Aside from housing, my largest expense category, by far, is groceries. This is partly because I’ve cut everything else to minimalist levels, partly because I have expensive/healthy tastes, and partly because I rarely dine out (side note: sadly, restaurant expenses have recently surpassed grocery expenses for the first time ever. As a result, I’ve had a laser-like focus on saving money on my grocery bill for a number of years, without sacrificing good food.
There are a lot of things that one can do to cut grocery costs:
- You could get in to extreme couponing and spend hours on a weekly basis clipping coupons and stealing your neighbors coupon flyers, or diving in the dumpster for them (yes, that is a real thing). Frankly, I don’t have the time or patience and I don’t like the inconsistency, or smelling like a dumpster (one exception is with Kroger weekly ads and digital coupons, as they make coupon clipping pretty painless)
- You could pre-scan grocery store flyers to see what the specials are for the week, meticulously work out a plan of attack, and then drive around to 7 different grocery stores on different days to get those sale items. Again, I don’t have the time or patience for the practice or the inconsistency.
- You could turn in to a robotic consumption machine and completely change your diet and tastes to focus on eating only a handful of the same high nutrient items and dishes, meal after meal after meal. I simply don’t have the appetite for this.
I’m not knocking those who do those things. In fact, I have respect for consumers who can stick to those plans. But I’m not one of them. I love my variety and I’m big on eating healthy, mostly vegetarian, mostly organic food. And there is nothing I hate more than going shopping.
All that being said, it does not mean that I’m irresponsible or wasteful with my food spending. But I’ve had to find other ways to cut my grocery bill. And what I’ve found is that there are a few easy, reliable, consistent, and efficient ways that you can cut grocery expenses. And the good news is that they are universal and can be repeated as habit by everyone!
- Opt for generic and store brands: more often than not generic and store brands are notably cheaper than their big name counterparts. And often times, the product comes from the same producer/factory. You’d think everyone would know this by now, but aisles are still overwhelmed with expensive brand name products, with billions in ad dollars spent to convince you to stay loyal to them.
- Don’t buy pre-made, pre-packaged foods: sure, a few quick/convenient items here and there are fine, but try to focus on only purchasing 1-ingredient items and then <gasp> combining and cooking them up (here are some favorite cheap breakfast, cheap lunch, cheap dinner recipes). Cooking is one of the best money-saving skills you will ever develop. And it’s healthier. And cheaper. And when you buy 1-ingredient commodities, you can much more easily buy store/generic brands and get them in bulk.
- When you find your favorite items on sale, load up. Particularly if the items have a longer shelf life. Be cognizant of expire dates and buy for many months ahead. If you have the space for an efficient freezer chest, this can be an excellent way to save.
- Plan out your meals for the week, make a list, and stick to it. Less trips = less impulse buying and food waste.
Sticking to these 4 behaviors will go a long way, but it will also allow you to bust out the secret weapon to cut grocery expenses: the per volume grocery price list spreadsheet.
How to Use a Per Volume Grocery Price List Spreadsheet to Save Money on Food
I don’t think I really learned how to wisely shop for groceries and cut grocery costs until I learned the power of a per volume grocery price list spreadsheet.
The concept is fairly simple – you price out the food staples that you buy, on a per volume (or per unit) basis at each of the main grocery stores that are within a reasonable driving distance.
Most items should be priced out on a per ounce basis – because it’s rare that the packaging sizes will be identical at all stores. Some items, i.e. eggs, bananas, or vitamins, can be priced out on a per unit basis.
Completing this exercise will require you to do a bit of up-front work, but that work can save you hundreds, if not thousands each year on food costs. And it also has the added benefit of reducing the amount of overwhelming choices you have to make and time you spend each time you walk in to a grocery store.
To make it even easier on you, I’ve gone ahead and created a grocery price list spreadsheet, free for your use. Here’s the link:
Grocery Price List Spreadsheet, Per Volume (Google Sheets)
(You’ll notice that you cannot edit this spreadsheet. In order to save and edit your own version of this spreadsheet, log in to your Google account, select ‘File’, and ‘Make a Copy’. Now you should be able to edit your own version in Google Docs. Do not request to share, just make a copy and use the editable copy for your personal use.
If you prefer an offline Excel (.xlsx) or .ods spreadsheet, you can also select ‘File’ and ‘Download As’ to download those formats.)
Here, you can see an example of the price list in action:
Step-by-step:
- Price each regularly priced item out by volume or unit (whichever makes more sense for that item), by grocery store.
