Being a mom can be hard. Being a mom on a tight budget is even harder. It puts your skills as a provider to the test, making anything from placing food on the table to saving for their college funds a challenge. If you are worried your bills at the supermarket are jeopardizing your ability to save for the future, you should follow these financially savvy tips the next time you go grocery shopping:
Organize Meal Plans
In an attempt to keep their growing children happy and healthy, many mothers end up spending far too much on groceries. According to the USDA, feeding a family of four can cost as much as $289 every week. You can keep this area of your budget low by organizing meals well before you grab a grocery cart.
Meal plans can save you money by eliminating waste. A well-planned week will have meals that build on top of another. It keeps leftovers out of the garbage by using them in a second or third dish. Your plan should also include meals that rely on your pantry, so you do not have to constantly shop for specialty ingredients. To save even more, organize your meals around upcoming sales at your local grocery store. It will take some time to get used to this extra planning, but it works. A mother of 5 managed to lower her grocery bill to $200 a month by planning her family’s meals carefully.
Switch Out Brand-Name Items For Generic
Kraft, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, Coca Cola, Nike — these are just some examples of brands shoppers reach for instead of their generic counterparts. In many cases, the only difference between these well-known brands and their knock-offs is the price. Big brands can get away with big price tags. Do your research to see when it is worth switching to generic. You will be surprised to find many of the medications, clothes, dairy products, and packaged goods have reasonable generic options that do not sacrifice on quality.
Do Not Crumble Under The Pressure
If groceries stress you out on an average day, you need to be prepared for when an emergency stretches your finances. Being prepared is the only way you can keep your head when a crisis hits. Maybe you splurged on a nice eye cream the day before your furnace’s pilot light goes out. When you are tight on funds, check in with an online cash advance lender of installment loans. These lenders, including MoneyKey, offer simple and speedy relief for all your small financial hiccoughs. Because lenders have simplified the borrowing experience, you can apply by visiting Moneykey.com/installment-loans-online.php at any time that suits your schedule. There is no need to visit a storefront or sit down for a lengthy in-person interview, making them the most convenient option for busy mothers.
Clip Coupons
Only a decade ago the only way you could save with coupons was by clipping them out of flyers and newspapers. Now you can get the same savings with online coupons. When making your weekly meal plan, boot up your laptop and search through websites like Coupon.com, CouponSurfer, and Smartsource. They offer free printable coupons and coupon codes for your next grocery shop. Though each coupon may only offer $0.50–$1.00 off, these savings add up when you hand in several coupons each time you’re at the till.
Get Your Smartphone Involved
If you are only using your smartphone to record your shopping list, you are missing a huge opportunity to save on your groceries. When equipped with the right app, your phone is a huge resource for savings.
- Rebate Apps: Apps like Checkout 51 and Ibotta offer rebates on qualifying items that you can redeem as money orders or gift cards at your favorite stores.
- Loyalty Rewards Apps: You can download apps like Flok and Punchcard to earn rewards for every purchase you make. They eliminate the need to carry around rewards card for every retailer you visit, saving you a lot of room in your wallet.
- Comparison Shopping Apps: You will always know where to shop for the lowest prices on groceries by using apps like Grocery Pal and Basket. They help you find sales and other discounts at a variety of retailers, making sure you never overpay for another item again.
Keeping your kitchen fully stocked for your growing family is not always easy to do on a budget. But with the right tools at your disposal, you can keep your costs low, giving you a chance to put aside more savings for the future.
Pre-holiday shopping is the best soil for this.