Save Up to $200-$400/Month on Groceries in Just 2-Hours/Week

Save up to $200-$400 a Month On Groceries!

So, I’m not talking about Extreme Couponing or spending several hours a week to save up to $50 or even $100 a week on your grocery shopping. I’m talking about a system my wife and I developed and refined to buy what we like and still save an average of 30% a week on grocery bills. I spent one full month in Fall of 2019 documenting that this system really is saving what I share. We saved over $200 that month and have been using this system to save an estimated $200/month ever since! We are just a family of three. A family of 5-6 could save up to $400/month using our system. Results will vary and some of you shoppers may already be using some of our savings strategies. So you may only save an extra 10-20% per month but hey that's still $75-$200 a month savings using a system that only takes an extra hour or two a week.

This is a simple 3-step system. It has a core premise that aligns with S$M core mission of simply saving you more money. Our focus is to "Buy Low. Save High" on every purchase, investment and financial decision. This is to make the most of your time and money.

Step 1. Grab, compile your grocery list for the week on paper or on your phone. Next grab your weekly grocery coupon mailers from local 5-6 grocery store chains (within 2-12 minute drive from your home). An alternative to this is use the Flipp app which has digital versions of your local grocery coupon mailers. It's a free app that is very easy to use! :) It's a great app in which you can add your list and tap on offers to redeem in the grocery stores. Some offers require signing up for the grocery store's loyalty program and using their app, but you can save all your offers using the Flipp app and make notes on paper or in app list telling yourself the offer redemption details (requires digital or paper coupon, buying 6 or more, only good on Friday's, etc..). This is a key part of this system as all these stores offer UNIQUE SAVINGS OFFERS every week that compete with each other. Be careful however as some will have better deals than others on items you want. Be sure to buy the food you want at the very lowest price. Step 1 will be completed as you fill out your list to buy most everything on sale every week. Most all of what you buy should be bought on sale. This is usually at 25-75% savings. Note that some items on your list will rarely go on sale and some almost never. How do you know? If you've been paying very close attention when buying the regular items you like you will notice the price changes and a Savings Algorithm for nearly every item you buy. I'll dive deeper into this in a minute.

Studies show that most grocery shoppers shop weekly at 3-4 stores with most often just one local grocery store and then one like Sprouts or Trader Joe's and then 1-2 times month at Target, Walmart and once a month or every other month at CostCo or Sams Club. So each store has groceries and each is competing on pricing with each other and each offers weekly "Loss Leaders" to grab your attention to get you into their store.

However, what these store's are betting against is that YOU WILL NOT, on a weekly basis, shop at 4-6 grocery stores to buy the loss leaders and get the best deal on the items you want to buy. So this will only take an extra 30-60 minutes a week to scour 4-6 local grocery stores coupon mailers (3-4 large chain grocery stores and 1-2 like Trader Joe's, Sprouts). And it will take an extra 30-45 minutes to travel to an extra 3-4 stores per week. You should set up your run to grocery stores to use the least gas and plan to fill up gas at the lowest price gas station when our shopping. But hey if you save $50-$100 a week it's worth it right! We are a family of 3 and we saved an average of $45-$50/week. For us that's $50/hour in savings! At first it did take an extra 1.5 - 2 hours a week to just get used to scouring grocery mailers for deals on what we like to buy and there's a bit of time getting to know the aisles of 4-6 grocery stores.

Keep in mind you are paying for groceries with after tax dollars. With a job it would require earning $35/hour to net near $25/hour and $75/hour to net $50/hour. Over a month an extra 9-hours times $35/hour equals $315. Like I said, after a few months of doing this system I only spent 1-hour a week extra. so our $50/week savings is $50/hour which if I were to earn that money pre-tax I'd have to earn $65-$75. I'm sure most of you earn $20-$40 per hour. So it might take you 2-3 hours of work to match saving $50 per week. And if you have a family of 5-6 you might need to work an extra 4-6 hours in a week to match money saved using our system. That's a nice family pay raise for one to taking only about two extra hours a week, right? You need to be thinking like this. This is what Saving Saver U is all about: Buy Low to Save High!

Step 2. Seeing the Price Discount Algorithm

What is this? Grocery stores and product manufacturers run on a cyclical discounting calendar for all their products on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis. Most are quarterly or every other month. They will discount their products by 15-75%. Don't miss these sale prices! This is very important step in maximizing your savings. You can sometimes save this much at CostCo or Sam's Club, but often the bulk purchases are only saving 15-30% and you may be buying more than you need of some items as some goes to waste or you simply are not getting the best deal. Plus how often does Sam's Club or Cost Co not offer the exact products you want, where grocery stores do. Do keep this in mind about shopping at warehouse stores. If you only shop there once a quarter it may simply not be worth the time and cost of the membership. If you shop there monthly or every other week it's probably worth it to cover the cost of the membership and hassles of shopping there.

