Saving on Groceries $ Weekly Money Check-In $

momofcatan

Feel free to participate in either section or both!

Part I: If you have a savings goal, how is it going? Hit any roadblocks this week? Any success you want to share?

Part II: Groceries- How do you save money on groceries? Do you meal plan? Coupons? Price Match? Do you plan your meals around grocery sales?

momofcatan

Part 1- I have been unmotivated and have not sent out any resumes recently. I really need to do this because no matter how much I try to save money, we really need more money coming in. I have been learning more about investing and plan on moving our retirement funds into index funds which will have a lower commission than the mutual funds our banker sold us. I'm very happy I'm starting to understand more about investing.

Part 2 - I feel like I do a lot to save money on groceries but still spend so much.

• For me keeping track is key. I make my list every week in a little notebook of what's on sale. After doing this for a year I've become a lot better at knowing what's a good price for the things we buy regularly.
  
• Price matching! I lost any hesitation or embarrassment about price matching. I do 95% of my shopping at stores that price match (No Frills and Wal-Mart). I look through all my flyers and keep a list of what is on sale where so I can pull out the correct flyers when checking out. It is by far the easiest way to save lots of money on groceries.
  
• Flipp - not sure if its available in the US but its a smartphone/tablet app that has all the store flyers. You can search for an item and it will pull up all the flyers that have the item
• Coupons - I clip coupons for things that I will use, but always try to match them up with a sale price if possible
  
• "Coupon/cashback" apps- I currently have 6 of these installed on my iPad. Checkout51 and Zweet (coming soon to US) are my favorites. They are the best because you can use a regular coupon in store and get cash back on top of that using apps. Zweet often has at least 1 or 2 produce items listed which is great.
• I don't meal plan which does lead to multiple grocery trips every week, but I'm good at only buying what I need.
  

momofcatan

@subliminalrabbit That sad face is so pathetic. As long as you can afford the flights it is just a minor set back and hopefully you can be back on track soon.

I eat small meals and snack all day. I'm not sure how what affects my grocery spending. I try to stock up on the snacks I like with the best sales and use coupons for the bulk store.

momofcatan

@steamboat123 there is Vangaurd in Canada. I will need to research if it is as good as in the US. Right now, I'm looking at a fund with TD so I get to stay in my comfort zone since I do all my banking there. The MER is only 0.33%.

Lizzybizzy80

Part 1: my 90,000 mile check up for my Prius was $450. That was more than I planned. Thankfully DH's former boss sent him a nice letter and an extra paycheck.

Part 2: I plan meals around weekly sales and clip coupons. We hit up Aldi for their weekly deals but can't really use coupons there. I buy some things in bulk and put in smaller portions for the deep freezer.

I use the Tom Thumb/Safeway app for more deals and get some things for free or they pay me. I have a spreadsheet with prices at different stores so I can figure out if something is a good deal. I need to start a reward system where leftover grocery $ goes to wine

momofcatan

@megsw85‌ (sorry for the delay) In order of favouritism checkout51, Zweet, changio, snap by groupon, cartsmart, save.ca.

Cricket81

For groceries, my big thing has been meal planning and sticking to it. However, I also have gotten really good at saving my coupons (for things I would buy anyways) until that item is also on sale and then stocking up. For example, last week our favorite cereals were on sale for 1.98 instead of 3.99 and I had a couple $1 off of 2 coupons, so I got a bunch of cereal for $1.50 a box instead of $4. I've done the same thing with Barilla pasta and sauce.