How to Save on Shopping: Tips to Avoid Unnecessary Expenses

How can a fixed shopping budget save you money every year?

Knowing how to save on your groceries can earn you hundreds of dollars each year, which can help you reach your savings goals. Want to learn how to do your grocery shopping on a budget? Here are our 12 simple tips to save on your groceries.

Do your shopping according to your budget
Shopping on a budget is a good place to start saving money. According to the UK's National Statistics Office, an average person spends € 123 per month on groceries, or around € 31 per week, not including dining out. For each additional member of your household, these numbers double.

This means that a couple spends around € 247 (almost € 123 multiplied by two) per month on groceries, a three-person household spends almost € 370, and a four-person household spends around € 494 per month, just for the races!

How to shop on a budget
Based on the figures above, if you spent around € 20 instead of € 30 per week on your groceries, you would save € 40 per month. These figures could reach more than 450 € per year! This is an important part of your annual budget goals which could include paying off a loan, saving for a project, or going towards an emergency fund.

However, before establishing your monthly budget for groceries, it would be a good idea to budget for all of your finances in order to better control your financial health. To do this, here are our tips:

Track your monthly spending so you know where your money is going each month.

Separate your variable costs from your fixed costs (that is, non-adjustable expenses, like rent, are fixed while adjustable expenses, like groceries, are variable).

Calculate how much you want to save on your variable costs each month.

Set your budget in place and measure your progress to see how well you are sticking to it, then make adjustments as needed.

Make a shopping list according to your budget
Here are our tips to help you make your shopping list within the budget you have set to save on these costs each month.

1. Cook simple dishes

When it comes to shopping on a budget, simplicity is key. Choosing to make a complex recipe can easily eat up an entire week's budget, simply because of the number of ingredients. If you want to save money on groceries, choose simple, tasty recipes you love that only require five ingredients or less.

Better yet, when choosing the meals you want to prepare for the week ahead, go for recipes with the same ingredients. This will save you money in the long run, as buying in bulk is usually cheaper, as long as you use all the food you buy!

2. Plan your weekly meals

If you really want to shop on a budget, planning your meals in advance is essential. Before you go shopping, make sure you know exactly what you are going to eat this week, in order to calculate your estimated costs.

This cuts down on the chances of going over budget and encourages you to get creative with weekly meals!

3. Give up meat one day a week

It's no secret that meat is one of the most expensive food products, especially if it's organic. Limiting your weekly meat consumption is therefore an excellent solution.

Not only will this save you money and cook vegetarian more often, you might even get a taste and start eating less meat.

4. Healthy and affordable groceries for vegetarians or vegans

Keeping the tips above in mind, here is an example of healthy and affordable groceries for a vegetarian or vegan with a maximum spend of € 22 per week:

Rice € 1.50

Fresh fruits and vegetables € 7

2 vegan spreads at € 2.50

Oats € 1

4 boxes of legumes (chickpeas, black beans) € 3.50

Bread € 2

Smoked tofu € 2.50

Oat milk € 2

It might not seem like much, and yet with € 7 you can buy different vegetables which, paired with rice or legumes, can be the centerpiece of your evening meal for six days of the week. For the 7th day, tofu could be the main ingredient.

Oats and almond milk could form the basis of a hearty breakfast, and you could make sandwiches with bread, plant-based spreads, and the leftover vegetables for lunch.

Here are our tips for saving money while shopping.

Our advice to save on your shopping
Once you know how much you want to save on your groceries each month, there are a few tips and tricks you should put into practice while you shop.

5. Calculate your races

To have a clear overview of your expenses while shopping, calculate the amount of everything in your basket. You can do this using your phone's calculator or rounding off all prices to whole numbers, which will make mental math easier. This prevents you from accidentally overspending.

6. Pay for your groceries in cash

A good tip for saving on races is to use Dave Ramsey's envelope system . This budget method requires you to take cash out of your monthly income and divide it into separate envelopes based on your budget goals.

For this, you need to have envelopes for your fixed costs and for your variable costs such as recreation, shopping for clothes, dining out and shopping. By paying for your groceries in cash, it is virtually impossible to overspend!

7. Look at the bottom shelves

Supermarkets put their most expensive products at eye level to push you to exceed your shopping budget. However, if you look at the same types of food that are sold a shelf or two lower, you will notice that the prices tend to go down, with the cheaper products being closer to the ground.

8. Take a small basket

Another method that supermarkets use to keep you from saving on your groceries is to provide you with oversized shopping carts and baskets. This makes you feel like you have few products in your shopping cart, just because they don't fill the tote.

The best way to get around this problem is to choose the smallest shopping bag for your groceries, which is often a basket. Otherwise, if you only buy a few small items, forget the basket and carry them in your hand.

9. Compare prices per kilo

Another great tip for shopping on a budget is to compare product prices per kilogram, not the listed retail prices. In general, in addition to the retail price, you can find the price of the product per 100 g. You should take this figure into account when comparing other similar products.

For example, if you want to buy Parmesan but there are two different types of cheese at € 4 and € 6, you might think that the most economical choice would be to go for the € 4 pack. However, if you look at the price per kilo, you realize that the € 6 Parmesan costs € 1 for 100g, and the € 4 pack costs € 2 for 100g.

In other words, although it costs € 2 more, the € 6 parmesan packet is 50% cheaper than the € 4 pack and gives you 200g more for just € 2 more. This is a smarter decision from an economic standpoint because it will allow you to eat longer for less money.

10. Compare prices

It's no secret that supermarkets and independent grocery stores price their products differently. Often the price of the same product varies greatly from store to store. To achieve your monthly shopping budget goals, you should therefore do a little field survey.

For this you should go from store to store and notice the difference in price of the food items you buy most often. You will soon get into the habit of going to different stores depending on the type of food you need to buy. However, these prices may vary depending on the season and promotions in each store.

11. Don't shop when you're hungry

We've all been there: we walk the aisles of the supermarket with growling stomachs, and driven by hunger, we fill our baskets with unnecessary items. Shopping on an empty stomach leads to spending more, thus exceeding the shopping budget.

The solution ? Eat before you go shopping! It sounds simple, but it can make a huge difference. Even if you eat something as small as a banana or a granola bar before shopping, it could save you from spending an extra $ 15 on food.

12. Track your expenses

Just like with your general budget, it's essential to track your food expenses after you're done shopping. You can do this by entering the numbers in an Excel spreadsheet, a manual budget manager app, or you can use a budget manager app that is fully integrated with your bank account that calculates your food expenses.