Traditional ways of reducing grocery spending (coupon clipping, price comparison, checking items on sale, etc.) were time-consuming and tedious. So we came up with simpler strategies.
The average American household spends $6,000 a year on groceries. If you also include the spending on restaurants, the number goes above $10,000 a year.
Not to mention more the 50+ hours every year that is spent on shopping for groceries (and that number does not include the time spent driving to the grocery store).
Over time, we have reduced our grocery budget by 30% using the below strategies.
Grocery Humor:
I went to the grocery store.
The sign said, “No food or drinks inside”.
So I went home.
Ideas to Reduce Spend on Groceries
When we started looking into this expense category, we were bombarded with several ideas to reduce spending on grocery items:
- Use coupons
- Compare prices
- Check items on sale
- Buy store brands
- Store hopping (buying different items from different stores)
- Buy in bulk
- etc.
We tried all these and more and it made grocery shopping a tedious task. There is nothing wrong with these strategies, but they take up a lot of planning and time.
Finer Household Approach
We wanted a simpler approach while still saving money. So, we settled on the below strategies:
1. Consolidation
Instead of going to multiple stores to buy items that were the cheapest in each store, we decided to do the opposite. We switched all our grocery shopping to one store – Costco. Costco is a no-frills, low-cost department store that sells items in bulk.
Of course, there are certain grocery items that Costco does not have, but it has about 90% of what we need.
There are several advantages of this approach:
- Reduced Hassle: Costco has items in bulk. They have good quality and inexpensive store brands (e.g., Costco – Kirkland). There is no need to compare prices because Costco typically has the lowest price. This took away a lot of work and hassle from our shopping.
- Less Time Needed: Going to only one store makes the shopping experience easier than going to different stores to buy different things. And it also saves time.
- Other Benefits: We like to travel, and sometimes Costco Travel has great travel offers that save us money. Gas (petrol) from Costco is the cheapest option in our area (although the lines can be long at times).
2. Changing Our Buying
Over time, we have shifted our diet to include less meat and more vegetables. This obviously saves us money. But the key driver for this is that we have seen an improvement in our health.
We have also changed our grocery buying to include more of what is in season at that time. This saves us money, but it is also healthier to eat food that is produced in that season.
Lastly, we buy organic selectively. Typically we purchase organic for items that have a high amount of pesticides. Conversely, we don’t buy organic for things that have low pesticide content.
3. Reduced Outdoor Eating
This is not directly related to groceries, but we have cut down on our outdoor eating. Going out for a dinner with friends can easily be more than our weekly grocery budget!
We still go out, because it is a great experience. But we do it less than before.
In Conclusion
We tried the traditional strategies for saving on groceries – coupons, price checks, comparisons, etc. But these quickly became a chore and took a lot of time.
So now, we have settled on a simpler grocery shopping strategy. It saves us a lot of money and, more importantly, is not too stressful or time-consuming.
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