’ve certainly suggested it to them via social media…and perhaps they’ll get to that eventually. But you just can’t beat having the shop for you and get it all ready for you to pick up in a 1-hour time window. It saves a ton of time and headache. Now because Walmart stores are so bad at keeping food adequately stocked on various days of the week, you’ll sometimes encounter substitutions (which you can reject) in your order, or they will simply leave something out and let you know when you pick up your items. But I’ve found that certain locations are better than others at keeping stock on hand. I have my pick of 3 different stores within about 5-7 minutes of my home, so I’ll rotate between them since some carry items that the others don’t.
For meal planning, I’ve really come to enjoy and rely on the emeals service. I love cooking and enjoy trying new recipes, so having a variety of recipes sent to me every week saves me time in trying to hunt for what to make for dinner. For about $5/month (paid as $60/year), I can download a whole bunch of meal plans of various types (low-calorie, low-carb, paleo, keto, Mediterranean, heart-healthy, kid-friendly, etc.) every week and then pick and choose the recipes I want to make. I can even have it make a shopping list for me and then load it automatically into my Walmart Grocery order to be ready to pickup, or I can use the list to shop for myself. I generally pick about 4 recipes for the week and count on using up leftovers on the other nights. Since there are so many extra recipes to access each week, I generally download all of them and go through them periodically and save the ones I want to try in a separate folder. Then when I’m meal planning, I choose from recipes in my folder and only print out the 4 I want to use for the week. That way, I know which ones I’ve tried and which ones I still want to try. It makes my meal planning super fast and my shopping list super easy. It’s no longer the massive chore that it once was. And I must say that with a picky family, I’ve had tremendous success at finding lots of new recipes that are really wonderful that everyone enjoys and wants to have again. I hate eating the same things over and over again, so this service is great for me. And when I’m really busy and need to rely on old faithfuls, I have plenty of tried-and-true recipes to choose from that I know we all enjoyed.
These are some of my favorite ways to save time and money on groceries. Sometimes, my time is just as valuable as my money, so that’s why I mentioned tips for saving both. Happy shopping!
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