What are some good ways to control costs for groceries?
For a while I tried shopping multiple grocery stores, checking fliers each week from three different stores and then making the trip to all three stores to save ten cents on each item. After a couple months, I decided it just wasn't worth it.  So, I picked my favorite store.  I shop once a week, after reviewing the flier and making a list.  I clip coupons and try to only buy what's on my list.  (I confess that coupons sometimes get me to buy a brand or item I wouldn't have otherwise... it's my weakness!) The biggest place that we save money though, is by paying attention to meat prices.  I know that chicken and pork go on sale for $1.99/lb every 4 to 6 weeks at my grocery store.  When it does, I buy a enough to last until the next sale, and freeze it in single-meal portions.  Steak and fish are special treats, but on the rare occasion that they're less than $4/lb, I'll buy those.  We also try to limit our meat consumption to every-other-day. It's not worth it for me to obsess over the price of ketchup that I buy twice a year, but on expensive items like meat, and items we use daily, I become familiar with their regular prices and sale prices, and buy extra when it's on sale.  If, like me, you don't have room in your brain to keep track of the prices of everything, stick with the things you spend the most on, either because they're expensive, or you buy a lot. Probably my biggest cost saving is to make my own sandwiches for lunch. I take this one step further by buying joints of meat to roast and slice for the filling. This not only tastes better but is quite a bit cheaper. For example today I roasted a 5 kg ham (about 11 lbs), it cost me £16 to buy (around $25), but I've sliced it, wrapped the slices in foil and frozen them. I've made around 20 packs, each pack has enough ham for sandwiches for me and my wife for a day. I also do this with beef, chicken and turkey and just get a pack of whatever we fancy out of the freezer the night before so it's defrosted enough to make sandwiches in the morning. Definitely don't grocery shop when you're hungry.  Also, watch for sales, and then buy in bulk and freeze it. Also make a menu and make a shopping list from that.  It will help you control how much you buy, and help to enforce only buying what you need.  You don't need to limit your menu, but buying what you need in appropriate quantities will help.  Don't forget to add snacking and desserts to your menu. Check out the bulk stores like BJs, Sam's Club or whatever else is available to you.  You can definitely save money shopping there but you also need to keep your wits about you as well.  Example, if you're buying in bulk only to let food go to waste, obviously that's not good either... Cooking cheaply is time consuming. We cook cheaply, but we take more time to do it. May be hard for a busy family.  If you cook everything from scratch, it's usually a lot cheaper. Also pre-planning meals helps.  If you can coordinate your ingredients, you can save money.  Saving money takes time and practice. I find that when we're rushed, we waste a lot more food than when we properly take the time required. Set aside the amount of grocery money you want to spend in a week in cash. Then buy groceries only from this money. The first week make it a generous amount so you don't get rediculous and give up. And stick to it when you are out of money (make sure you have some canned goods or something around if you run out of money a day short). And do not shop when you are hungry. All excellent answers.  Scott W. already mentioned to look out for sales and many other answers are ways to be smart with portions:  don't overbuy, or be smart with bulk buys. But, I'm surprised nobody mentioned one of the things I'd consider obvious about saving money on groceries:  coupons! Coupons can save cash.  We'll sometimes use coupons for brands we'd be buying anyway, or other comparably-priced brands that we're willing to try.  The thing to be careful of with coupons is when the manufacturer is attempting to up-sell you to a premium brand, or trying to get you to buy a product you'd never have bought anyway. Anyway, we especially like the coupons that Costco sends in the mail once in a while, or those they hand out at the warehouse entrance.  What better way to save than to: All the better if the items aren't perishable.  When we have the space and those grocery savings stars are all in alignment, we load up on such items as paper towels, oatmeal/cereal bars, soap, etc. If you are willing to use one main credit card for shopping, use a grocery points rewards card like PC Financial Mastercard.   Pay for the groceries using the card to earn points and use those points to reduce costs.  The only limitation is that you must shop at Loblaws, Superstore, No Frills, Zehrs, Fortinos. It works out to $1 = 10 points and 20,000 points = $20.  So that works out to spend $1 to earn back $0.01. This may not help with the overall grocery issue, but I find that there are items that I can do without the name brand version of.  A handy rule-of-thumb is to start with the least-expensive brand and work your way up, until you find one that your family likes.  For instance, I've learned I can do without French's mustard in favour of no-name, but there's no way I can live without Kraft peanut butter. "Keep a notebook. (or spreadsheet, etc. whatever works) Start to track what things cost as few can really commit this all to memory.  You'll start to find the regular sale prices and the timing of them at your supermarkets. I can't even tell you the regular price of chicken breasts, I just know the sale is $1.79-1.99/lb, and I buy enough to freeze to never pay full price.  The non-perishables are easy as you don't have to worry about spoilage. Soap you catch on sale+coupon for less than half price is worth buying to the limit, and putting in a closet.  