Tools to help you combat the soaring price of groceries
If you head-up the grocery shopping effort for your family, you’ve probably noticed the soaring price of food – especially perishables. Even though your grocery list isn’t getting longer, it seems like you’re spending enough to feed the entire block. Well, you’re not imagining things. It’s a fact that we’re paying almost 70 percent more over the past two years for common kitchen staples, like eggs, bread, milk and chicken – and prices are expected to continue their upward trend.
If you head-up the grocery shopping effort for your family, you’ve probably noticed the soaring price of food – especially perishables. Even though your grocery list isn’t getting longer, it seems like you’re spending enough to feed the entire block. Well, you’re not imagining things. It’s a fact that we’re paying almost 70 percent more over the past two years for common kitchen staples, like eggs, bread, milk and chicken – and prices are expected to continue their upward trend.
Unwilling and unable to scrimp on quality foods needed for creating healthy family meals, many parents are turning to the web to help off-set their grocery costs. One popular strategy is pilfering online coupon sites like Coupons.com, SmartSource.com and ValPak.com. Online coupon use is skyrocketing and companies are issuing twice as many as they did just three years ago – so you’ll likely find a larger variety of savings on the web than in your newspaper insert. And make no mistake – you can certainly save big if you’re willing to put in the time to hunt. Another emerging strategy is using the web to help build a smarter grocery list.
Recent studies show that in-store marketing can drive up to 50% of the total grocery purchase – so you could save significant money simply by being more organized.
Lastly, there are also a handful of mobile apps that can help you scan bar codes and compare prices on the same product at various stores. Check out apps like Frugal, RedLaser and Grocery iQ to name just a few. Comparing prices at several different stores and figuring out where to buy what can be a lot of work – but these technologies aim to eliminate that headache – and the savings are well worth it.
With escalating food prices, it’s smart to put technology to work for you. Yes, you may have your own tried-and-true methods for capturing grocery savings – but adding these high-tech strategies into the fold may be a nice compliment to your current efforts and help reveal additional savings that you might not know about otherwise.
In an effort to help busy home cooks get more out of the monthly food budget, they can now turn to KitchenMonki.com, a website that allows shoppers to organize their recipes in an iTunes-like fashion and have an e-grocery list delivered to their mobile phone via text message or email. But here’s the cool part: Kitchen Monki’s grocery lists are broken down aisle-by-aisle. When it comes time to shop and you’ve got a detailed “plan of attack”, you’re more apt to bypass the lure of in-store marketing (and in turn, spend less money). Peripheral items and junk foods are specifically engineered to capitalize on unorganized shoppers who browse each aisle for meal and snack ideas as they go. (Recent research shows that in-store marketing can drive up to 50% of the total grocery purchase.) Kitchen Monki also scales your recipes, which can help frugal shoppers ensure that they’re not purchasing more than they need of pertinent ingredients.
Again, groceries are a capital expense in most households, but using tools like Kitchen Monki can help you save in areas that may otherwise go ignored. Plus, it's an excellent complement to the art of "couponing".
With so many using apps on their cell phones now, I think this sounds like such a great thing to add! The best part is that it's 100% FREE and takes only seconds!
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