Inflation has eased up a bit but it’s still taking a toll on many families’ budgets. So, if it’s time for you to up your grocery shopping game, let’s look at how you can easily take it to the next level with just a few changes to how you buy at your favorite supermarket.
First, let’s check in with some shoppers we met at Carnival Supermarket in Chula Vista. They’ve been perfecting their strategies for years.
“Do not shop when you’re hungry, because you’ll end up buying things you don’t need,” advised Leticia Cisneros of Chula Vista.
“I don’t want to buy anything I don’t need, so as long as I stick to my list, I’m confident that I’m not overbuying,” said Stephanie Luna, who is also from Chula Vista.
Those are excellent tips that we’ll use to start our list of How to Save Money at the Supermarket. We’ll share a printable list of them at the end of this article, along with a couple of apps that may be useful the next time you buy groceries.
“The most important thing I tell people to focus on is thinking about how much food ends up in the trash,” said consumer savings expert Andrea Woroch. “Every time you throw away any food, it’s like throwing away your hard-earned dollars.”
Woroch pointed to a meal plan as the best way to prevent food waste. She then went further with what she calls “reverse meal planning,” which helps level up your money-saving game even more.
”And what I mean by that is looking at your local grocery store ads to see what ingredients they have on sale this week,” Woroch said. “If they have chicken on sale, then maybe you look for recipes that use chicken instead of steak or hamburger.”
Once you have your list squared away, try to avoid the bigger shopping carts before entering the store, added Woroch.
“They were designed to get you to fill them up with items you don’t need, and that will add to those impulse purchases,” she said.
Store employees told NBC 7 that when it comes to fruits and vegetables, the upper layers of produce are perfectly good to buy and eat, but the fresher items are at the bottom, so a bit of digging may give you a longer shelf life.
Once you start working your way through the aisles, according to Woroch, you should make sure to scan the higher and lower shelves for all of your options.
“More expensive name brands will pay more to be at the average shopper’s eye level,” said the expert, who added that by looking at the higher and lower shelves, you might find better options including generic and store brands.
“They’ve come a long way over the last decade, and they can help you save 30%,” Woroch said. “I see store brands offering high-end, quality ingredients, and they also offer a lot of health options too.”
Let’s not forget our warehouse shoppers, who have figured out that buying in bulk saves money. Does it though?
Woroch also recommended using the apps Fetch and Flipp to save even more.
“You don’t want to buy everything in bulk because you’re not going to eat everything before it potentially goes bad,” Woroch said. “Even if you pay a little bit more per unit for those smaller amounts, if nothing is going into the trash, you’re actually saving yourself money.”
So, here’s NBC 7 Responds final list to become the most efficient, money-saving, grocery-shopping machine to help you fight back against inflation every time you’re at the supermarket. It’s downloadable and printable in case you want to stick it on the refrigerator.