How to Save Money on Your Groceries – Part Two

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In the eternal quest to save money, it’s important to take a look at your monthly grocery bill. Since we need to feed ourselves, people often tend to justify spending more than necessary on food. I track my spending, and over the past few months and even though my monthly grocery budget is $150, I often spend less.

Earlier this week, I made a list of ten tips on how to save money on your groceries, and here are a couple more:

1. Make use of any air miles or points reward program. If you use specific credit cards at the grocery store (just make sure to pay them off every month, obviously), you can collect air miles or points which you can redeem for groceries.
2. Plan your meals. If you are always running out to buy the ingredients right when you need them, you aren’t able to take advantage of sales or specials, or you might have food go bad before you can use it up.
3. Take a look inside your fridge and cupboards to see what you are running low on, and then add those foods to your shopping list. This is very important if there is more than one person buying groceries at home, as it stops people from buying the same foods and then having too much of one ingredient.
4. Buy fruits and veggies at ethnic markets. There are myriad grocery stores in Korea Town and Chinatown that sell fresh, great quality produce at very low cost.
5. Visit farmer’s markets. The veggies at these markets can often be lower in price than in the grocery store. Fruits are only sometimes cheaper than the store, since they are more delicate and perishable.
6. Spices in most large grocery stores are way overpriced. Choose spices and dried herbs at ethnic markets or bulk stores. Instead of paying up to $5.00 for a small bottle of herbs or spices, you can buy the same amount for mere pennies. Our favourite spice store is House of Spice in Kensington Market.
7. Buy no-name or generic brands. These are often the same foods as the name brands, but are cheaper because no one pays for the marketing.

How do you save money on your groceries?