Saving Money on Groceries

This is an import from my soon to be dead Exercise in Frugality.

Also, here's a link to an article in Parenting listing the Best Coupon Sites for Moms.

Using coupons can be a great way to save money, especially if you use them in conjunction with in-store sales and specials. This is especially useful at Target. Anyway, there are some tricks to using grocery coupons effectively. Here are some things that I look for before using a coupon:

• Check the other brands out. Often, the store brand is cheaper than the brand name even with the coupon, and the store brand is usually just as good as the national brand. (A huge exception is Kroger instant oatmeal. I don't know what they flavor that with, but ick.)
  
• Is it a Save $ on TWO or more? If so, you may not actually be saving money. If you have a coupon for 50 cents off of any four boxes of cereal, and the cereal is $3.00 a box, and you wouldn't normally buy 4 boxes of cereal, it probably isn't worth it. Target frequently offers deals where if you purchase two or more of some brand you get a $5 gift card, and if you do this in conjunction with a coupon you may actually come out on top. More info on that in a recent posting at Baby Cheapskate. I did recently find a coupon here for $1 off any two TreeTop items (just search Tree Top)- if I use this on frozen juice, I can get both for under $1 each, which is a good bargain.
• Is it something you would normally buy? Sure, $1 off of potato chips is nice, but if you don't normally buy them, is it worth spending the money you aren't saving?
  

I hope this is helpful to you!

I have found the Penny Pincher Gazette site useful in the past, it is great for comparing circulars from various stores. However, it doesn't cover all of the major stores in my area, but it will probably be useful to some of you! Sunday Saver is another good site with links to all major (and maybe all) grocery store circulars, but it doesn't compare them side by side for you. There are a lot of blogs linked from Baby Cheapskate that do the comparisons and coupon stacking for you, but I haven't thoroughly explored that yet.

Happy shopping!