Be a Smart Shopper to Grow Your Savings

Being a smart shopper can be tough, especially when you're dealing with a growing family. But even when you're single, you'll need to strategize to be sure that you aren't falling into the trap of impulse buying.  A person who is single will obviously have a different strategy from a family with young children. Each situation is unique, so here are a few ideas to help you come up with your own private smart shopping guidelines:

• Try different strategies to figure out what works for you and your family. If you have children, do you find that you spend more on groceries when they're with you? If so, leave the kids at home with a responsible adult so that you can stick to your list and not give into the begging symphony conducted by the kids. 
• The best approach to smart shopping depends on how you and your family live, how much time you can spend on shopping and cooking, and on what you enjoy.  Let's face it -- most of us don't have a lot of time to prepare meals after a long day of work or school. So when you're budgeting be sure to embrace your eating out lifestyle by budgeting for it the same way that you would if you were going to grocery store and picking up the ingredients. 

Now, if you're really into home cooking you can adopt these simple habits to save on groceries and other household expenses:

• Use coupons and discounts to save on items you would normally buy. Keep an eye out for the myriads of weekly circulars that you probably throw out when you get the mail. You can base your meals upon the specials coming up, see which items you can stock up on for meals down the road.
• The golden rule of couponing is to NEVER purchase an item just because you have a coupon. Remember that you're not saving money if you're spending it on things that aren't actually necessities.
• Download apps, like Grocery IQ or The Coupons App, to automatically look for coupons. You can also check with your local grocery store. Many stores provide digital coupon clicking apps in their bid to keeping you as a loyal customer, so be sure to take advantage of these as well.
• Plan your meals ahead of time and make grocery lists. After you go shopping, be sure to set aside some time during the weekends to make large quantities of your family’s favorite foods and freeze meal-size portions. This will eliminate the need to grab fast food after a long day of activities.

“It’s good to have money and the things money can buy, but it’s good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy. -George Horace Lorimer