So this step may take a few weeks to months to fully become a pricing expert to be able to recognize the Price Discount Algorithm on your items you like to buy or would only buy on sale. Just be patient and look across the the 5-6 grocery stores that offer low pricing. Sometimes only 1-2 stores will offer discounts on your favorite items once every 6-12 weeks. Be patient to wait for the discount. When you see it buy up as much as you can afford and will use in the time prior to the best buy or use by date. And with buying in bulk non-perishable items not needing refrigeration you'll actually be building up months or even a year or more supply of food to survive the soon coming food shortages. And make you sure you are buying items that may be frozen or last 2-4 months in the fridge. We save a ton of money and remember you should be buying most everything on sale and getting a 15-75% off discount. Some items will rarely go on sale but you should be able to find the one store that always has the best price and quality of product you are wanting to save 15%+ over other stores.

And yet another way to save $100+ per year without going to CostCo or Sam's Club is in using Target's gift card cash back offers. On a regular basis Target has offers on laundry detergent to zip lock bags and cleaners whereas when you buy $50+ you get a free Target $10+ gift card. Also look for deals like this at Target on every niche category of goods to earn $5-$10 gift cards. Over a year you can save up to $100 to get CostCo like prices without a membership.

Also look for discount coupons from grocery stores on bulk purchasing. Once to twice a month stores issue in coupon mailers to get store items for free or discounted pricing.

Step 3. Maximize Your Time and Savings

So you've got your loss leader grocery list together and now it's time to go shopping. First, double check you are buying the best deals from each store on the items you want. Next, map out the best route and times to go to each store over 1-4 days (Thursday-Monday). Some stores might be 10-15 minutes away and some 1-3 minutes away. Group them together and try and pair with other activities like exercising at the gym or park or filling up your gas tank at the cheapest gas station. Map out to fill up on gas by paying cash at the local gas station near one of the grocery stores on your list. Don't pay the extra 10 cents a gallon for paying with a credit card or a 35 cent fee for paying by debit card. Don't use the grocery store gas rewards program as their gas is often 20-40 cents more per gallon as compared to the least expensive gas in town. Map out the best routes and times for you to get the grocery shopping, errands and exercising, playing done in the least amount of time and miles. In this way you can break it up and come up with a regular weekly grocery shopping calendar that is easy to follow, accomplish and you'll save on time and gas money. At most I see the extra gas being 1/2 gallon a week.. Still after extra gas costs we are still consistently saving near $200 per month.

Make Full Use of Store App and Digital Deals

And make sure you are using each store's loyalty apps to their fullest. Each store's weekly mailer offers digital discounts that require using the app and loading the digital discount. BTW, if your phone will not load a store's app, just tell the cashier that your phone will not load the store's app and have them deduct the savings for each item. It may be a bit of a pain and take 2-minutes more time, but if it saves $2-$20 dollars it's certainly worth it right? This saves our family $10-$20 a week, or more.

Buy Store's Private-Label Brand on Staples

Here's a few more ideas to simply save more money. Try store label brands to save 20-50%. Try smaller portion frozen meals and only buy your favorites when on sale. We save $5-$10/week buying private label brands and most often taste every bit as good. Yet most goods from your favorite brands can be bought at a 15-75% discount if you are patient for them to go on sale. Much of our savings is buying in bulk our favorite foods when they are on sale. In today's world having a 6-12 month supply of non-perishable foods is a very smart and simple way to save money and provide peace of mind should there be a major food supply disruption.

Don't Worry! Save Happy!

Does all this seem a bit too much? At first saving that 20-40% off groceries may take an extra 2+ hours a week. Once you get it down though and know the sale prices on each item and where they go on sale the lowest and how often, you will only need about an extra 30-45 minutes or so each week in driving to different stores and at the most 10-20 minutes a week in searching for best deals to gain max savings. Plus, like anything else you'll get better at saving money every year and reducing the time it takes to do so. Take another 1-2 hours a week or day to learn how to best invest that $200-$400 saved each month and in just years you'll have 10's of thousands of dollars saved up in your investment accounts within 5-10 years. I go into the potential savings just below using a compounding interest calculator.

Cooking Your Own Meals on the Stove Is Healthier and Lower Cost Than Microwave Meals Try eating healthier and preparing most meals at home. Eating healthy can be much less expensive than eating processed or frozen microwave meals that often come with high saturated fat and way too much sugar or corn syrup. You pay a higher price for all that processing and I'm speaking about your health. In due time the extra cost for eating unhealthy will make you pay the price many times more. Make this the year you reset your financial and health goals. After all if you are not healthy how can you enjoy your life, family, friends and work. Heck, without health you've got mostly pain and regret for not taking better care of yourself. All the financial wisdom and savings cannot buy you good health.

