One thing on a college kids’ mind, besides partying at Midtown and pulling all nighters at Library West, is money. We are now off on our own here in Gainesville and left to fend for ourselves. Leaving Publix with a bill of more than $100 can be frightening and is usually met with a feeling of not getting the most bang for your buck. Whether you live in a dorm or off campus and you have a meal plan or not, here are some tips on how to save money when grocery shopping:
Deals and Coupons
Every week Publix prices many products cheaper than normal, and it’s all posted online. The store provides categories such as dairy, grocery, frozen food, and health and beauty to make it easy to search for the particular items you need. There is also a specific tab for buy one get one free items and coupons you can print out and bring to store for discounts. Also, if you give the website your email address, the ads will be emailed to you to make it even more convenient to see what’s cheap that week. Sign up for coupon books to be mailed to you for even more deals at more stores, and always make sure to pick up the ads usually placed at the entrance to stores such as Target and Walgreens.
Suck up to Mom and Dad!
We all love getting care packages from back home — our favorite homemade cookies, lots of candy, and tons of snack foods we crave. Instead of asking for things that won’t fill you up and just add weight to your gut, ask for food with real nutritional value so you can stock up! Anything dry can be shipped, such as peanut butter, pasta, crackers, dried fruit, rice, canned vegetables, soup, etc. This way, the money won’t be directly coming out of your spending money. Stock up next time you take a visit back home to mom and dad as well, and load up anything from granola bars to ketchup; they will come in handy at some point!
Don’t buy name brands:
Students almost always ignore Publix and Wal-Mart brands, and the name brands are put in the shopping cart instead. But most of the time, the generic brands are exactly the same as the name brand. “Consumers have also gotten clued in to the fact that many ‘generic’ store-brand foods are actually made by the same companies that produce the higher-priced name-brand stuff,” Brad Tuttle said in his report for TIME magazine. “The foods have been known to come out of the same factories, with the same ingredients inside and everything, with the only difference being the label.” At the end of the day, wouldn’t you rather pay up to 30 percent less for the same exact product?
Convenience doesn’t mean it’s cheap:
Snack-sized to-go food will always be more expensive. Yes, those small bags of Doritos fit nicely in your purse, but you aren’t getting nearly as much as you could with a normal-sized bag. Invest in Tupperware or Ziploc bags because they will save you a ton of money in the long run. Two extra seconds to transfer the food to another container won’t kill you, but it’ll save you money!
Compare sizes:
A lot of times there will be two different brands both at approximately the same price. However, don’t immediately grab the one with the catchiest design or the one that’s three cents cheaper; check the ounces first. There can be a difference of a few ounces between two different brands for the same price, so check the number on the very bottom of the box. You’ll be surprised how many times you will find this happen between brands. Also, check to see how much of a difference the next size up of a food product is. Most times, the bigger size will actually be cheaper per ounce; so, if it’s an item you eat a lot, go for the bigger brand. It’s worth it.
Make a weekly menu:
Plan out your meals for the week ahead of time — sort of like a menu for each day. Instead of going into the grocery store looking lost and confused, getting totally overwhelmed, and buying anything that looks good or that you may possibly need, go in with a plan. Having a set menu will help you make a clear shopping list. Now instead of accidentally buying something you already had, you will buy only things you really need.
You can save a lot with these tips and spend the extra cash on books or school supplies — or maybe just a new pair of shoes. If you need it, buy it, right? Head to the grocery stores, intelligent shoppers! Find those deals, and save those dollars!
Sources: www.vanderbilt.com