Ex Dove soap (as the husband, I'm not about to make an issue of a brand preference. This product is good for the mrs skin in winter) - reg price $1.49. CVS had a whacky deal that offered a rebate on Dove purchase of $20, and in the end, I paid $10 for 40 bars of soap. 2 yrs worth, but 1/6 the price.  This type of strategy can raise your spending in the first month or two, but then you find you have the high runners ""in stock"" and as you use products from the pantry or freezer, your spending drops quite a bit. If this concept seems overwhelming, start with the top X items you buy. As stated, the one a year purchases save you far less than the things you buy weekly/monthly." "Please stay away from snakes. Don't use a credit card to buy your food. Those credit companies will eat you alive. Those are reward points they're giving you. It's like the casino giving you a free $50 to start out with. They designed the game. They are going to win. As for groceries, if you are a coupon clipper, check out thegrocerygame.com: ""Teri's List is a weekly publication of the lowest-priced products at your supermarket or drugstore matched with manufacturers' coupons and specials - advertised and unadvertised. Teri does all the hard work and research, and presents it to you in a straightforward format. Log in each week and print your list!"" Nathon HouseholdBudgetNerd.com Family Budgets for Both of Us" You may use an app called Flipp (or one that serves your area) to check fliers while in the store. If your preferred store has a price match policy, this can save you a few bucks every trip. Just look up at the app what you are buying and price match it over the cashier. It may or may not work on your store, always ask first. Try to learn some of the products you always buy regular prices. That way you can tell a real special from a fake one, like I write here about the 2/$5 specials. Buy generic brands for things you don't care that much, like bleach and other cleaning products that does not have a real quality difference from the branded ones. Try different cheaper brands until you find one that is ok for you. There are lots of ways to save money on groceries, you just need the will to do so ;) Good luck!
This was a good move by Amazon.  If you don't already get your groceries delivered, you should really give it a shot.  It's often free delivery a few times for new signups.  Your produce, meat, everything is picked from the very best.  It's delivered in a fridge/freezer truck to your home.  I just have them hand bags off to me, quick and done in a few minutes.  The amount of money i've saved from using grocery delivery is amazing.  I'm a single guy, i don't shop all to well myself when i'm actually in a store.  I grab expensive chips and stuff I didn't plan on buying.   This way I plan out meals, google recipes for what's on sale, and don't even need to leave the house the entire time.  Amazon's trying to do exactly this.  That's great, but it's so cheap and awesome right now, you should really give it a shot to see what all the fuss is about.  edit: talking about king soopers, safeway, etc. I've tried all who offer it, service and experience is great across them all so far. Every reward program has to have a funding source. If the card gives you x percent back on all purchases. That means that their business is structured to entice you to pump more transactions through the system. Either their other costs are lower, or the increased business allows them to make more money off of late fees, and interest. If the card has you earn extra points for buying a type of item or from a type of store (home stores improvement in the Spring), they are trying to make sure you use their card for what can be a significant amount of business during a small window of time. Sometimes they cap it by saying 5% cash back at home improvement stores during the spring but only on the first $1500 of purchases. That limits it to $75 maximum. Adding more business for them, makes more money for them. Groceries and gas are a good year round purchase categories. Yes there is some variation depending on the season, and the weather, but overall there is not an annual cliff once the season ends. Gas and groceries account for thousands of dollars a year these are not insignificant categories, for many families are recession proof. If they perceive a value from this type of offer they will change their buying behavior.  My local grocery store has a deal with a specific gas station. This means that they made a monetary deal. Because you earn points at the grocery store and spend points at the gas station, the grocery store is paying some compensation to the gas station every time you use points. The gas station must be seeing an increase in business so theoretically they don't get 100% compensation from the grocery store.  In cases where credit cards give airline miles, the credit card company buys the miles from the airline at a discount because they know that a significant number of miles will never be used. Prior to having children we did exactly what you describe.  We would visit my mother in law about four to six times a year, a 350-mile-each-way trip for a weekend.  We'd simply rent a car, drive down, drive back, return it, out $150 or so for the weekend, a total of under $1000 a year; far cheaper than owning. You should factor in whether you will save money, though, on things you might not immediately consider.  Will you spend less on groceries, in particular, if you can drive to Costco or Sam's Club (or even just to a regular grocery store)?  I doubt you'll save the cost of the car ($2000/year as you say), but it's possible it will factor into the mix. I definitely would discourage purchasing a new car, if you're considering the financial side primarily.  I suspect you can get a used car - maybe the $10k car you would've sold - and spend more like $1000 a year on it, or less.  