Grocery Shopping

Saving money on groceries is the easiest way to start saving money. Here are 5 simple things that you can do to cut your grocery bill immediately!

1. Sign up for a store loyalty card. These cards offer additional markdowns on items throughout the store. If you don't use them, you are throwing money down the drain.

2. Read the ads and compare prices at different stores. This sounds simple, but many people do not take the time to do this.

3. Clip coupons. Coupons can be found on the internet, in store fliers, and in the Sunday newspaper. If you do not subscribe to your local newspaper, you might consider doing so. I subscribe to the local newspaper, but I only have the Saturday and Sunday editions delivered. This way, I am not paying for the days when there aren't any coupon inserts. Discounted Newspapers offer discounts to new subscribers of up to 50%. I pay about $2.50/month for my weekend subscription. If I use only five $0.50 coupons during the whole month (which I always do), my subscription has paid for itself.

4. Consider buying store brands instead of name brands. I am a big fan of Kroger and Great Value products.

5. At the grocery store, compare cost per ounce (or pound or whatever unit of measurement the product uses). The red arrow below this tag indicates the location of the unit price-in this case it is 9.80 cents per ounce. Buy the item with the lowest unit price. Generally, if there are two different sizes of the same item, the larger of the two items will have a lower unit price (but not always, so be careful).