How to be a Smart Shopper!

It’s Monday again! Back to work after a weekend spent grocery shopping, cleaning house, and spending quality time with my family. Last night we went to the Cubs game. They lost, but my son Zach had a great time. It was his first Cubs game.

Okay, back to the first part of my weekend. The grocery shopping! It is always a struggle trying to figure out where to shop, how to stick to our budget, and to only buy what we actually need. When I finish shopping I always wonder if I bought too much or could have saved more by going to a different store. Or, would it be better to go to different stores for different items. It is hard to figure it all out.

I guess today is my lucky day, because the first thing I saw this morning when I got online (I have MSN saved as my default home page) was an article titled “How to be a smarter grocery shopper.” The article offers tricks of the trade to help you save money and resist temptation.

Hopefully, this will help me do my shopping a little differently next weekend. I hope it helps you too. Please let me know how it goes. Good luck!

TIP: 5 Delicious Meals for Under $10!

During these difficult financial times I often find myself trying to figure out how to cut cost on groceries and still cook nice dinners for my family. I cut coupons and we shop at Aldi, but I still have trouble figuring out how to prepare a delicious meal for less money and not get any complaints from my husband and son. Sometimes they can be very picky eaters.

Earlier this week on MSN I saw an article titled 5 Delicious Meals for Under $10. So last night I decided to take a look and was surprised to see that the site really has some great ideas. I think that I will give some of the recipes a try this weekend.

The name of the site is delish.com. I thought was a really cute name, because every time my 8 year old son Zach eats something that he likes, he puts his fingers together (like he is Italian) and says delish!

Click here for the exact link to the meals under $10 recipes or just go to delish.com. Good luck with your cooking and let me know if you find a dinner that is really good. I will do the same!

TIP: Buy in bulk for the best prices

SAVINGS TIP: Buy your items in the largest size container available for the lowest cost per unit. The same holds true for cleaning products and dog food too. Plus, larger sizes use less packaging and are kinder to the earth.

Everyone is always touting the benefits of buying clubs like Costco and Sam's Club. But I've found that I end up blowing my whole grocery budget on big quantities of items and I miss certain things on my list. Then, of course, I end up with a few extra impulse items, too. I wonder if it really equates to savings. Maybe it does if you commit to only buying the things you normally would buy.

What do you think?

TIP: Feed the gang for $2 pp!

SAVING TIP: Eating in is clearly less expensive than eating out. Our staff put our heads together to come up with some meal ideas that we estimate to be about $2 per person. Such as:

Mary J suggests: Grilled cheese, fries and salad. ½ Loaf of bread on sale ($1), half a pound of cheddar cheese ($2), Bag of frozen French Fries ($3), head of lettuce (75 cents), ¼ bottle of salad dressing (75 cents), tomato (50 cents), cucumber (50 cents) = approx $8 or $2 per person.

Sandy B suggests: Breakfast for dinner. Box of cereal ($4), ½ gallon of milk: ($1.50), 4 bananas ($1.50), 6 eggs scrambled ($1) = approx $8 or $2 per person.

Robyn S suggests: Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo. Pasta ($1), Jar of Alfredo Sauce ($2), Two large chicken breasts ($4), Loaf of garlic bread from the bakery ($1.50) = Approx. $8.50 or $2.15 per person.

What's your favorite cheap meal?

5 Ways to Save Money on Groceries

Hawthorne’s very own Member Service Representative, Jerry B. pointed out to me last week that he had seen an advertisement for Oprah’s upcoming show on saving money on groceries and had recorded the show on his DVD, (he wanted to make sure that we all know that he is not a regular viewer of the Oprah Winfrey show!) He found several segments beneficial, particularly the one featuring Stephanie Nelson, founder of CouponMom.com. To view these money saving tips and to get more information on shopping with coupons, click here.