More Grocery Tips for You

In my last post, I shared 10 powerful grocery tips to help you bring your groceries bills down. A lot of you loved that post, so I have decided to bring you ten more grocery tips to help you boss your grocery buying!
Here we go!

MEATLESS MONDAYS

Have you heard of meatless Mondays? Doesn’t sound fun right? Well, what I mean is you pick one day in the week when you don’t eat meat. This means that you end up eating less meat every month; this is not only good for the body but also for your pocket.

Meat generally jacks up our grocery prices because it doesn’t come cheap and a lot of us pile it on. What I’ll like you to try is meatless Mondays.

WORK WITH EXPIRY DATES

My second powerful trick is for you to work with expiry dates. When you go into the shops try and take notes of expiry dates. Not just so you buy things that won’t expire soon but also to make sure you’re not stockpiling something that will expire soon.

If you buy something from the store that says “buy one and get one half-price” please check the expiry date. This is because sometimes they are trying to move stock and once they get you to stockpile it, it goes bad in your fridge. So work with expiry dates.

Don’t just work with expiry dates in the store but you should also work with expiry dates in your fridge. Whatever is expiring soon in your fridge should be the next thing you’re cooking.

AVOID WASTAGE AND LOVE LEFTOVERS

We waste so much food. Leftovers that have been packed away in the fridge and after a day or two when the guilt is passed, we throw it in the bin. No. Stop it. Learn to find something to do with leftovers.

There are recipes and Pinterest ideas of what to do with leftovers.
I’m a fan of leftovers and using them up. They reduce your grocery bills and make things last longer.

For instance, there are days when I’ve cooked a big pot of rice and my family members suddenly decide they are tired of boiled rice. So do I throw it in the bin? No, I don’t. Instead, I crack an egg in a pan of hot oil, allow it to fry, add some spices and green peas and I throw in the boiled rice. Voila! Egg fried rice is ready. Dinner sorted!

This may not apply to fruits as you can’t toss them into a stir fry but once I discover fruits are staying too long in my fridge, I throw them into my smoothie maker, add some ice cubes, Greek yoghurt or condensed milk and voila! Smoothie is ready!
Everyone loves a yummy cup of smoothie.

PORTION CONTROL

No, I’m not talking about diet now. I’m talking about portion control from the angle of grocery shopping.

So how does this work? When you don’t control your portion especially when you’re really hungry and you’ve made yourself a big pot of pasta more than what you normally eat, you end up having two choices because you’re halfway through the pasta but you’re full.

You’re either going to force yourself to finish the bowl of pasta which is bad for you or you’re going to chuck it in the bin which is also bad for you. Either way, you’re using up food that could have been kept for the next day simply because you couldn’t control your portion.

This applies to children too. You give them too much and they end up poking around the food and leaving it there for you. This results in wastage. Portion control works great for your grocery bill.

BUY LESS INDULGENT FOODS

This may not sit too well with you but please don’t hate me. Lol. Buy less indulgent foods. Chocolates, ice cream, alcohol and all that stuff that we like to indulge in rack up our grocery bill because they are not cheap.

I’m not saying don’t buy them at all. I’m saying half it! So if you will normally pick up 6 bottles of wine, next time you go to the store, try to pick 3. For chocolates, make your stash of chocolates last longer, keep them out of your reach. Buy less indulgent foods.

DO THE DIRTY DOZEN ONLY

Organics are foods that we love to buy in organic form, free from chemicals, fertilisers and so on. I get the point of buying organics because they are good for our body and we should be health conscious. We want what’s best for our bodies.

However, I have something I call the dirty dozen and these are the fruits and vegetables that I only buy in organic form; the rest I don’t bother to buy organic.
Here are the 12 dirty dozen fruits and vegetables you should buy organic:

• Strawberries
• Apples
• Grapes
• Peaches
• Cherries
• Pears
• Tomatoes
• Celeries
• Potatoes
• Spinach
• Nectarines
• Kale

These are the things I agree should be bought organic. Everything else I buy is just regular fruits and vegetables; which I then wash well with a little bit of salt in cold water. Be like me, buy the dirty dozen in organic and everything else regular.

CHECK YOUR RECEIPTS

Another good thing to do to keep your grocery bills down is to check your receipts. You won’t always find an error with your receipts but sometimes you will. That’s simply because errors do happen.

Sometimes you can get charged double for something or there are cases where prices may have changed and the machine hasn’t gotten on top of that. Always check your receipt when next you go to the shop. Don’t just stuff it down your pocket.

BUY DRY GOODS IN BULK

Dry goods are the stuff that sits in your pantry. They don’t go in your fridge or freezer and don’t go bad very quickly.

These dry foods includes rice, beans, semolina, wheat, pasta, canned tomatoes etc. You can buy them in bulk and they last you a while. When you buy in bulk, you get a better price deal than when you buy in smaller quantities.

Please check the price per kilo just to be sure you’re getting store saves because some stores can be cheeky.

BUY FEWER PAPER TOWELS

A lot of us are guilty of buying paper towels. I am guilty as well, so you’re not alone. But I’m learning to walk away from it.

Asides from the effect they have on the environment and the number of trees that have to be cut down for them to be made, they also rack up your grocery bills.

Instead of buying paper towels, you can use fibre clothes. They are reusable, washable and environmentally friendly. You don’t have to chuck them in the bin but just be mindful that you do need to wash them so you end up transferring germs from one end of the kitchen to the other.

I ensure to wash my fibre clothes in the sink at the end of the day or I toss them into the washing machine, dry them and use them the next day again.

SHOP ALONE

Right now, due to the post-pandemic, you may want to avoid going to shops with the family to avoid the risk of catching an infection.

Asides from that, shopping alone is more advisable than shopping with the kids because when you shop with kids you’re more distracted and stressed out.

You find yourself struggling to keep to your comprehensive shopping list. You’re also likely to buy things you don’t need in place of things you need and you find yourself spending more time in the shops.

So I always advise that is preferable to shop alone. That way, you can stick to your list, set your timer, do the clearance shelves and shop efficiently.

In my last post, I mentioned that if you struggling to make your comprehensive shopping list (which is the first thing in the ten powerful hacks I shared in that blog post) you can buy my Bulletproof Life Planner or my Bulletproof Life Budget and Saving Book because I have tucked a comprehensive shopping list in there for you! So this is a quick reminder about that.

Thanks for reading and stay Bulletproof!
All my love,
Ronke O.