10 Tips on How to Save Money on Groceries by Listonic

#1 Use a Smaller Cart or Basket The bigger cart you get, the more you’ll want to fill it. In fact, one study showed that doubling the size of a person’s grocery shopping cart meant that they spent 40% more than those using a smaller cart or basket. Don’t be scared that you won’t fit all your shopping into a smaller cart or basket. The size of all of these has significantly increased over the years.

#2 Hunt Down the “Reduced” Section All stores offer promotions to sell the last few items of stock, especially if they’re close to their use/sell by date. Find out where they get sold (the location might change from time to time) and what time stock gets placed there.

#3 Compare the Cost per Unit While shopping, you can easily find product labels on the shelves with the item’s cost per 100g, 1kg, 1ltr, or any other relevant unit of measurement. It’s called “price per unit of measure”. That’s how you can compare different brands of similar or same products, without doing complicated math in your head, or reaching for your smartphone’s calculator app.

#4 Visit Fewer Aisles The more shopping aisles you go down, the more likely you are to fill your basket with things you don’t really need to buy. Research found that consumers who visited fewer aisles buy almost 20% less unplanned items compared to buyers who visited all lanes.

#5 Avoid Aisles Filled with Temptations and Promotions By avoiding aisles with alluring products in them, you don’t have to face the temptation of these goodies. This means you’ll save more money by not buying them. Also, nowadays supermarkets and grocery stores tend to sell and promote non-grocery products such as clothing, and home and garden products that you don’t necessarily need.

#6 Use a Shopping List or Shopping List App If you have your shopping list with you, it will help you stick to precisely what’s on it and not buy anything extra. This means less unplanned purchases and less unexpected costs. Why not go one step further and download a shopping list app, like Listonic? These apps have functions such as list sharing, and even the ability to add prices to calculate the total cost of your groceries.

#7 Don’t Buy Anything Placed Near Checkouts Imagine that you’re in a long checkout queue. The magazines look interesting, and the chocolate looks delicious. Everything there is there to tempt you at the checkout. You really don’t need it, and you really don’t need to spend extra on them.

#8 Don’t Buy What’s at Eye Level Grocery stores are a marketing battlefield and you are the target of greedy CEOs. When you realize this, you might start to wonder why is it that the most colorful, flashy, and more expensive items are displayed at the height of your eyes.

#9 Stick to Seasonal Products Having shopping habits that follow the seasonal availability of products actually helps lower your spending. Out of season fruit and vegetables are usually more expensive. When produce is in season where you are, there is more of it locally. This means they are cheaper because they don’t have to travel as far.

#10 Check Your Basket Before Going to the Checkout Take a good look at your cart before going to check out. Ask yourself if you are really going to eat 5 packs of cheese, or if you really need that bag of chips. There’s often too much pressure in the queue to not question your choices, and keep them in your basket.

Saving money is easier with The Smart Shopping List