Menu plan for the week. Try to buy all the groceries you need for that week in one shopping trip (even if it's multiple stores.) To me, it pays to haul the kids in to a store for a free gallon of milk instead of making a separate trip later in the week because 1- it's extra gas, 2-I usually end up buying a few more items during that 2nd trip later.
2. Budget your grocery $. Then use cash to pay. Once it's gone...that's it for the week....so I try to spend wisely.
3. Make a grocery list and stick to it. That helps immensely with overbuying! If you're going to want to buy a treat, put it on the list ahead of time and plan for it.
4. Something else we do to save money...we don't buy a lot of chips and cookies. (I'm sure that sounds boring) Usually if we have chips it's for an occasion or they were a super good deal. Cookies-we tend to have cookies in the house, but I make them homemade with Betty Crockers' recipe. We typically have all the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies (all I have to buy are the chocolate chips). Usually then I have 20 neighbor kids over gobbling them up.
5. I use PYD's price list for items...cereal and boxed items I try to spend $1 or less on, and fruit is $1/lb or less.
6. Birthday cakes...I buy the box mix and a can of frosting and make my own cakes or cupcakes. They are NOT professional by any means...but I only spend about $2 or less on the entire cake instead of $10-$20.
7. Shop clearance. It takes a little thinking ahead for this...but sometimes if I have time, I'll look in the birthday isle (for example) and see if there are plates/napkins that one of the kids would like for their next "themed" birthday. For items like that...I usually don't buy it unless it's 75% off then.
8. We don't eat out often. If we do, we have coupons, or go somewhere when the kids can eat free or really cheap. There's also Restaurant.com. I never pay full price for those coupons either. Very often you can get the $25 restaurant.com coupon for $2 or $3. Watch PYD...she usually posts when the deal happens.
9. At target we bring our own bags and save .05 for each bag. Also we have a Target Redcard and get 5% off each purchase, plus I've selected my kids' school online to recieve the 1% of my purchase amount that Target donates to them. This credit card is only helpful if you pay it off each month. A friend just reminded me that you can pay for your purchase with your card, then walk over to customer service and pay it off with cash (so you can still get the discount, but you don't have a balance). I am going to have to remember that from now on!
I'll add more as I think of them
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