Shopping the Ads

One of the biggest things to save you money on groceries is shopping the ads.  If you are anything like I was a year ago you get a big stack of ads for all your local grocery stores in the mail or in the newspaper and immediately throw them in the trash thinking that they are junk mail.  Stop it!  Those ads are gold mines and will soon become some of your best friends.  Soon you’ll look forward to receiving those ads and then you’ll peruse them several times before you put them in a safe place where you can reference them again and again for the next week.  They will be one of your most powerful weapons in your savings arsenal.  Trust me.  Let me tell you why.

I’m going to say something incredibly obvious here:  If you want to save money you will need to start buying things for less than you are spending now.  And how are you going to know where to buy those things for less?  By looking at the ads, of course!  Browsing the ads will not only help you find which stores have good prices on the items you need it will also help you hone your price recognition skills.  Now I wouldn’t suggest shopping at every store for which you receive an ad.  That would be ridiculous.  But I would suggest that while you are getting started on this quest for savings you at least look over most of the ads.  Again, it’s an exercise to help sharpen your price recognition skills (more on that in a later post).

It can be kind of overwhelming at first.  I know that.  It gets faster and much easier as you go along.  Again, trust me.  I would suggest that you keep a list.  Just grab a piece of scratch paper and start by writing the name of each store with a list of the items you see advertised for a good price.  Then go buy those items at those stores.  Sounds easy, doesn’t it?  (Don’t get roped into buying things just because they are a good price.  If you don’t like pickles, don’t buy them just because they are on sale for ninety cents!)

If you are anything like I was a year ago shopping at more than one store might seem unnecessary.  But trust me, it’s one of the keys to saving tons of money.  I’ll let you in on a little secret:  no one store has the best prices on everything all of the time.  If Store A sells cheese for a great price you know, for example, they are selling chicken for an exorbitant rate to compensate.  If Store B sells chicken for a great price you know they are ripping you off somewhere else.  Many stores try to lure people in by advertising the convenience of the “One Stop Shopping” idea.  They make you believe that buying your food, filling your prescription, buying a new pair of jeans, and eating lunch all in the same place saves you money.  While I admit that sometimes these stores do have good sales on groceries, you can’t let them fool you into thinking that they always have the best prices on everything.  A little bit of inconvenience will save you mountains of money.

Advertisement