Best Ways to Save Money at Home

Money saving ideas and tips for frugal living

Like frugal living? Here are 3 money saving ideas and tips that I believe are some of the best ways to save money at home, at least as far as food shopping goes.

Best Ways to Save Money at Home

I remember the first time my teenage daughters both went away for the summer. One was attending a sports camp. The other was spending a week with friends up the coast. While I missed my daughters, I did not miss feeding them. Because in the two weeks that they were gone, I think my husband spent $100 on groceries. For both weeks. It turned out that one of the best ways to save money at home was to get rid of the kids!

I’d always heard from parents of boys that their grocery bills were through the roof. I remember one friend telling me that with three teenage sons, they went through at least three litres of milk each day—sometimes 4 litres. Now that those boys are off at college, they are living large even if they are paying college tuition— because their grocery bill barely makes a blip in their budget. But my girls did a good job of making it necessary for me to visit the supermarket regularly.

Part of the reason that I shopped often was that as part of my commitment to frugal living, I refuse to overbuy groceries. I’m careful to plan out what we needed and would stay fresh for the next few days, and match my recipe plans to whatever was on sale. Once those items were on sale, back to the supermarket I would go.

These frequent visits may not have helped to cut down on my shopping but it did reduce our food waste, which is a rising epidemic in many Australian homes. I recently read that we end up throwing out as much as 25 percent of the groceries we purchase each week. And if the average family is spending $235 a week on groceries, that means that we are throwing away $58.75 each week. Multiply that over a year, and that’s $3,055 we’re putting in the bin.

So what are some of the best ways to save money at home when it comes to grocery shopping and feeding your family? Here are 3 money saving tips that should help everyone achieve some measure of frugal living.

• Make a list when you plan your meals. I found that if I knew what we were having for dinner every night, and what I would be packing for lunch, food shopping was much easier. Turns out it also kept me on budget. Twenty percent of most people pick up at the supermarket is via impulse purchase.

• Buy in bulk when buying produce. If you see a 10 for $10 deal on oranges at the supermarket, you probably grab it, right? But get this money-saving tip: a kilo bag of oranges usually has about a dozen in it—meaning it is half the price of the so-called sale and you get more for your money. Think about taking this approach when buying other bagged goods like onions and potatoes as well.

• Don’t pay for convenience. A 500g block of cheese might cost $8 but a 250g bag of shredded cheese may also cost $8. So if you just carve out time to shred your own cheese, you’ll get twice the amount for the same money.

Have you got any more supermarket money saving ideas if so feel free to comment or share them with us.