But grocery stores are so expensive!

But grocery stores are so expensive!
I dont know how many times I thought that, justifying my weekly trips to Walmart, thinking I was saving money by “one stop shopping.” And, yes, I was saving, I was limiting my impulse buys to none, which helped tremendous. However, I KNEW I could do better.

We had purchased our first home, right in the middle of suburbia, which was a big change from the 3 acres in the country. It was a good change for my wallet, as I rediscovered grocery stores.

The first thing I noticed in the first month, was that I saw a lot of the things on sale at Bilo, Publix, and Piggly Wiggly, that were cheaper than Walmart. The other thing I noticed was that these sale items repeated them selves every couple of weeks. This was a whole new concept! I began to track the sales prices for the items I normally bought, going from my meal planning menu. Then, I would only buy the items when they were at the lowest sale price. For example, this week at Bilo, they have chicken buy one get one free packages, making them $2.49 a lb. However, since I had been watching the sales, I knew that the lowest price was 99c a lb. So, when the lowest price sale comes up, I will buy enough chicken to last me a month, which is usually the sales cycle for Bilo on chicken. Use what you need for this week and freeze the rest. Then, when your menu calls for chicken, the day before, just pull out the bag of chicken and thaw out in the fridge.

But alas, that was not the end of my new love for grocery stores. The Lord blessed us as we were introduced to great couponing sites such as http://www.southernsavers.com and http://www.hiptosave.com
I recommend anyone that wants to save moolah money to check out these free sites. Using coupons matched up with the weekly sales has added a whole new dimension to my growing grocery store love. By using the meal planning, couponing, and the above sites, I have now reduced my grocery bill from $160 to $30 a week!

I would love to see how much others are saving using coupons and other methods, leave a comment and let us know your savings!