Today I’d like to share seven quick grocery shopping tips with you. Oh, I guess I should mention that this is yet another guest post by Susanne Myers – The Hillbilly Housewife. I’m on the road, touring from blog to blog this October to spread the word about frugal living, meal planning and breast cancer research. But let’s get back to the grocery shopping tips…

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really like grocery shopping. That’s one of the reasons I started to meal plan… it allowed me to shop less often.

Here are just a few of my favorite tips and shortcuts:

1. Don’t shop hungry – you’ll end up buying more and more things you really don’t need, especially junk and convenience food. Have a little snack before you leave home. You’ll also be able to concentrate better which will make your shopping experience faster and more enjoyable.
2. Go by yourself if you can – having the kids or husband join you adds lots of distractions. You’ll end up forgetting to get some crucial items. Kids and spouses can also talk you into buying things you don’t really need. Go by yourself when you can and get the shopping done more quickly.
3. Look at the sales flyer before you go – circle the items you really want to get on sale and add them to your list as well. I often plan my meals around what’s on sale that week and then put together my shopping list. Don’t forget to bring any coupons you may need to get the best deal.
4. Look for store brand – I always look to see if there’s a store brand version available. Most of the time they are just as good as the original at a fraction of the cost.
5. Shop the perimeter of the store – skip the middle rows unless there is something in particular that you need. They are full of convenience foods, candy etc. Stick to the whole foods available on the perimeter of the store (i.e. produce, meat, etc.)
6. Keep a price book – I have a little notebook that I carry in my purse that has the prices of all the items I buy most often in it. At a glance I can decide if something really is a good deal.
7. Make a list and stick to it – Take the time to sit down and write out your grocery list. Unless it is something very essential (think diapers), make yourself stick to the list. It’ll keep you from giving into impulse buys. Christine does a wonderful job creating categorized shopping lists for all her meal plans.

That’s it for today. I’ll be back with another blog post tomorrow. Leave me some comments and share some of your own grocery tips.  Christine and I will put all commenters in a drawing and give away a subscription to her Meal Planning Service and one to the Hillbilly Housewife Club.

Susanne Myers – The Hillbilly Housewife
HillbillyHousewife.com

P.S. Love recipes? Take a moment to browse through my collection of frugal recipes. I’m sure you’ll find some new family favorites.

Welcome back to the Hillbilly Housewife Blog Tour. I’m Susanne Myers, the Hillbilly Housewife. In yesterday’s post we talked about how meal planning can save you time. Today I’d like to share some information on the different types of meal planning with you. It will help you decide what style of menu plan is right for you and your family.

Different Styles Of Meal Planning

There are three different styles of meal planning. I am outlining each for you below. Each works well for a particular lifestyle. Find the one that you think will most likely work for you and your family and give it a try.

The Night Before

This is the simplest form of meal planning. Take some time after you finish dinner and get the kids in the bed to think about what you will cook the next day. Work mostly with what you already have in your fridge or pantry. Make a note of what you will need to grab at the store to make dinner.

If making a weekly menu seems a bit intimidating, this is a great way to get your feed wet and get a feel for the process. I recommend you try to graduate to one of the other methods eventually.

A Week, 2 Weeks or Month at a Time

This is my preferred method of meal planning. I usually plan for one week, occasionally for two when I know we’ll be extra busy. I sit down on Sunday nights and make up a menu for the entire week. I grab my recipes for the dinner dishes and write down a grocery list to make sure I’m not forgetting anything essential. I don’t usually bother planning breakfast and lunch. I just make sure we have plenty to make our favorites (oatmeal and pancakes for breakfast, sandwiches, salads and leftovers for lunch).

Rotating Menus

If you are super busy and your family likes certain meals on a regular basis a rotating menu may work well for you. Make out about 6 weekly menus and keep rotating through them. You may want to make some slight adjustments in the fresh produce you use depending on the season.

Please take a moment to leave a comment and let us know what your thoughts on meal planning are. Christine and I will put all commenters in a drawing and give away a subscription to her Meal Planning Service and one to the Hillbilly Housewife Club. Can’t wait to hear read your comments.

Susanne Myers – The Hillbilly Housewife

P.S. If you haven’t already done so, take a moment to subscribe to the Hillbilly Housewife Newsletter. It’s free and we share some wonderful recipes and great tips on all things frugal. To join visit HillbillyHousewife.com and look for the signup box in the upper left-hand corner.

Hi there, I’m Susanne Myers – aka the Hillbilly Housewife. This fall I’m touring and guest blogging on several of my favorite blogs. Christine was kind enough to volunteer her blog as the first stop on the tour. We’ve been great friends for close to 4 years now and are both passionate about meal planning, making this the perfect site to kick of the HBHW Blog Tour. With that said, lets talk about how meal planning can save you time.

