Grocery dollar saving tipsReducing your grocery bill doesn’t mean starving yourself, giving up your favorite foods or eating smaller portions. In fact, by changing just a few habits when it comes to buying and storing food, consumers can still enjoy their favorite meals – only on a much smaller budget.
Shop at Discount and Salvage Grocery Stores
One guaranteed way to cut your grocery bill immediately is shopping at a discount chain; these include Aldi and Save-A-Lot. Discount grocery stores are different from a typical grocery store chain in several ways: They don’t carry many – or any – name brands; their selection is much more limited; they often don’t provide free bags; and some don’t accept credit cards. But these concessions are small compared with how much money you can save.
Another effective – and more fun – method to save money is to find a salvage grocery store in your area; they don’t advertise much, so check this list or search the yellow pages. Salvage grocery stores buy products from larger chains that want to get rid of them for various reasons. In some cases, the “best if used by” date is near (even though most products are fine well past these dates); in others, the store needed to clear shelf space for newer products. Salvage grocery stores often have a wide assortment of products – some name-brand, some not – that are constantly changing. Most important, all of the products are available at a steep discount – often 75 percent or more. If you’ve never shopped at a salvage grocery outlet before, try it once and compare what you spend with your typical bill at a chain supermarket.
