Broaden your scope, find deals elsewhere

An effective way to cut your grocery spending is to consider shopping at more than one store for your groceries and household products. If you go to the same grocery store every week, visit a few other stores to compare prices. You may be surprised at the

Sprouts: If you favor organic foods, Sprouts can be an affordable option. Pay attention to their weekly sales flyer, which has rock-bottom produce prices featured on the front page. Their organic meat and poultry options are more affordable than other stores, particularly when they are featured sale items. Sprouts also offers a full array of bulk food options including grains, baking ingredients, nuts, cereals, candy and more. Bulk prices can be much less expensive than packaged options, and you’re reducing trash added to landfills. The nice part about trying bulk food options is that you can buy a small amount to see if you like it, and you’ll only pay based on its weight. I bought one cup of a hot cereal from the bulk section for pennies to try it, rather than buying a box of a new cereal for a few dollars.

Aldi: If you’re not tied to specific brands and are willing to shop in a barebones environment, Aldi offers significant savings on common grocery items. Aldi carries a limited line of items, based on what their research determined the most popular grocery items are. Pay attention to their weekly sales flyer to find featured produce deals, which are generally 50% less than traditional supermarkets’ prices. The key is to get to the store while their produce is still in stock since it’s very popular and the produce goes quickly. Talk to your store’s manager to find out what time of day they generally restock produce. Aldi also has great prices on dairy products as well as packaged items. I compared prices for 25 of our family’s common grocery items and found Aldi’s prices were 25% less than our supermarket’s store brand prices. Your savings will vary based on your preferences, but it’s worth a visit to compare. Be sure to bring a quarter—you’ll need it to “rent” a shopping cart. Bring your own shopping bags, although you can buy bags there if you forget.

Dollar Tree: Most people don’t realize that Dollar Tree accepts grocery coupons, so if an item matches a coupon, you may get the item free. I call it Dollar Free. You need to pay attention to the size requirement on the coupon because many Dollar Tree items are a smaller size than grocery store items. Each Dollar Tree location has slightly different inventory, so visit more than one if you have multiple locations in your radius. Dollar Tree is also a great place to stock up on greeting cards (two for $1), gift bags, party décor, party favors for kids, and paper products.