With the news of a little one coming in August, my husband and I have been looking at our different housing options, and we have realized that we really need to stretch our dollars if we want to save money for a down payment:). As I have reflected on my past habits, I realized I have gone through different "phases" of grocery shopping.

As I Need It Shopping: When we were first married, I don't think I ever really had a meal plan. I'd look in the fridge, and realize we had nothing to eat, so we went out to eat a lot;). We would buy what sounded yummy, along with a few other basics. Sometimes I had a few meals in mind as I would shop, and other times I just bought basics, hoping they would somehow come together. If I realized last minute that I needed something, I would run to the store really fast to pick it up in time for dinner. And since we were both working, home-cooked dinners were a big deal!

Once A Week Essentials: At some point I finally got it together and started at least making sure I went grocery shopping once a week. I would think of things we liked and maybe a recipe or two I wanted to try, and I would buy what I needed to get me through one week. I had a weekly budget set aside, so I knew I couldn't go over that amount. Some people go shopping once a week and have a complete meal plan- I don't' know that I was ever that on top of it, but at least our fridge had food in it pretty regularly!

Price Match Crazy: A little after we had our son, I realized our grocery bill would keep going up as we had more children (and if I could have foreseen that my kids would have my husband's appetite, I might have curled up in a ball on the spot). I decided I needed to be a little more effective in my shopping, and began price/ad matching. Every week I looked through the ads and compared store's prices to see who had the best price for apples, cheese, butter, etc. Depending on how many deals were at a store, I would go to Wal-mart to get everything that wasn't on sale (I am a fan of store brand= cheaper and most of the time you don't have to sacrifice quality!); I would ad match things that were on sale or I would go to the actual store (Smith's, Sprouts, Macey's, etc).

Twice a Month: I read somewhere that you should try to condense your shopping trips into as few trips as possible, because every time you go to the store you spend more money- you see something new that you want to try, you see a good deal that you feel you can't pass up, or maybe something just really looks good, so it goes into the cart. I realized that with a little more careful planning, I could easily go two weeks between grocery shopping trips. This definitely required that I have a meal plan. I split my grocery money in half, and I knew what I could spend for the first half and for the second half. This definitely requires some discipline, but I also feel that it allowed my creativity to flow and it did save money:).

Once a Month Insanity: One month I got a crazy idea from a blog that maybe I could try to plan meals and do all the grocery shopping only one time for the whole month. I spent hours looking through cookbooks and the recipes I have in my awesome Cook'n program to look for recipes I could use with fresh produce as well as recipes that could use canned food. I also researched a few ways to make produce last longer. I looked at our calendar to see which nights I would probably want to use crock pot or other quick meals, and wrote every meal down for the entire month. I wrote out my insane shopping list and picked it all up. I then stuffed the fridge and prepared and froze everything I could (bread, peppers, green onions, etc). I wasn't sure if that month was going to be a success or not, but I think I can venture and say it was! I think I did end up going to the store about 3 weeks in because I wanted a couple more fresh produce items, but for the most part I stuck with my meal plan and my budget! Definitely not for the faint in heart, but a fun challenge for those who are looking to save!

I intermingle these phases all the time- I'm trying to get set on something, but hey- life happens;). How do you do your shopping and meal planning? I'd love to hear from you!

    Camille Hoffmann
    Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2014
    Email the author! camille@dvo.com

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