five signs you’re spending too much money on groceries
A lot of people make a switch from eating takeout to eating homemade meals and consider that all they need to do to save money on food. However, it can be shocking to learn how we can be spending too much money on groceries! Sometimes, it isn’t enough to stop dining out and eat home-cooked meals; we need to shop smarter to maximize our savings.
In our last post, we mentioned a couple ways to save money on groceries. Today, we’re taking an even deeper look into food spending. Keep reading to find out how you can cut some of your grocery costs!
RELATED: switching to meal prep: how we save hundreds of dollars on meals
here are FIVE SIGNS you’re spending too much money on groceries:
1.) you throw away expired or unwanted food items still in their original packaging
This is the biggest sign you could be saving money!! If you are doing this, it means you didn’t need to buy the food in the first place. Work on cutting down on the amount of food you purchase. Instead, you might need to shop more often or get more creative about your storage.
2.) nothing you bought was on sale
This is a huge no-no in our book. If you’re shopping for and cooking everyday meals, there’s no reason you can’t adjust your meal plans to save a couple bucks.
I really wanted to make stew a few weeks ago, but when I went to the store they didn’t have any stewing beef on sale. So I skipped it and continued to purchase the other ingredients (all of the veggies were on sale!), and then purchased the meat last week when it was on sale. In the meantime, I had to repeat a couple meals, but it was worth it!
Take advantage of the sales and coupons stores and manufacturers offer!
3.) you don’t shop with a grocery list
When I was young and would grocery shop with my parents, I remember we would go into the store only needing a few things, and then walk out spending $120 later. I never understood it! Everything in the cart was an item we would eat…how were we spending so much?
We were impulse shopping during the entire trip!
A lot of those items ended up going to waste because we didn’t eat it by the time it expired. Shopping without a list was one of the key issues of us spending too much money on groceries.
4.) you’re eating meat with every meal
Even with a deal like $1.99 for a pound of chicken, think of how much cheaper a meatless meal would be! Grilled cheese and tomato soup is a great example! It’s a cheap, quick meal to cook, and can be filling without any meat.
5.) you buy all of your food in bulk
Remember my story about grocery shopping with my parents? Yeah, we impulse-shopped at Costco too. We would throw away half-eaten containers of fruit and vegetables because we didn’t eat all of it before it spoiled.
This problem was a little bit harder to solve. Some of the foods were just too much volume for us to eat. Other items we would have eaten if we had done a little more prep with them.
We decided to start with smaller quantities. We stopped wasting as much food! But my parents did get annoyed with the amount of grocery trips we did, so we went back to buying a couple of our popular items in bulk, and prepping them in these ways:
- cutting up food – I remember throwing away so many boxes of fresh strawberries because I was too lazy to wash and eat them! If I washed and sliced them right away, I would end up eating all of them!
- packaging in single-serve portions – Some nights, we had to fend for ourselves for dinner, and cooking one serving is so much easier!
- freezing perishables – no more throwing away expired meat! We froze most of the packages immediately, and defrosted as we needed them!
now take a look at how you’ve been shopping. are you and your family spending too much money on groceries?
Let us know in the comments!
Don’t forget to check out some of our other posts where we share more money-saving tips!
RELATED: 12 easy money-saving tips to try this year
Love,
The Platz family