We are on week #20 of our Take Back Your Finances Challenge. The past few weeks, we have focused on savings in the kitchen – extending your savings beyond the grocery stores. We do encourage you to work through the grocery shopping savings techniques that we have shared previously and to keep adding more strategies and steps each month as you attempt to cut 2%. But there are SO MANY WAYS to save on your food bill at home – before and after you enter any grocery/club or super store.
Be sure to print and complete the freezer and pantry inventory sheets and certainly take advantage of the “No-Food Waste” menu planner as these are just two of the many ways to save – both that will help you save big.
Well, this week, we want to add another special kitchen and money saving task to the challenges! We want to encourage you to print off and create your shopping list with price comparisons.
How To Create Your Regular Shopping List with Price Comparisons
The challenge is to print it the free provided printable (see at the bottom of this post) and put it in your home binder or hang inside a cupboard or pantry and fill-it out as time goes on. When we shop, we have our “normal” items needed each week and then we shop the sales and markdowns for additional items (and utilizing the no food waste menu planner allows for flexible sale/markdown shopping and incorporating into menu planning easily). Well, one extra way that we have found yields a good amount of savings is by knowing the baseline prices of the items you buy each grocery shopping trip. That way, when you are utilizing the grocery shopping lists on our site or the numerous grocery shopping apps, you can truly know if the “sales” or “advertised prices” are really a great deal and which store would have the most items on sale that you use.
When we started doing this, it became very eye-opening. Foods that we thought were a decent price, really were not. It also helped to streamline our shopping even more and allowed us to be even more precise with our regular shopping items and also to know when we seriously need to stock-up on an item.
You might think you have it all figured out, but this will really put that to the test! So whether you are super organized grocery shopper or trying to figure the grocery store out, this will bring organization, clarity, focus and great savings to your grocery budget! We have personally find that I could not do something like this just sitting down at one sitting. I forget and don’t realize just all of the foods we have on our normal “non-coupon” shopping list.
This list is also vitally important because you can use also use this list to help you form future recipes, keep your pantry stocked, with a several month supply, keep inventory and most of all, track prices so that when your family’s “normal” item goes on sale somewhere, you can nab it for the lowest prices!
I find that this list is often built when I run out of a regular use item. Just keep it handy and then begin to fill-it out. It is designed to list a comparison price for up to three stores for each item.
sample from the printable
In addition, you can create the store abbreviation legend in the bottom section in case you forget or one of your family member’s uses the list one day!
Here’s some examples for the legend on my list: WM = Walmart, KR = Kroger, TG = Target, etc.
In the end, this is going to be a very useful tool, so your task for this week is to print it out and started and handy to continue to work on. Print as many as you need. You will be thankful that you have it!
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<== Download your price comparison download HERE. |
Need to catch up? Come join us on this challenge from the very beginning by clicking on the 52-Week Take Back Your Finances Challenge and sign up to start receiving your automated challenge from the very beginning!
One final thing…we also have a Facebook Group where you can engage in discussions, receive encouragement and talk to others that are participating in the challenges too for more ideas! Head to the Be Intentional with The Thrifty Couple Facebook Page HERE and ask to join us there! You can also invite friends and spouses too!
Disclaimer: We are not licenses financial planners. We are only a couple that have been just a hair-breadth away from bankruptcy and found our way out of debt with a goal to now help others. Please make sure to consider any advice given on our site and in this challenge as tips we have used ourselves; they may not work for everyone. If you have questions please make sure to contact a licensed professional.
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