Back to the Basics – What My Grocery Cart Looks Like

On a given trip, I may have 10 boxes of pasta, or 12 bags of rice. Another trip, I may have 9 cans of green chilis. The point is, you can buy the ingredients for your meals that week, but then, leave some money left over in your budget to buy “stock-up” items. In other words, we won’t eat 12 bags of rice this next week. BUT, the next time that I make a meal with rice, instead of having to add that to my grocery list – it’s already in my house – AND I got it at a great price for much cheaper or FREE. If I had waited to buy it when I needed it for that week’s meal plan – it would have cost me a couple of bucks. Things cyclically go on sale – so, at the beginning, you may have to buy it at full price, but as you gradually stock up using coupons combined with sales, you can save money. Now that I have stocked up on things we typically use, on average on a given grocery trip, I only pay about 20% of the retail price. So, that is the benefit of gradually buying things as they go on sale with coupons.