Make Your Grocery Money Go Further
Simple tips for spending less at the grocery store—from planning meals and comparing prices to shopping sales and making the most of what you already have.
A Better Way to Shop for Groceries
A Simple Way to Estimate How Much Food Your Household Needs
One of the hardest parts of grocery budgeting is figuring out how much food you actually need. Buy too little, and you're back at the store halfway through the week. Buy too much, and you end up with a refrigerator full of food that nobody gets around to eating. The...
How to Plan a Week of Meals Around What You Already Have
Planning a week's worth of meals doesn't always mean starting with a blank grocery list. In fact, one of the easiest ways to spend less on groceries is to do the opposite: start with the food already sitting in your kitchen. That half-used bag of rice, the chicken in...
How to Turn One Grocery Item Into Several Different Meals
One of the easiest ways to make a grocery budget stretch further is to stop thinking about ingredients as belonging to just one meal. A package of chicken doesn't have to become chicken and rice every night. A bag of potatoes doesn't have to be served as a side dish....
Leftover Makeovers: How to Get More Meals From the Same Ingredients
Leftovers get a bad reputation. For some people, the word brings up an image of eating the exact same dinner three nights in a row. It's no wonder leftovers sometimes get pushed to the back of the refrigerator until they eventually get thrown away. But leftovers don't...
Building a Six-Week Grocery Savings Strategy Around Sales
You don't need to become one of those people with a basement full of canned beans to save money on groceries. You just need to stop treating every grocery trip like a fresh start. Most of us buy the same things over and over again. Chicken. Pasta. Cereal. Coffee....
How to Use Coupons on Items You Already Planned to Buy
Coupons can save you money, but only if you use them on things you were going to buy anyway. That's the part that gets lost when people talk about couponing. A coupon isn't automatically a savings just because it takes money off the price. If you buy a $6 product you...
Digital Coupons vs. Paper Coupons: Which Is More Useful?
Coupons have changed quite a bit. You used to have to cut them out of a newspaper, remember to bring them to the store and hope you didn't leave the whole pile sitting on the kitchen counter. Now, most grocery stores have their own apps, digital coupons and loyalty...
Store Brand vs. Name Brand: How to Compare the Real Value
The cheapest item on the shelf isn't always the best deal. And the item with the biggest discount sticker isn't necessarily the best deal either. When you're standing in the grocery aisle comparing a store brand with a name brand, the real question is pretty simple:...
How to Store Bulk Foods So They Last Longer
Buying food in bulk can be a great way to lower the price you pay per pound or ounce. But getting a good price is only half the job. If the food goes stale, gets damp, attracts pests or gets forgotten in the back of the pantry, the savings disappear. Bulk buying works...
Foods You Should Avoid Buying in Bulk
Buying in bulk can be a smart way to lower your grocery bill, but bigger isn't always better. A large package usually looks like a bargain. The price per ounce is lower, the sale tag makes the savings look impressive, and buying one big package feels easier than...
Creating a Pantry Inventory That Prevents Duplicate Purchases
A pantry inventory doesn't need to be complicated. You don't need a spreadsheet with every can, box and bag in your kitchen. You don't need to scan barcodes or spend an hour every Sunday counting your groceries. You just need a simple way to know what you already...
How to Rotate Pantry Items Before They Expire
A stocked pantry can save you money. A neglected pantry can do the opposite. It's easy to keep buying groceries and pushing older cans, boxes and bags farther toward the back. Then one day you find something you forgot you had, and now you're wondering whether it's...