Believe it or not, making less trips to the grocery store WILL save you money! Almost half of all shoppers that go to the store three or four times a week spend far too much money. Shoppers go in for a "quick trip" and they usually end up spending 54% more than they had planned.
If you go to the store three times a week and spend $10 on impulse buys each trip, that adds up to $120 extra per month. But if you go only once a week, you'll spend $40 per month on impulse buys. That saves you $80 per month, or $960 per year.
We were going to the store once a week and getting our groceries for a week at a time. Now that my husband has changed jobs and gets paid bi-weekly, we now go once every two weeks. We actually sit down and make a menu up for two weeks at a time going over our items on hand and comparing it to what we will need to purchase at the store. This not only cuts down on impulse buying and buying things we do not need, but it cuts down on food sitting in the cabinets that we will not use. It used to be nothing for us to spend $150 a week and sometimes more than that on groceries and it still seemed like we didn't have what we needed. Now, we can get by on spending anywhere from $50-$100 a week.
I encourage you to give this a try! It takes discipline to take time planning your menus. There are many, many wonderful blogs on the internet with great recipes. Many have even planned the whole week of menus for you. There are many sites that have recipes posted for you as well, thus making it an easier task for you to accomplish. Going to the store does not have to be such a dreaded thing anymore.
I actually enjoy cooking more now that I don't have to spend so much time in the kitchen each evening looking through the cabinets wondering what I can "throw" together to cook. Now, we know from day to day and I already know that I have everything I need in the cabinets and don't have to make an unexpected trip to the store. Life is so much simpler!
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