Meal Planning – The Big Time Saver At Dinner Time

It’s 6pm, you just got home after a long day at the office, or a busy day driving the kids all over town. You’re standing in the middle of your kitchen and are trying to figure out what you could possibly fix for dinner without having to run to the store or order takeout yet again.

Now imagine that you’ve taken the time to plan your meals ahead of time. You know what you’re going to cook, all the groceries are waiting for you and you may even have done some of the prep work already. It’s not hard to see that making dinner will be faster and a lot less stressful this way.

Here are some of the ways you’ll be saving time with meal planning:

1) No More Time Wasted Digging Through Your Pantry and Fridge

When you plan your meals for the weeks, there’s no need to dig through your pantry and fridge to try and come up with something you can throw together for dinner. You’ll know exactly what you are going to make. Just grab your meal plan, your recipe if you need it and start cooking.

2) No More Time Wasted Running To The Store

Before I planned my meals, I ended up running to the store several times a week because I was missing a key ingredient for a particular dish. Even if you have a few dishes in mind when you shop, without a plan (preferably in writing) chances are good that you will have to rush back to the grocery store. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how much time it saves me to only shop once a week or once every two weeks.

3) No More Time Wasted Waiting For Mom

When you plan your meals ahead of time and post your meal plan in the kitchen, other members of your family (think husband or older kids) can get dinner started when you’re running late. By the time you finally make it home, dinner is almost done and everyone is ready to sit down to a nice family dinner.

By now I’m sure you can tell that I’m very passionate about this topic. In fact, you can read my tips on menu planning here.I’d also like to invite you to give Christine’s Menu Planning Central membership a try. I’ve used her meal plans myself and they are well laid out and there’s a huge variety of meal plans in the member area.

Another topic that’s near and dear to my heart is Breast Cancer Research. My grandmother is a breast cancer survivor and each October (during Breast Cancer Awareness Month), I try to do something to support the efforts in this area. This year I am putting together this blog tour and am donating 20% of all profit from my Hillbilly Housewife products to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

I’ll be back tomorrow to talk to you about the different types of meal planning you can do. I’d also like to invite to to leave a comment below. How is meal planning a time saver for you?

Warmly,

Susanne Myers – The Hillbilly Housewife
www.HillbillyHousewife.com

P.S. Follow me on my blog tour -  http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/blog/?p=2036

There’s been quite a bit of talk in the news lately about the rising cost of food and I don’t have to tell you about the rising cost of gas. We’ve all been feeling that one for a while. As far as food goes, anything from milk and eggs to meat and veggies seems to have gone up by quite a bit in the past few months and I don’t see those prices going down anytime soon.

One of the results of this trend has been that more and more people are starting to plan their meals. Makes sense, doesn’t it? By planning what you’re going to cook ahead of time, you avoid buying a bunch of food that you end up throwing out and make sure you only get what you really need and what your family will actually eat. It’s a great way to get your grocery budget back under control in spite of the rising cost.

But what does gas have to do with it, you ask? Simple… when you plan your meals for the entire week, you can make just one trip to the store, instead of driving over there several times a week to pick up things you forgot or to get whatever you’re going to cook for dinner that night.

Give it a try… start by grabbing your free meal planning guide at www.menuplanningcentral.com and see if you can’t start saving on your grocery bill.

I recently received a great email from a Menu Planning Subscriber who had a great idea for making his grocery trips even faster, more convenient and he even found a way to keep his food expenses in check. Here’s what he wrote:

Dear Christine,

Since I do my shopping at the same store, I have created a grocery list template based on my grocery store’s layout.  When  I was at the store I wrote down the aisle number and the description of what’s there from the banners in the store (ie, Aisle 2-Can beans/meat/soup, etc) and then typed it up in the computer in the order that I will pass the aisles.  When I’m ready to make my list I print out a blank template, look at my menu and write the ingredients down in the appropriate section.  It really helps speed up my shopping trip and helps me not to overlook items I passed 2 aisles ago!

Another thing I do is write down the price (rounded up or down) next to the item as I pick it up.  Then I can keep track and stick to my budget.  If my total is getting too high, I can look on my list and know exactly what I need to put back in order to stay within my limit.

A subscriber in California.

What a great time saving tip. Once you have a pretty good idea of the layout of your store and have the template set up, it shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to rewrite the grocery list we provide you with each menu. We do our best to categorize it by sections of the store, but reorganizing it in the manner suggested for your particular store will make it even more convenient.

I also love the idea of adding a price for each item. That makes it a lot easier to judge whether or not an item on sale really is a good deal or not.

Thanks for sharing the great tip “Subscriber in California”.