I know times are tough for a lot of people, so I thought I’d share my method of saving about 40-60% on my grocery bill every week. I’m not profiting from any link or piece of information in this post; I just know that a lot of people are facing job loss and other loss of income and I thought this might be helpful to people in hard situations (or anyone else, really).

First, since most people are lured by the shiny and the pretty, this is a scan of my grocery bill this week. Note that it came out to $125 total. Note that I saved around $88.

Besides milk and fresh veggies, which I buy fresh once a week, I might either shop for 1 or 2 weeks at a time. This week I shopped for 2 weeks, hence the larger bill. On average, I’m spending about $50-75/week for a family of two. Please take into account the following:

• We’re vegetarian health nuts and we like to eat organic /whole wheat/ all-natural aka $$$$$.
• We mostly DON’T buy generic things – almost all of the stuff I bought this trip were brand name things. With this method, generic stuff actually comes out more expensive than brand names.
• My son, because of his autism and sensory integration issues, does not eat the cheap staples like beans and rice.
• I live in hurricane country, so I like to “stock up” on staples – I’ve found they come in handy every year.
• I like the good stuff whenever possible – good olive oil, good spices, good brands. Again, $$$$.
• We don’t often eat that much prepackaged food, like sugary snacks or cereals or stuff in boxes that you usually think of when you think of clipping coupons.
• I live in the heart of Miami, FL, where food is VERY expensive relative to other places in the country.
• This includes food AND non-food items, like cleaning and paper products – and again, I bought nothing but the brand names.

And even still, taking all of that into account, I saved $88. I estimate that using this method, I regularly save between $250-$400 per month in groceries. That’s up to $3000-4800/year. That’s a BIG chunk of change for me (probably for you too!).

When I start to tell people about this, they marvel I must put a lot of work into it. (Okay, LOL, sometimes they kind of imply I must have no life and spend all my time obsessing over saving money on groceries.) But the truth is, it takes about an hour of my time each week. That may seem significant unless you consider that I’m making, according to my savings, $88/hour for that hour My job pays pretty well, but it doesn’t pay $88/hour! And this is just for my lousy itty bitty family of two – I know bigger families could save a lot more.

How do I do this, exactly? It’s very simple, very painless and very free.

Maybe it’s easier if I start by outlining what I DON’T do.

• I am not a member of any help-you-save-on-your-groceries sites like The Grocery Game. I used to be, and I think that site CAN be useful for larger families or for people who have the time to compare prices for things at Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, and your local grocery stores. I did save a little bit more when I was a member of that site – about enough to cover my bi-monthly membership Not worth it for me – might be for you – but not necessary for my method.
• I do NOT do my shopping at different stores for the best deals. Some people like to compare prices, and collect store-brand coupons for, a bunch of different stores, and then make 3 or 4 different shopping trips a week to get the best deals. That’s cool, but this is totally, totally not me. I only have the time to shop at one place once a week.
• I do not print coupons off the Internet or any other such craziness. I’m sure it saves people money, but I am a single parent, I work full time, and homeschool a special needs kiddo, and basically, there are only so many hours in the day.

Having gotten that out of the way, this is what I actually do to save all this money on groceries.

1. I subscribe to the Sunday paper just for the coupons. Got that really cheap, too, using a coupon for The Miami Herald from RetailMeNot. Do a search for your local Sunday paper, and you, too, might get a $0.40/week Sunday paper subscription. Bonus: I have something besides Twitter and email to read over morning tea on Sunday.

2. I clip all coupons that I find in it that might be useful to my family, regardless of whether I intend to use them that week. Why? Because grocery stores are tricksy. They know way in advance what coupons are coming out which weeks, and rarely have anything on sale or at their lowest price point for which there’s a coupon that week, precisely because they know most people only use the coupons they find that week. Most weeks, the paper has 1-3 sections of coupons. I save all of mine until they expire, so I can use coupons weeks after I clip them, when them grocery stores are whipping out their REAL sale on that product. See how sneaky they are? But I am sneakier.

3. I keep the coupons sorted in a way that makes sense to me, in a little index card box with index card file dividers. I paid $2 at the dollar store for this; they also sell coupon pocketbooks that do the same thing for about that much.

4. I keep my coupons up to date and properly sorted. Actually, I totally don’t – my kid does. This is a soul-crushingly tedious task to me, but my kid thinks it’s amazing fun and loves to contribute to the family finances in this way. It’s also very educational on many levels, especially nutrition, menu-planning, practical life skills, and math/calendar skills (my kid LOVES to ferret out the expired ones, let me tell you, he will wave those triumphantly and gets more gleeful the larger his pile of expired coupons gets). Maybe your kids will think it’s hilarious good times too, or maybe you can introduce it as a chore like any other. Either way, if your kid is old enough to understand what “dairy” and “frozen foods” are, he’s old enough to sort your darn coupons for you. Trust me. Doesn’t matter if he does it perfect. A stray toilet paper coupon in the frozen food file won’t kill anyone. This is all about maximizing your return-on-investment!

