Grocery Groove, part 1

When time is of the essence, I try to get as much in from the van as possible each trip, I can definitely relate to this :)

I would have to call myself the "official" grocery shopper of our family so I had to learn how to read sale flyers, navigate the isles of grocery stores and shop for an ever growing family. Along the way I have learned many things through trial and error, especially shopping with little ones in tow. I am going to do a multipart series on how I save a few dollars at the store starting off with the largest money saver of them all...

Plan, Plan, Plan
Before I ever leave for the grocery store I have a grand master plan and this is what works for me.

• Look at the sale flyers for the three major grocery stores in my tiny town 
• Compare prices on basics I know the price of from my store of choice to see if I can get a better deal from another place 
• Write down great sale items
• Check specific deal blogs that show deals matched with coupons to make it an even better deal http://www.frugallivingnw.com/ is one of the sites that I use to find out the best deals at Fred Meyer 
• Write down the basic specific items we are out of that I want even if I don't know they are on sale. 
• Organize my list by type (dried goods, produce, meat, dairy) that way I don't wander all over the store looking for things. 
• Go through my list and estimate the prices so I have an idea of how much of my budget I will be spending and I also leave a little wiggle room for clearance and forgotten items. 
• On my list I also have a column that reminds me what items I have a coupon for and what type of coupon it is (such as an e-coupon or a manufacturers coupon)

		Fred Meyer				Super One
Price		Grocery Item	Coupons	Price		Grocery Item
$3.00		Lunch Meat		$4.50		Blueberries x 3
$1.50		Pop Corn		$3.00		Raspberries x 2
$2.00		Canned Tomatoes/Beans x 4	in-ad	$1.50		Black Berries
$4.00		Rtiz and Wheat Thins
$1.67		Sour Cream
$1.67		Cottage Cheese
$3.00		Gold Fish Crackers x 2
$3.50		Creamer x2	mc
$2.00		Hand Soap
$1.00		Bananas
$6.00		Trail Mix
$4.00		Granola Bars
$2.00		Grapes
$3.00		Lunchables w/ fruit	mc
$3.00		V-8 Smoothie	mc
$4.00		Yogurt	c, yoplait
$2.50		Ice Cream	e-c
$1.00		Popsicle	e-c
$2.00		Raisins	e-c
$2.00		Pretzles
$2.50		white sugar
$3.00		pancake mix
$58.34

The above is a sample of my grocery list from last week. I don't normally type it out but thought it might help keep things organized. In theory it was a cool idea but it took me way too long between breaking up wrestling matches and nursing a tiny baby. Apparently we were running low on snacky things at this point in time.

Plan out the path I am going to take through the store (this sounds wild but it really helps me) Grab reusable bags because my grocery store will take off $.05 from my total for every bag I use. Hey a quarter is still a quarter! When I get to the store I also try to park near a cart return because it's so much easier to just roll at cart a few feet when your groceries and kids are all tucked away in the vehicle.