Welcome back pal. Let’s pick up right where we left off. Time to tackle the actual strategy of planning meals, capitalising on budget grocers, keeping to the essentials, analysing the receipts, and finally, rejoicing at the success you create! Time to save money on groceries.

What should you buy? Honestly, this is up to individual needs/preferences. I’m not going to herald diet habits now. Buy what brings happiness and health while still saving money.

Frugal grocery shopping strategy:

The main concept is to have a plan for each item bought. What Nicole has found rewarding and fun is planning each dinner for the period we are shopping for. We can then add up the amounts of each ingredient we need to have exact values. This saves us from over or under buying. We’ll have the dinner and then there is usually enough for us each to have at least a couple days of lunches. Then breakfasts will be oatmeal, smoothies, toast: easy, cheap grains ‘n’ fruit.

The easiest and most cost-effective method for meal planning is to make one big meal that’ll last several days. For instance, we can make a huge pot of chili, stew, rice and beans, or pasta that will last for 4-5 days between the two of us. This is definitely the cheapest/most cost-controlled method. Then we only need ~4 meal ideas for the whole two weeks. Plus, they require basic base ingredients that can last forever and be bought in bulk inexpensively: beans, rice, pasta.

Discount grocers to the rescue!

Now we hit up discount grocery stores for our food! Again, this will save a staggering amount of money versus a top-tier grocer like Metro, Fortinos, Sobeys, Zehrs, etc. It may not seem like a big deal at first, but if we are buying 10+ items then the extra $1-$2 markup is noticeable. If there is a big sale on a favourite item, definitely grab it! But try not to buy anything else. Instead, head over to NoFrills! It is the bomb. The only shock I’ve gotten from shopping at NoFrills is how reasonable our bill is at the end of our haul.

There are a number of other discount grocers that are also a relief on people who just want to eat: FreshCo, Food Basics, Walmart, etc. Hopefully there is one of these options near you. Shopping at a discount grocer is the easiest way to save money buying groceries.

Save money with sale prices:

Next, we can use a coupon app to find deals for us at different stores once we know what items we need. Furthermore, find out which grocery stores will price match and use the discount at your preferred place! It is better to have the grocery list made before looking for deals; otherwise, a bunch of things will be bought just because they were on sale without an actual use. We use the Flipp app; I’m sure there are a number of other ones out there. On our phone, we can browse all the different store flyers. We then highlight the deals we find for items we need and put them in a folder together. Finally, at the checkout we open it up to have the discounts all there for us to price match.

This has helped us on a number of occasions where the store has already removed the sale price tag because it is the last day of the sale; we have the sale price saved with the flyer on our phone, so we scan the product at checkout and confirm that the charge is the sale price. Twice we have gone for a huge peanut butter sale, only to see the regular price tag at the store. Instead of leaving to come back when the next sale happened, we scanned one of them at checkout and saw the sale price come up! Then we grabbed five more because peanut butter is amazing (apologies to those who are allergic). We wouldn’t have known any better if we didn’t have the information on hand, which appeared to be most people because the peanut butter shelves were fully stocked both times.

Stop snacking on your dollars!

One last tidbit to save money on groceries: please stay away from snack food whenever possible! Snacks add up costs quickly, and usually we need one snack to fully enjoy the other. For example, buying a tub of hummus, salsa, or guacamole then requires a couple bags of chips. There’s at least $10 for binge food that we didn’t even need (if we can stop ourselves at one snack). And that’ll last maybe two days if we restrain ourselves! It’s another huge lesson I learned thanks to Costco. The snack capital.

If we have something that really makes us happy after a big day, or helps us recover from a tough workout, or can last for a long time just as a tiny bite to tide hunger between meals, sure let’s grab it and accommodate elsewhere in our spending or own the extra spending. But it feels a lot better to do this purchase purposefully then just as a craving while at the store. I would look at the grocery receipt after a week and see what made me go “holy crow, those blank costs that much?! They were just for us to snack on absentmindedly as we did other stuff!”

Analyse your receipt to save money next time:

This also works for regular meals too. Look back at a receipt and think whether the expensive items were, in hindsight, worth the pleasure at the time. A recent surprise I had was realising, in my preference, avocados are not worth the price when they aren’t on sale.

I hope this was a helpful look at how we break down our essential food shopping. If I can shed more detail on a specific area, please feel free to reach out or leave a comment!

We have had such a blast making these little changes. Now going out to buy our groceries we laugh together when we get the receipt at the end because of how low the total is. When we save money on groceries it outweighs the sacrifice of indulgence. I wish the same feeling for everyone and hope this post is motivating!