How to spend less at the Grocery store

The following tips will help you spend less on your grocery purchases.

1. Never, ever grocery shop when you're hungry. If you do, you'll definitely buy more than you need.

2. Shop with a list (I know it's boring) and stick with the list. Allow yourself only 1 or 2 items not on the list. This way you only buy what you need, minimize extra trips to the grocery store (with gas at $3 a gallon, that's a saver by itself)

3. Take advantage of coupons. I remember someone saying years ago that they only bought the newspaper on a particular day because that's when they put all the grocery coupons in and they more than paid for the price of the paper- how true.

4. Select generic products whenever possible. Sometimes this is hit and miss as some generic products taste gosh-awful but others are excellent. Remember sugar is sugar, salt is salt, etc. Think of a lot of this stuff as it grows in the field. Is their manufacturer labels on them in the field?- of course not.

5. Again, with gasoline so expensive, try to minimize multiple shopping sites for your groceries unless those items really are significantly cheaper elsewhere.

6. With certain foods that can spoil, only buy enough to last...it's no money saver to throw away spoiled food and remember people are starving in China (or so my mother used to say).

Have fun and let me know what you think.