Frugal Living Today

Saving money on shopping trips is a goal most of us – at least the frugal ones – share, but creating a shopping price notebook can be overwhelming.  There is still a way that you can save while shopping without fumbling through page-after-page of prices and writing down every item, every time.

One Step at a Time
1.  Start by taking a good look at what you buy on a regular basis, and write down the top ten things that always seem to be on your list.  These ten items are your savings targets for the next month.  Your goal will be to focus on saving as much as you can on these items.  Ten items in thirty days doesn’t seem like to big a challenge, does it?

2.  When you go through your supermarket sale papers, you are going to be looking at them twice for a while.  The first time you scan the sales, look only for sales on your ten item list, and write the sale price down, along with the store that is having the sale.  The second time you look at the fliers, you can look for sales on other items that you may need, but for the time being, focus your time first on those goal items, as saving money on your biggest (most common) purchases will save you big in the long run.

Here’s a bonus shopping tip for you:  Most supermarkets have a price-matching guarantee, and you shouldn’t be afraid to use it.  If Store A has the best prices for the majority of your list this week, but Store B is having a sale on eggs, take Store B’s sales flier with you when you shop, and ask for their price at the checkout.  Few people do it, but it works and it will save you a lot of money in gas since you only need to go to one store for the bulk of your shopping.