I don't know if I'd go to the $5000 level as those in comments suggested, as if you're doing long trips you want something with higher than average reliability; but even a car like a 5 year old mid-level sedan, easily costing you less than $10k, would be fine and likely sell in 5 years for $5k itself while hopefully not having too much maintenance (especially if you choose something with lower mileage; shop around!).  But even with those assumptions, 20 days a year of rental which you can probably get less than $50 rates on (particularly if you look at some of the car sharing options, Zipcar and Enterprise both allow you to do longer term rentals for reasonable prices) seems like a fine deal compared to the hassle of owning. I asked how often grocery purchases are made in a comment, but I'm going to assume weekly for simplicity. If a roommate is present during the week following a grocery purchase, then they owe a share according to their preferences as you outlined them above. You will have to track the grocery cost by category for that week and calculate the balance owed by the person for that week. If there is a partial week where most expect to leave for a holiday or otherwise, then fewer groceries should be purchased for that week, and the cost of shares will decrease accordingly. One need only indicate preferences once, and weekly attendance thereafter. The only issue remaining is to determine how to record shares. If a normal person consumes 3 shares of milk, and .5 shares of butter, and so on, you simply add up all of the milk shares for the week and divide the milk bill by those shares. Same with the butter. The downside of this method is that you have to predict consumption in advance, so you may instead calculate by consumption after the fact with a deposit paid by all to create the initial grocery supply which will be refunded when that person leaves the grocery purchase co-op, and shares are calculated by who participated in the week prior to the grocery purchase. This also allows for a mid-week refresh if any commodity incurs higher than expected consumption, with the mid-week bill being added to the end of week refresh trip. Let me add a counterpoint.  I don't know about you, but for some psychological reason, when I know I have an abundance of something I tend to be less frugal about the way I consume it.  For example: When there is a six pack of cokes in the fridge I feel like I am more prone to not drink them up so quickly so I have some for later on. However, if I knew I had 3 more cases in the pantry, I seem to go through a lot more of them. &gt; Queue the increased prices at the grocery store  Nope, we will eat the rise in cost. Grocery stores are in an all war of attrition and the ones who don't keep prices low are going to lose all their customers.      Really the only thing going up in cost lately that saw a retail raise was Asparagus, but that was due to rain. "Make a list of all your expenses. I use an Excel spreadsheet but you can do it on the back of a napkin if you prefer. List fixed expenses, like rent, loan payments, insurance, etc. I include giving to church and charity as fixed expenses, but of course that's up to you. List regular but not fixed expenses, like food, heat and electricity, gas, etc. Come up with reasonable average or typical values for these. Keep records for at least a few months so you're not just guessing. (Though remember that some will vary with the season: presumably you spend a lot more on heat in the winter than in the summer, etc.) You should budget to put something into savings and retirement. If you're young and just starting out, it's easy to decide to postpone retirement savings. But the sooner you start, the more the money will add up. Even if you can't put away a lot, try to put away SOMETHING. And if you budget for it, you should just get used to not having this money to play with. Then total all this up and compare to your income. If the total is more than your income, you have a problem! You need to find a way to cut some expenses. I won't go any further with that thought -- that's another subject. Hopefully you have some money left over after paying all the regular expenses. That's what you have to play with for entertainment and other non-essentials. Make a schedule for paying your bills. I get paid twice a month, and so I pay most of my bills when I get a paycheck. I have some bills that I allocate to the first check of the month and some to the second, for others, whatever bills came in since my last check, I pay with the current check. I have it arranged so each check is big enough to pay all the bills that come from that check. If you can't do that, if you'll have a surplus from one check and a shortage from the next, then be sure to put money aside from the surplus check to cover the bills you'll pay at the next pay period.  Always pay your bills before you spend money on entertainment. Always have a plan to pay your bills. Don't say, ""oh, I'll come up with the money somehow"". If you have debt -- student loans, car loans, etc -- have a plan to pay it off. One of the most common traps people fall into is saying, ""I really need to get out of debt. And I'm going to start paying off my debt. Next month, because this month I really want to buy this way cool toy."" They put off getting out of debt until they have frittered away huge amounts of money on interest. Or worse, they keep accumulating new debt until they can't even pay the interest." There's plenty of companies selling groceries. I would say there's only one online store with an almost entirely vertically integrated business model where you buy goods and have them delivered by that same company. Literally the only middle-man left for Amazon to cut out is the manufacturers/distributors which for now probably won't be integrated to reduce risk/increase flexibility.