- Highlight/bold which store is the cheapest.
- Regularly buy the item at the store that wins.
- Repeat ~ once per year, as prices change.
Doing so will allow you to cut your grocery costs, save you serious time on each shopping trip, and even help you answer questions like “Is my Costco membership worth the cost?“.
I’m curious to hear in the comments how people have adopted various iterations of this system.
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There is a Dutch expression, “meten is weten” (measuring is knowing).
Ooh, I like that. How is that pronunciated?
I think prices change so often that I couldn’t use this sort of spreadsheet. Especially cheese, butter, eggs, yogurt. Maybe the prices are more stable if you’re always buying organic.
The idea of a monthly menu is a great idea. You can buy a whiteboard calendar and start by filling the days with foods you have in stock in your frig and freezer. For example, if you have 3 frozen pork butts, fill in 3 random days in the month. Once you have done what you can with foods on hand, (including veggies/sides) fill in unfinished spaces and at the same time, make your grocery list by week or two weeks. These items will probably be your fresh foods. Once you have it all laid out on the calendar, it’s easy to pull out the frozen item(s) the night before into your frig. The worst part of meal planning is 1) grocery shopping, 2) meal planning, and 3) taking the main course out of the frig on time so there’s not that blank stare into the frig that says, “what’s for dinner?”
Definitely going to think about getting a whiteboard for this – sounds much more visual and appealing than my excel lol
In my experience, when you shop primarily at stores that don’t have sales (Costco, Trader Joe’s), the prices are fairly consistent. And if there are major commodity price changes, it impacts all stores. What is important is to get a base line of what your favorites typically charge. And then you can re-check once a year or so.
I’ve never tried the grocery list tracker – definitely always buy the items on sale and generic brands when possible.
Have you ever tried a food planner app? I may give this spreadsheet a go!
Believe it or not we have found that using online grocery shopping (and picking it up at the store) helps us save money on our grocery budget. Even if you have to pay for a subscription to use such a service, it can enable you to save beyond the cost of the subscription and spend less time wondering through the grocery store.
Ordering groceries online forces you to have a meal plan for the week and helps you cut down on unnecessary items. It allows you to instantly perform price comparisons for different brands/versions of the item you need. The last and possibly greatest benefit is that you also have an estimated total that you can see in your shopping cart before you finalize your order so you know if you are blowing your budget or not.
The best part is that I can order groceries from the comfort of my couch and stop wasting over an hour of time each weekend chasing down items in the grocery store.
This is a great idea! I feel like it would be easier to get everything on your list too. I always forget something, or am too lazy to go all the way across the store to pick something up that I’ve forgotten. Then we have to make another trip to get said forgotten item, and buy other things in that trip, that we don’t really need.
Interesting. Which stores specifically do you do this with?
I’m located in NC and we use Harris Teeter. A yearly subscription to the service is $100/year and we use it at least once per week which makes the cost less than $2 per visit. Plus we get some freebies from time to time.
I believe Kroger, Lowes Foods, and even Walmart have online grocery ordering services available. Most of the major grocery chains offer a similar service now. I’m not sure about the Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods offerings. We still shop at specialty stores for specific items from time to time but Harris Teeter is the most convenient store locations and food quality in our area.
Try this approach on paper products like toilet paper and paper towels. You will be very surprised by how much product is on the roll each brand. Counting sq ft vs sheets is also interesting too. Overall, you can see how the price of a box is it what we are more geared toward plus the quantity of the rolls. I walked away thinking sq ft was the best indicator of a deal vs sheets or rolls. It made me think what else follows this scheme?
Man,
This is great! Thank you for sharing! Starting to fill ours out now and we’ll share with you after it’s filled out (prob in month or 2).
We also changed the last column to Amazon / Online as that is a large portion of our shopping now as well.
Thank you again!
T
I actually did this exact thing a fee years ago between Walmart and Sam’s Club. We recently got a Costco in our city, so I’m planning to add them to my list as soon as I can get over there!
I had a co-worker who had a monthly spreadsheet setup up with all his grocery items similar to what is going on here but they took it much farther planning out each meal would take the amounts of the grocery our pantry list. Basically it allowed them to know exactly how many meals they could get out of their pantry and when they needed to restock. I still regret not asking for a copy. Please let me know if there is it anyone has a similar tool.
The link to the spreadsheet is not there and does not work. Could you send me an updated link?
It works. Just checked in a private browser. Must be something on your end.