We cook our own rice, make our own tacos and spaghetti meals every week. We only eat out at once or twice a month at local fast food or road trip and have found a way to spend only $10 for the family when we do. Sometimes we splurge and spend $25 on vacation for a family meal but cutting restaurant food costs our of your budget can save you hundreds of dollars a month.

Compare the Price/Ounce

When buying items always look at the price per ounce on the different size containers and brands. Choose the brand you like best and then choose the best size and price. This can add up to $100's of dollars of savings over a year. And be creative. My daughter likes cheddar cheese sticks. The price for 16 of them was $7.99. I looked at the block cheddar cheese and it was $3.99. Same exact cheese, just not sliced into convenient packages. I bought two and saved $8. This took 15 seconds to consider and a bit more time to slice the cheese in the next month, but still a great deal. Look for savings like this.

Manufacturers Coupons on Boxes and With Grocery Receipts

Look for manufacturer coupons to save $1-$2 on items you like on boxes and grocery receipts. These usually are good for a year or more so wait to use them until your fav food goes on sale via algorithm or by using grocery app with Digital Coupons or membership by buying in volume.

And before I finish here. Please keep in mind that $200-$400/month saved actually equals $300/$600 gross income (if you had to work for it). And also keep in mind that that investing $300 per month and earning just a 6% rate of annual compounding return, in just 5 years you'd have saved $20,293, in 10 years $47,450, in 20-years $132,428, in 30 years $284,609 and in 40-years $557,143. This is a fairly conservative return at 6% annual compounding rate of return. You can use this free calculator here to change percentage, enter your savings goals.

So you can see significant savings in just 5 years! If you are just getting started saving for retirement or kid's college fund, that saving $300-$600 per month can go a long ways towards reaching your goals. And just think, you didn't need to get a part time job and that this is just one way to save up to thousands a year. In applying all our money saving ideas you could easily save $1,000 to even $2,000 a month. That's 3-6 times the example I just gave you with grocery shopping savings. Apply them all and that's a full-time job income when considering that you may only net $1,000 to $2,000 after taxes. Let's do the math here on $1,000/month saved that earns 6% annual compounding interest. In 5 years that's $67,645. In 10 you'll have saved $158,159. In 20 years your savings would be $441,427. In 30 years you'd saved $948,698. And if you are in your 20's and just getting started to save in 40-years your savings would be $1,857,143.

Now a 6% annual compounding return in my opinion is quite conservative expectation. Though I'm not a certified financial planner or advisor I believe getting a 8-10% or even 12% return is very possible with a good money manager or becoming a good one yourself. Well there you go. Now go start saving for you and your family's future. Make sure you set aside time to go through ALL our Saving University articles to make sure you are saving the most you can. And remember everyone is starting at a different level of shopping saving knowledge and investing knowledge. Start with our Saving 101 posts and work your way up. They are set up that way to build layer after layer of more knowledge and ways to save. And be sure and watch our experts videos on investing and saving money. I've learned so much myself from them all. Use our expert video playlist and subscribe to their YouTube or Podcast channels. I suggest starting watching their free videos and only pay for their subscription once you've gone through Saving University posts or you feel like you really want to dig deeper. I also suggest learning daily and weekly and watching, reading content for free. I've curated years, up to decades of learning and share the experts to follow that best appear align with our mission and values. This way you can accelerate your learning and not waste a bunch of time searching for whom you should be listening to or reading articles by. And you won't have to start paying hundreds to thousands of dollars a year until you can actually discern if the return on that investment can be applied by you or until you are ready to apply such information.

Well there you go. Now go start saving for you and your family's future. Make sure you set aside time to go through ALL our Saving University articles to make sure you are saving the most you can. And remember everyone is starting at a different level of shopping saving knowledge and investing knowledge. Start with our Saving 101 posts and work your way up. They are set up that way to build layer after layer of more knowledge and ways to save. And be sure and watch our experts videos on investing and saving money. I've learned so much myself from them all. Use our expert video playlist and subscribe to their YouTube or Podcast channels. I suggest starting watching their free videos and only pay for their subscription once you've gone through Saving University posts or you feel like you really want to dig deeper. I also suggest learning daily and weekly and watching, reading content for free. I've curated years, up to decades of learning and share the experts to follow that best appear align with our mission and values. This way you can accelerate your learning and not waste a bunch of time searching for whom you should be listening to or reading articles by. And you won't have to start paying hundreds to thousands of dollars a year until you can actually discern if the return on that investment can be applied by you or until you are ready to apply such information. Take care and have a great day!