My Top 7, Super Simple Tips On How to Save Money On Groceries, Without Using Coupons.

These are my top 7 tips on how to save money on groceries without using coupons. I never fail to save money and reduce waste when I focus on these simple steps.

Background

Saving money on groceries is always my first budget category to look at when I’m trying to save money and make budget cutbacks. I consider myself frugal with food now, but this wasn’t always the case. At one point, food was being thrown away every week in my house and it was usually fresh produce like vegetables and fruit. I thought because it was cheap food, it didn’t really matter. When I did my No Spend Year in 2017/2018 ,I suddenly saw how crazy it was to throw away food when I was struggling to pay off debt. This experience led to a change in my attitude towards food waste.

Soaring Food Costs In 2022

I’m painfully aware that someone might be reading this while experiencing food and/ or heat poverty. These tips can help you too. These are the tips I used to cut my budget to €50 per week for a year in 2017/2018 to feed 1 adult and 2 children. These tips helped me to cut my budget as low as I possibly could at that time. Food costs appears to be saoring. The most basic ingredients do not seem to be escaping this trend. However, these tips still apply today as I use them every week, and they are giving me some control over my grocery bill, given the circumstances.

Over on Instagram I document how feed my family on a budget of €70 per week in 2022. There are three of us in my family and we all eat adult sized portions.

My Top 7 Tips For Savings Money Are As Follows;

Decide on a goal for the savings you want to make.
Set rules on how to save money on your groceries.
Be prepared to change how you shop.
Use your freezer to save money on groceries.
Schedule your preparation time.
Use appliances you don’t normally use.
Use the food you already have to save money on groceries.

In this post I will give you my top 7, super simple tips on how to save money on groceries without using coupons. So get your notebook and pen, here we go!

1.Decide on a Goal for Your Savings.

If you are NOT in a position to manage your grocery spending within your household:

You may be in a position where your goal is to get through a tough time and feed yourself. You are not alone. That is something that many people are experiencing after the pandemic. If you are experiencing food poverty and money problems please look at local services that can help you.

See if you are entitled to claim anything from social welfare. There are schemes that you may not be able to find details of online that could help you, so go in and speak to someone face to face.
Go to MABS for help with money issues
Look up food charities
Speak to someone in your family. Don’t suffer on alone.
Go to #irishdebtfreecommunnity to see accounts on budgeting and saving money on groceries that will help keep you inspired and informed.

If you are in a position to manage your grocery spending within your household:

Whatever your money goal is, link it to the savings you intend to make on groceries, and put those savings towards your goal asap. If you are in the position that you can do that, then this is a great way to begin to make cutbacks in your household budget generally. When I did my no spend year, I needed to clear €10,000 as quick as I could. I didn’t really know where to start so I started with my grocery bill. The goal was big and so my motivation was strong. The savings were linked directly to pay off my debts. That was a very clear and compelling goal. This act of writing money goals into the budget is great for accountability. You can link your savings to creating an emergency fund or a contingency fund to help alleviate rising energy costs later in the year.

2.Set Rules on How to Save Money on Your Groceries.

After I analysed our grocery receipts for one month, I was shocked to learn that we were spending 18% of our total food budget on junk food. I used a highlighter and went through all of our receipts to identify what food was unnecessary. My eyes were opened! I have to say though, I constantly struggling with that part of our grocery budget.

Examples of rules

Make snacks rather than buying them.

To save money on groceries I like prepare some sweet treats that store well such as brownies. We can take those out of the freezer whenever we want something sweet. It is so much cheaper than buying individual sweets and cakes!

Buy less processed prepared foods.

If you have food intolerances or a long term illness that requires a special diet, this may be quite a different for you. You’ll be restricted on how much you can adjust your diet. Aiming for less processed foods would be a good rule to include as those foods are often very expensive. Sometime processed foods are a necessary part of a more complex households needs. See what you need to keep in the meal plan and what could be cut out. You could find some savings there.

My rules often include cutting back on shop bought sweet treats or convenience foods. What is your family’s main area of overspending with groceries? Do you know how much food you throw away each week. Track for a week or a month, the results can be eye opening.

3.Be Prepared to Change How you Shop.

I am a big fan of Aldi and I usually spend no more than €70 per week to feed my family of three. That is more challenging in 2022 with soaring food costs. Sticking to Aldi as my main supermarket saved me up to 50% on my grocery shopping during my no spend year. I’ve continued to stay shopping mainly in Aldi so that I can keep my grocery bill as low as I can since.

