by Tamara Brown

Created on: March 12, 2009   Last Updated: November 07, 2011

With its brightly colored packages, tasty food, and thousands of choices, grocery stores are designed by professionals to part you from as much of your money as possible. From the moment you walk in the door and catch a whiff of freshly baked goods, you are like a rat in their carefully constructed maze. However, with a little discipline, and a few tricks up your sleeve, you can resist the temptation, save money and provide healthy food choices for your family.

Set a Budget

Start by setting a budget for your groceries. There is no magic formula for this number. It will depend on your income and the number of people in your home. Start low, and adjust it over the first few months until you find an amount that works for your family. To make yourself stick to the budget, withdraw the amount from the bank at the beginning of the month. Then place the cash in an envelope. Use the money in the envelope to purchase your groceries. When you are out of money, you aren't allowed to buy any more groceries. After having to eat pork and beans the last few days of every month, you will learn to ration your money out more effectively.

Resist Temptation

You may have heard that you shouldn't go to the store hungry. It is true. A growling stomach will have a head start in convincing you that you really do need that gallon of gourmet ice cream that you would otherwise resist. Likewise, don't go shopping on payday. It may have been a while since you've been able to buy anything, and with a pocket full of cash, your resistance will be low.

Once you have built up your overall resistance, focus on ways to save money on the groceries you buy. Some ideas are:

Plan your Meals

Use the store's weekly ad to plan your meals. Decide on the recipes that you will be making for the week and purchase just what you need to make those meals. Try to plan meals that use some of the same ingredients so you can buy those items in bulk. For example, you can make two recipes that use hamburger meat, like tacos and beef stroganoff. You can also double the size of some meals so that you can have leftovers for lunch, or freeze for meals later in the month.

Cook from Scratch

The fewer prepackaged meals that you make, the cheaper your meals will become. You can make your own versions of Hamburger Helper, or Pasta Roni for about half the cost of buying them at the store. Also, your version will have less sodium, taste better and be healthier for your family.

Use Coupons

You will have to learn how to use them

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