5. I also collect the fliers of store-specific coupons at the front of the grocery store I frequent. I grab ‘em as I do my weekly shopping trip. Sometimes they have pretty good coupons that will last a few weeks. If so I might take more than one – the managers never mind! (I’ve asked.) I’m not talking walking out with an armful here, but 3 or 4 isn’t going to cause a ruckus. If you’re not sure you can do this, ask the manager.

6. I signed up for any savings publications my store offers. For example, the store I frequent, Publix, has four savings clubs that will mail you FREE magazines full of VERY good and hard-to-find coupons. All you have to do is sign up on their web site. They have one for parents of kids age 0-5, another magazine called “Greenwise” that usually is stuffed full of awesome coupons for all-natural, healthy-living, organic products, their main quarterly publication, and one for wine lovers and people who entertain. I subscribe to all four. Greenwise and the main one are both interesting reads and have great coupons whose usefulness is immediately obvious. And while I don’t have dinner parties and I don’t have a toddler, both those magazines have coupons anyone can use – and I give the baby food/diaper ones away to my infant-having friends. Check your local store’s main web site to see what they have.

7. Each week, I check my store’s main web site for its online circular. It has the details of their circular and lists ALL the sales specific to my local store. My two main local stores, Publix and WinnDixie, will even let you add stuff to a grocery list and print it out when you’re done for extra convenience.

8. THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT: I compare what’s on sale and what I have a coupon for. Whenever possible, I try to buy things that are buy-one-get-one-free AND for which I have a coupon. Consider this: This week, Publix had a Buy-one-Get-One free sale on Lysol disinfectant wipes, which we use for the bathroom and the kitchen. Ordinarily, these sell for $4.99 each, which is expensive. At BOGO price, they sell for $2.50. BUT, I had a coupon for $2 off two. This means I got this item for $1.50 apiece instead of $5 – a 70% savings.

Sometimes I get things free. For example, I had a coupon for a free gallon of milk if I bought 2 General Mills cereals. This coupon was 2 months old, and had just been sitting in my box because, as I said, we don’t eat cereal that often. But this week, General Mills cereals were on sale for buy-one-get-one-free. So I used the coupon and got 2 boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk for a whopping $3.69. Once they had a certain brand of shampoo for 4/$4. I had four $1 coupons for that brand – I walked out with four free bottles of shampoo. The grocery check-out lady might look at you funny, but it’s totally legal.

In some situations, you can even use 2 coupons on the same sale. Not often for the BOGO offers, but a few weeks ago, SmartBalance butter was on sale for 2 tubs for $4. They usually cost about $2.99 each, and you can never have too much butter. But! I happened to have 2 coupons for $1 off one SmartBalance product – one was 5 months old! I used one coupon per butter tub… got them for about $0.50 each. Dude. That’s cheap.

I could go on here, but hopefully you’re getting an idea of the possibilities.

9. Finally, I plan my weekly menu around the sales. I also stock up on the things that my family uses a lot of when they go on a big sale for which I have a coupon. Over time, my food bill has gotten lower and lower, because of all my stocking up, especially those BOGO sales. This has come in handy a couple of weeks I’ve been flat broke – we ate just as well as the previous weeks, because I’d been buying this way for so long. Now that, to me, is peace of mind.

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OTHER TIPS:

It isn’t rocket science to match your coupon stash to your store’s circular sales. Publix and WinnDixie will organize your shopping list by section – produce, dairy, meats, frozen, household – I don’t know if other stores do this, but even if they don’t, you probably know the store layout. Even if your favorite store doesn’t HAVE a web site, you can still pick up the circular once a week and compare notes to that. The sites for Publix and Winn Dixie will even sort their BOGO offers for the week on a separate page. If you organize your coupons the way your store does, it’s pretty easy to match them to the weekly sales.

Produce is the thing for which there are few coupons anywhere (though I have some of those, too). Not to worry – the web sites for Publix and Winn Dixie will also point out what produce is on sale that week too. After a while of shopping this way, you’ll pick up on what’s truly cheap and what’s just marked down. You can buy produce at their lowest price points and freeze or can them – or not. You can make this as involved as you want. Either way, you’re going to save money.

Hopefully this has been of help to some folks. Feel free to share your (non-spammy!) grocery tips and links in the comments!