This One Simple Trick Slashed My Grocery Bill

Is this a trick that could work for you? 

While there are many things you can cut from your budget when trying to reduce spending, groceries are not one of them. Buying food is obviously a necessity. And throughout my adult years, I've tended to spend a lot of money on groceries because I prefer to eat organic and fresh foods as much as possible.

Fortunately, with one simple trick, I was able to cut my food costs substantially without compromising on the quality of our meals. Here's what I did. 

This strategy enabled me to spend less without changing our dining habits

By changing the way I buy groceries, I was able to reduce my food bill by hundreds of dollars per year without making any meaningful changes to the way my family and I eat. And this change is one that just about anyone can make. 

See, what I did was learn the sales schedule at my grocery store by tracking when different items I buy go on sale. Typically, stores tend to run sales based on a predictable schedule, with different food items getting discounted around every six to eight weeks or so. 

For a few months, I tracked exactly when the items I bought went on special -- and I also kept track of how much of each particular item we tended to use over the course of a few months.  By doing this, I identified that my store puts items on sale on a rotating schedule so each item is discounted every eight weeks. 

Since I now knew when I could expect to pay a reduced price for items, and how much of each item we would use over that time period, I could simply buy enough of an item when it went on sale so I would never have to pay full price for it.

For example, we eat chicken breasts around once every week in some form, so when organic chicken breasts are marked down, I buy eight packages of them and freeze them. By doing this, I have not had to purchase chicken breasts at full price for a very long time.

Taking this step with all of the items that we buy makes a huge difference in the total amount we spend on groceries over the course of the year. We've saved hundreds of dollars that we were able to redirect to our savings accounts and we still get to enjoy all of the foods we love.

Anyone can implement this strategy 

Fortunately, my technique is one that anyone can replicate. You can track sales flyers and note when the items you buy go on sale. And if you make a grocery list when you go to the store, you can keep your lists in order to track how often you are buying different items. 

Using this information, you can decide exactly how much of each non-perishable item you need to buy when it's on sale in order to last you until the next time the discount rolls around. Not only does this process make it cheaper to shop, but it's also more convenient since it's a lot easier to pick up eight packs of chicken breasts at once and not need to worry about buying them for the next two months.