Own brands are a big money saver. There are some branded items that I prefer to buy and I try to get those in bulk if I can. I have found that 1 or 2 bulk buys per month soon add up to significant savings over the course of a year. I like to buy detergents, some toiletries and some long life food items that are branded. This is probably the only occasion that I would use a coupon!

Examples of branded grocery items that I buy are:

Washing powder
Washing up liquid
Ketchup
Vegan mayonnaise
Toothpaste

I have found that there is little or no difference between Aldi brand prices and other supermarket own brand prices on the basics such as canned and dried food. In 2022 we can see that even own brand prices are on the rise. Constant monitoring of the prices is the only way to keep on top of staying with budget from groceries at the moment.Writing a budget and getting really familiar with your money is essential right now. I track my grocery spending each week in my excel spending tracker which is available in my shop.

Visit My Shop For Budgeting Tools

4.Use Your Freezer to Save Money on Groceries.

My freezer is my secret weapon and helps me to avoid food waste.If you have a small freezer consider freezing things in slim containers and in bags. Reusable silicone freezer bags are now available if you prefer reusable items. I tend to prepare components of food rather than entire meals. An example of this is pizza dough. I’ll make enough dough for several pizzas and freeze them in dough balls. I keep grated mozzarella, sauce and pepperoni in the freezer too. This handy frozen pizza kit makes life so much easier and it can really help to avoid costly takeaways. A takeaway for my family could cost €30 or more. In contrast, a couple of homemade pizzas and sides can costs us between €5 to €10.

How To Make You Own Frozen Pizza Kit

5. Schedule Your Preparation Time.

A little preparation time can go a long way. Most people are too busy to spend hours and hours preparing food and writing meal plans. I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to spend loads of time preparing. 1 or 2 hours, a couple of times a week is enough. I spend that time;

Writing a meal plan

Chopping and preparing veggies and fruit

Tidying up the fridge and cupboards

Making a shopping list

Checking what food I already have in the house

Gathering food that needs using up ASAP into a basket

My grocery and meal planning cycle is Thursday to Wednesday. Sunday evening is when I prepare our food for the week ahead. Food is pre-chopped and meals decided on. I often batch cook on Sunday evening too. The meal plan is often written on Wednesday night, before I go grocery shopping on a Thursday and I find that keep us from wasting any food. I prepare each week, revisit my budget each week and write my meal plan either weekly or every 2 weeks. This can all seem like a lot of work if you are just a beginner. Once you get used to doing it how its suits you and your family, it’ll get much easier to do. In fact I could not imagine not meal planning now. It would chaotic some weeks without our meals planned out like this in advance.

6. Use Appliances That You Don’t Normally Use.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely got some middle aisle purchases gathering dust in my kitchen. It can be so tempting to pick up a waffle maker or egg cooker (it’s a real thing!), from the specials baskets, while grocery shopping. If you are trying to save money,get out those gadgets and use them! It can be great fun to make use something like a waffle maker as a kids activity and also to do some food prep. In my own case, I hadn’t used my stand mixer for several years at one point. Now I make pizza dough regularly as my stand mixer has a dough hook. It’s really good to make pizza dough with. We’ve been using the George Foreman grill for toasted wraps and chicken skewers lately. I haven’t bought any different or expensive ingredients for this. I just use what I already buy regularly but it just changes things up a bit. What do you already have in your house that you can use in your meal plans and prep? Are there kitchen gadgets lurking at the back of your pantry or cupboards that will help you save money on your groceries?

7. Use The food You Already Have to Save Money on Groceries.

On a fairly regular basis, I gather items close to their use by date together in baskets, to remind me to use them up sooner rather than later. Often the baskets can contain half used packs of crackers or snack raisins or other such random items that might end up in the bin if not eaten quickly. I sometimes challenge myself not to replace used up spices for a month so that I’m forced to use the ones that have been there too long. I often share what we are having for dinner over on Instagram @mrs.hawkins.house, if you’d like to pop over and say hello.

During my No Spend Year in 2017 I cut our food bill by about 50% by using own brands and cooking from scratch. If you are thinking about saving money or paying off debt, there are serious savings to be made in this area even in the current climate. It really does come down to one simple principle, the most economical food you’ll ever buy is the food you don’t throw away into landfill. So get digging through those cupboards and freezers and see what you can come up with!

Those were my top 7, super simple tips, to save money on groceries without using coupons.

Other Posts You Might Like to Read:68 Cent McMuffin (Homemade With Aldi Ingredients)