For most of my life, I never shopped a grocery sale paper on a regular basis. I shopped the same grocery store only to become familiar with the lay out of the inventory to speed up the hunting and gathering. Because I hate shopping, of any sort but especially groceries, it was easy to only go once a week, as recommended by expert shoppers. Shop once a week. Shop on a full stomach (hungry grocery shoppers buy a lot they don't need). Shop only with a list.
I shop Kroger. Once you become a regular Kroger shopper and get your customer loyalty card, Kroger sends out special coupons just for you on the items you buy. This works well because for every $100 spent in Kroger you get a ten cent cut in the price of gas at the Kroger gas stations which are in every Kroger parking lot. Ten cents may not sound like much but it really adds up if you shop wisely and avail yourself of all the Kroger shopping perks.
One overlooked shopping perk is gift cards. Every day, all day, the cards are doubled. That means a $25 gift card will turn into 50 Kroger gas points. Several times during the year Kroger runs a special and cards are worth four times the amount of the card. At these times a $25 gift card is good for 100 Kroger gas points or ten cents off a gallon of gas. Well, how many gift cards does one person need? You can work gift cards into everything. I go, either on line or to the store, and shop for what I need before I go buy a gift card. I don't want to guess how much I'll need and buy either too many or too few. If I want to spend $200 at Best Buy or Home Depot, I go to Kroger after I've selected my purchases and have a final price in hand. That $200 card becomes 400 gas points, doubled to 800 if Kroger is running a special. Every month I buy $50 in restaurant gift cards so we can eat at our favorite places during the month.
Another shopping perk is the weekly Kroger ad papers. For some reason it took me a long time to figure out what these papers were. I didn't realize the items in the ads were already reduced and if I had a coupon for the item, I could buy it for even less. You can read the ad in paper, on line, or on your tablet or phone with the Kroger app. Once you set up a Kroger account you can keep up with your electronic coupons which are added to your loyalty card and used automatically in the check out line. It's a wonderful system, but noting is flawless. Be sure to check your receipt at each shopping trip to make sure you have your points.
Also with the app and your loyalty card, you can set up grocery lists and add items to your list directly from the Kroger ad. The list is automatically sorted into sections of the store to streamline shopping. The app improves all the time and is very responsive to suggestions.
Often Kroger runs a mix and match sale. These sales offer an additional $1 off each item if the items are bought in multiples of 5. Coupons still count. When I buy an item in the mix and match sale, I segregate it in the cart. When I have 5 items in the mix and match sale, I move them to the "buy" section of my cart. If my daughter is shopping with me, I put the mix and match items in her cart until I have a group of 5.
I buy Kroger brands and meats at $1.99 a pound to reduce my grocery expense. I find Kroger brands are equal to if not superior to non store brands. By using coupons, gift cards and store sales, I stretch my $300 a month grocery budget into at least $375 to $400, adding $75 or $100 to my budget each month. I also get at least 40 cents off my gas each month which increases the gasoline budget.
It takes a little longer to do the grocery shopping now, both before hand when I review the sale ad and make my list and later while doing the shopping in the store, to compare prices, analyze coupons and comply with the rules of the mix and match sale, but it's worth it. By spending a little extra time getting to know Kroger's sales, using their coupons, gift cards, and mix and match sales, I regularly save $1,500 and more a year as well as buy gas at least 40 cents cheaper and often a whole dollar cheaper. It's all worth the extra effort to stay within the budget.
