by Erik Van Tongerloo

Created on: October 26, 2006   Last Updated: October 16, 2009

Life is expensive and we all search ways to save money. Inflation, higher oil prices and materials cause an increase of our daily and weekly expenses on groceries. Everyone needs food to survive and we can't avoid these expenses and cutting these costs is sometimes easier than you imagine.

Here are some tips which may help you to reduce your expenses on groceries:

*Planning

A little bit homework is required before you start shopping. It is recommended to make a shopping list with all the food you need and check if you don't have coupons which you can use for certain food items. Check newspapers, local magazines and advertisements to find the best deals.

*Don't shop when you are hungry

If you go shopping in groceries you will smell the flavor of delicious food. For example, you want to buy some bread. Groceries know that the smell of freshly baked food and pastry has a stimulating effect to buy more. If you pass all these different food items when you are hungry you tend to buy more. It is difficult to ignore all these delicious sweets and you consider buying some food items more. The best advice I can give is going shopping with a full stomach and you will only buy the food you really need.

*Compare different stores

Most people tend to buy food items always in the same shop. Maybe they know perfectly the place where they can find the food items they need and gain time but the costs can be much higher than comparing the prices of the same goods in different stores.

It is preferable to visit many shops before you make your purchases to know the best prices for the products you need. After some time you know which grocery offer the best deals for the products you need and you can make different shopping lists. It is worthwhile to visit more than one grocery; maybe you lose some time but you will save a lot of money. It is really amazing that there are differences of more than 20% for the same product but it is only useful if you buy several products because the costs of petrol will be higher than the savings of your food products.

*Promotions, coupons or rebates

Almost every week you can find promotions for certain products and especially during the holiday season. Every grocery tries to attract more people and offer discounts for certain products during a certain period. There are also many coupons to find in newspapers, magazines or other advertisement magazines; clip these coupons and create a system to find easy the coupons you need.

Some groceries offer also

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