Till then,

Jean

Also, another key we have found is spending cash only and not going shopping when your hungry or moody.

Great information and thanks so much for sharing all the helpful tips to start helping me save some serious money next time I go grocery shopping.

You can get them at any ATM or bank or credit union branch. The company that issues them is the Bank of Canada.

i recently spoke to the manager at Price Smart which is a spin off of Save-on, he said they will gladly match competitors prices.

Here is how I save money on my groceries:

1. Shop at the cheapest grocery store, for me that is No Frills (used to be Food Basic in a different town I lived in).
2. Purchase all meat on its last day of sale when it’s at least 1/2 off or more, (I stockpile on whole chickens, ground beef/pork, chicken breasts/thighs), then freeze it at home until I need it. I also prepare things (e.g. when I buy a family size chicken thigh package break it up into smaller dinner size portion before freezing, sometimes I also cut/marinate it to save time later).
3. Purchase all vegetables/fruits only when in season, and purchase only the imperfect stuff that’s discounted by about 3/4. Our grocery store has a place where they sell not-perfect fruits/vegetables, for example I can buy 3 lb of red peppers for $1.99. Chop those up and freeze, use when needed. Same with green onions etc. They almost always have broccoli, beans, mushrooms, zuccini, peppers, cabbages, apples, oranges, grapefruit, grapes, pears, and I just cook with what they have. Early morning is when they have the most variety, I often think “the early bird gets the worm”.
4. Purchase all bread on the last day of sale, our grocery store sells it at 1/3 original price. They always have bagels, whole grain bread, cheese sticks (which my kids love), sometimes garlic bread which I freeze and stockpile if they have it.
5. Always stock up on pantry items when they come on sale (items that don’t go bad like toilet paper, canned goods, cereals) and ONLY BUY ITEMS YOU USE.

Basically I buy almost everything ahead of time and I plan my cooking around what fruits/vegetable is cheapest, allrecipes.com is great for finding recipes according to ingredients.

I don’t care if people think I am cheap, my husband has been out of work for almost a year and this has cut our groceries into about 1/2. The meat/bread/produce has always been fresh as they can’t sell something after it has gone bad, it’s just the last day of sale.

I feel that you should spend time on what you like to do.

I like to shop and save money so I try to find coupons and I don’t want to work extra to pay more taxes.

I like to save my after-tax income.

I think before anyone says that they would never use coupons, figure out how much your marginal time is worth (my tax talk). I mean, after taxes, and transportation costs, dressing fancy for work, how much do you make per hour?

I prefer to spend my spare time saving me future time and not having to work hard but everyone is different!

To those who think these kind of savings aren’t reproducible here’s two forums dedicated to people talking about the awesome deals they obtained. Many individuals post again and again so you know they have a good system down:

http://www.frugalshopper.ca/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=45&sid=1eca686831ca219dcce200704e40ae72

http://forum.smartcanucks.ca/canadian-deals-bragging-discussion

I agree with abcstocks – I would rather try to earn more money by improving my skills rather than by cutting coupons.

So if you’re not into the coupon cutting thing – when you go to the store, just buy the generic store brand instead of the well known brands – at least you don’t have to think too much and you know you’re still saving some kind of money because it’s generally always cheaper.

smartcanucks.ca (forums especially)
frugalshopper.ca
pricenetwork.ca

There is a coupon and freebies section on redflagdeals that is quite active.

I personally haven’t spent a lot of time investing in coupons other than ones I know I can get reliably and easily that are worth a lot of money. I just don’t have the time. However, I introduced my aunt to some of these sites and very shortly after she got into it she has seen great returns. She was able to give 4 people in my family MASSIVE gift baskets with about 30 items each in them all of which she obtained for free. It had everything including food, candy, candles, air fresheners, cleaners, hygiene products, etc. Most of this was done by using either Free Product Coupons or combining relatively high valued coupons with good sale prices to get the item for free or almost free. This doesn’t include all the items she has gotten for herself … plus she said she had an entire big box of stuff still left in her basement that she hasn’t given out.

True, this isn’t for everyone and true you aren’t going to find many coupons for the store brand. However, I think people are exaggerating the savings they get on the store brand. Most of the time the sale price of brand name items are the same or even significantly less than store brand prices. Add a coupon to that, and you are definitely saving money over the store brand.

If you have the time and can figure out a good efficient system for doing this … there is a lot of money savings in it.

One final comment. Who in their right mind goes to 8 grocery stores when out shopping?? Come on, be serious. I’m sure some people do it … but it definitely isn’t required to do this. Really saving money using coupons and sales may involve going to 2 or 3 stores with the best sales or price matching other stores to get all the best prices at one store. More importantly it involves stocking up so you never pay full price for anything. Like Steve mentioned, this actually cuts down on trips to the store and running out to get things which actually saves you time and gas. It takes a little while before you start saving time and gas but eventually you get there.

The after-tax money saving is where saving money comes important.

This is my wife’s saying, “It is not how much you make, it is what you do with it”.

It is really true.