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How to reduce food costs

Despite of the crisis, food prices have been on the rise everywhere over the previous months.

If you just came back from your weekly trip to the grocery store with the feeling you spent more money to get less, you are not just imagining things.

How to reduce food costs even when food prices are going up

With food prices increasing everywhere, it may look a bit uphill if you need to reduce the money you spend on food. You may need to change your shopping habits a little, but there are options.

If you buy most items at the grocery store, try to find a no frills one. They usually have cheaper prices. Fro non-perishable items, consider shopping online.

Consider the food items that you use most often. Cereals, meats, vegetables, condiments, juices, and paper products can be bought in bulk, usually at a lower price, at certain food warehouses or cooperatives. For a large family, a cooperative type of store may be the solution. They buy products in bulk and sell them at reduced prices. You need to be a member and the membership often carries a cost. This is an option for those who need large amounts, otherwise one has the risk of eating nothing else but baked beans for the following three years. Other kind of food cooperative is that one where every member contributes to the effort, physically. Most of them are set up to buy fresh produce at reasonable prices but they are suitable to buy in small amounts.

When changing stores is not an option, switch to a cheaper brand or consider buying the shop's own brand. Swap one product in each category for a cheaper one of the same kind every time you shop. Most of the times you will not notice the difference, and, if you find you don't like the new product or the drop in quality is too sharp, you can always go back to the old familiar - unless you are under severe budget restrictions.

Pre-packaged food is convenient but it usually comes in the wrong amounts. Buying food loose is likely to save you money by buying only what your need. If you don't find a good variety of products on the loose at your grocery store, try the local farmer's market, if you have one, or local farm shop, butcher or fishmonger.

Get up to their tricks

Have you ever gone to the grocery shop to buy just bread and milk and ended up with a basket full of food or having to get a trolley? Welcome to the club!

Grocery stores have a number of tricks up their sleeve to make customers buy more. There is no such a thing as casual in a grocery shop. Everything is planned to maximize their chances and they often succeed in making us to buy things they had not planned to.

Layout

The layout of any grocery store is designed to make customers walk past a lot of products before getting to the regular items or in the way to the check out. This way there is more chance customers will see something they like and buy it even if it that was not their original intention.

Keep the customer inside

In time, customers learn the layout and begin to go for their favorite items like bees to honey. Then is when a change of layout change takes place. The goal of those regular changes is to make customers to spend more time inside and to have to walk through a lot of products again.

They also use music. Playing slow music makes people walk slower - to the rhythm of the music - and gives them more time to notice all the little hooks placed around. Of course, they buy more.

Eye catching

Kids products are placed at a child's eye level to attract their attention. Children will do the rest of the job as they are usually capricious and will pester their parents into buying whatever they see. More often than not, parents give in.

The most expensive buys are usually at eye level. Look up and down if you want to save money.

Impulse buys

Small impulse buy items such as chilled soda, sweets and magazines are conveniently placed at the check out.

Giving shopper's an appetite

The smell of freshly baked bread or roast chicken that often wafts through the store makes customers feel hungry, as well as feel homely. What is a hungry customer to do when surrounded by food? Buy - snacks, if nothing else.

The free offers of food samples are also aimed to whet customer's appetites. It is very difficult to say no after receiving a free gift.

An offer no one can refuse

Big stores will price very popular items at a loss to get customers in. This technique also helps to make them believe everything inside is cheap.

All these "buy one or two and get one free" offers are aimed at driving people into unplanned shopping. it is a bargain, isn't it?

Loyalty card schemes give grocery stores an wonderful insight into their customers habits and with the information gleaned from such schemes, they are able to target them with very tempting special offers.

Beat them at their own game

The weekly shopping trip, may be unavoidable, however, no matter where you shop, there are some pointers to bear in mind before you go.

  • Never shop when you are too hungry. You will end up buying unplanned items - probably, junk food to keep the wolf at bay. This is a definite no-no. Shopping on an empty stomach means that you will pick up more things than you need. You are more likely to pick up that bag of chocolate chip cookies or that box of donuts when the growling gets underway.
  • Don't shop when you are too full. You will return home without half the things you needed and will have to go shopping again sooner than planned - putting yourself at risk.
  • Make a shopping list before you go and stick to it. There is no better tool to avoid falling prey to impulse shopping. This is another protection against picking up things that are too costly. Check your cabinets and the fridge to see what you need and write them down. Remember, the goal is to stick to the list as much as possible.
  • Clip coupons. They put those in the newspaper for a reason. If there are new items you want to try, use a coupon to get it at a discount. If you like it, you have saved some money. On the other hand, if you don't take a liking to it, you didn't pay full price. For me, coupons save an average of ten or more dollars per visit. That's money in my pocket that I can put towards gas for the car. Don't take any offer that is not an item you buy regularly or you would have bought anyway, and don't take offers that mean you will buy more quantity you actually need. The food will end up in the trash bin, your money in the shop's pockets.
  • Can I repeat this? Buy only what you are going to eat. The huge amount of food that ends up in the trash bin as per latest statistics, much of it still wrapped, should make all of us blush. When you do that shopping list, tick off anything that you bought the previous time and you did not use.
  • Buy more staples than prepared foods. It is easier to buy a box of macaroni and cheese, but is it more economical? A large box of macaroni and a block of cheese will make more servings for your family than one box of prepared macaroni and cheese. The next time you go shopping and pick up a box or bag of an already prepared item, ask yourself if you can make that at home for less. If you can, then put that item back in favor of less expensive staples.
  • Shop at the same stores. This is more of a frustration reliever. In a new store, you spend most of your time looking for things and walking up and down every aisle, which oftentimes leads to forgetting an item or two. Going to the same store each time makes you more familiar with the layout and the prices so you can shop faster and estimate your bill as you write your grocery list.

You may have a nice surprise

Do you have the ticket from your last trip to the grocery shop? Right, keep it

Now, the next time you need to do some food shopping, do a bit of planning beforehand. Take time to write down that shopping list, removing any item that you did not use from the previous time. Choose a few candidates for a product downgrade.

Have a sandwich before leaving your home. Try to shop without the children in tow. Make sure they are not hungry either, if that´s not possible and you have to take them with you.

Once inside the grocery shop, keep your list at hand and use the time to make your own choices, instead of loading the trolley without a second thought.

If you compare the total at the checkout with your previous ticket, you may get a nice surprise. We did an informal experiment with six volunteers and all of them said they had spent less money. Three of them reported they had slashed a 30% or more from their food expenditure.


A thought for food

Reducing the amount of food wasted will help your purse and the environment. Such a small thing can help promote sustainable growth.