Frugal Friday
I am a sucker for alliteration!

We've been reading about it, watching news reports and morning show laments but there's no denying that food prices are on the rise. Personally, my grocery bill has increased by nearly half, and with a family of 6, this adds up. I'm very fortunate to be in a financial position where this isn't causing a real hardship but I know people for whom this is a potential crisis. It's also made me realize that while I'm a "careful" shopper, I'm no longer as frugal as I used to be when I was a new, stay-at-home-mom whose lifestyle decision meant our household income was cut in half.

I've made a list of some of the techniques I've used in the past, along with their pros and cons, as well as some resources if they are techniques that might help you control your budget. There are definitely a few that I'm putting back into practice.


Coupons

I used be devoted coupon clipper and saw a significant savings in our grocery bill. It became a game. As our eating habits moved more toward whole foods I fell away from the practice as there were no coupons for the majority of food we were buying. However, there are still things such as laundrey detergent, certain breakfast cereals, cleaning supplies, etc. that I do buy for which coupons are available. Now it's a matter of getting back in the habit.

If you are interested in using coupons (and are in the U.S.) but are exasperated at the time it takes to look at all the ciruculars and match them up to weekly coupons, there are a few websites that will do the work for you. What these sites do is look at grocery store flyers (the store selections are fairly extensive so there's a decent chance you can find one in your area) and compare them to the coupons that are published weekly by national sources that supply them to newspapers around the country. They break it down by price, sale price and percentage saved. The two that I've used areThe Coupon Mom and The Grocery Game. The Coupon Mom is a free site while The Grocery Game charges a $1 for a for week trial and then small fee after the trial period ends. I was initially a member of The Grocery Game but let my subscription lapse when I found that the The Coupon Mom filled my needs just as well. Your choice may be determined by which stores they serve but either one can help you manage your coupon purchase and make shopping with coupons less time consuming and more efficient.


Price Book

This was invaluable to me when I first had to deal with a reduced budget. Basically, you're creating a tool that helps you find the baseline price you will pay for an item and be able to judge whether a sale is really a sale. Particularly helpful if you are a bulk shopper. All you have to do is google Grocery price book and you'll be hit with a hundred entries but a good tutorial is Here, a free, printable price book form can be found Here and a free spreadsheet download version can be found Here.

To be honest, I haven't used my price book in some time. After years of using it I had a good handle on baseline prices and no longer needed to reference it. However, with the recent jump in prices I find that I need to completely revise several sections so this is definitely something I'll be working on. However, I'm retiring my little black book and going for the spreadsheet.


Working rebates

Again, when I was a new stay-at-home mom saving money was my job and I played all the angles. I would analyze rebates to see if their return was worth the cost. As our financial situation improved (and we had more children) I gave up this fiddly practice because it was crazy time consuming. However, there's a new game in town that may make it worth investigating. Namely, CVS and Walgreens drug stores. Both of these stores offer many in-store rebates in the form of "bucks", coupons worth a dollar amount that can then be used toward future purposes. Don't get me wrong, this is still fiddly and time consuming but if you learn take the time to learn the game and work it, you end up using your "bucks" for free items which then generate more "bucks". There are many blogs out there that delight in giving you breakdowns and showing you table fulls of stuff that they "purchased" for an out-of-pocket expense of .74. It's amazing.

I haven't tried this as of yet for several reasons, the first being you inevitably end up "buying" things you don't need because they generate a lot of "bucks" for the things you do need. If I do start using this I would donate these items to our local food bank or shelter. If I can works myself up to justifying increased consumerism by offsetting it with charitable contributions I may give this a go.

If you are interested in working these deals there are a LOT of onsite sources that can guide you along. One site that I follow breaks down the CVS/Walgreen deals each week and tells you what coupons to use to work the deals for maximum return is Money Saving Mom Her CVS tutorial can be found Here, and "Making CVS work for you" tutorial Here and Walgreens information Here. She updates her site several times a day with links to free offers, printable coupons for deals that she mentions, and grocery store deals throughout the country. (She has an extensive blogroll and gets emails from readers from all over about deals).

As I've discussed before, my main money saving technique is buying in bulk when items are on sale and then planning menus around "in-stock" items but these tools can also be helpful in managing your grocery budget.

Do you have any money saving tips that help you at the grocery check-out? Let us know!