It all began when I visited our local grocery store here in Pittsburgh, PA with my four year old daughter (whom I fondly refer to as my four year old monster – but that’s a topic for another day). All I intended to buy was a loaf of Italian bread and some fruit. The list extended partly because my wife kept calling me to tell me about stuff that she’d remembered and partly because I remembered some other things as well.

So what did I end up buying, you ask? Here’s what I emerged with when I stepped out:

1 Italian bread sliced
5 bananas
1 Gallon of Milk (Whole)
1/2 Gallon of Milk (2%)
1/2 Gallon of Apple Cider
1 pound of salad from the Salad Bar
1 package of “Herbs for Fish”
1 bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 package of carrots
1 pack of frozen peas
1 pack of Popcorn Chicken
1 pack of Portobello mushrooms (sliced)
1 pound of chicken

Additionally, I also had a personal pizza and a bottle of diet soda at their little kitchen outlet.

Needless to say, I exceeded my planned budget by about 250%. Of the entire list, what items did I really need? That’s easy, just the bread, bananas, peas and the milk.

Have you ever had buyer’s remorse when you returned from the supermarket or the grocery store? I have, on several occasions and I’m working out a strategy to deal with this sort of situation. I’ve got a lot of tips from various blogs on the Net as well. Here are the basic points to follow:

1. Keep a pad or a whiteboard on your freezer where you write down things you need/run out of – as you remember them. For example, when our toothpaste is about to run out, I write down “toothpaste” on it.
2. Set up a shopping schedule – so you don’t shop for groceries when you have “free time” – you shop when you hit your schedule time. For example, we try and shop every week and half (and never on weekends).
3. Shop on weekdays if possible. Shopping on weekdays equals lesser time to shop equals lesser money spent. It also means lesser crowds.
4. Ensure that you shop at the right place for the right items. For example, the local Wal-mart is great for branded, packaged goods such as Yogurt, Toothpaste and lightbulbs while the local grocery is best for veggies and greens.
5. Before you hit the store, grab a cup of coffee from home. That will avoid you hitting the in-store coffee shop. As you hit the store, remember that you are visiting to buy what you need – not what you “want to buy”. You are already armed with your shopping list and you stick to it.
6. As you go through the store, avoid talking to employees or tasting the free samples. Both of these equal more temptation to buy stuff you don’t need.
7. Take a basket, rather than a cart. The constantly increasing weight on your arm will warn you that you are splurging and stop you sooner.
8. At the checkout line, avoid the “easy to grab” stuff near the register – it’s designed to get you to buy stuff that maximizes store profits. If you want gum or soda pop, it should have been on your shopping list anyway.
9. When you pay, use a reward points or cash back card to maximize returns.
10. At the register, always remember to use your store-rewards card if they have one. For example, at our local grocery store, you get 1 cent off on gas each time you spend $5. Use these rewards to your advantage.

Do you have any other tips you would like to share? let me know.

It sounds quite surprising but it’s true – you can really save up to $200 a month by just fine tuning your breakfast meal – notice I said “fine-tuning”, not “skipping”.

If your morning routine is like mine, then you are having two cups of coffee every morning and a bite to eat. For me, the two coffees are at 7:30 am and 10:00 am every weekday when I go to the office. Right next to my office building is the local Starbucks and I should warn you that if they awarded bonus points for frequent customers, I’d be close to 500,000 points by now. The cost of all this extravagance is a cool $7.00 per day – because I really like their cappuccinos and mochas (and partly because I was lazy).

In addition to the coffee, I also like to eat a quick bagel with cream cheese or sometimes a Bagel with egg and cheese – usually the latter – at the local Bagel shoppe. The cost of this is between $2.25 to $3.20 per day. Therefore, my monthly breakfast cost was between $185 to $204 – or about $195 on average. In other words, every morning, I’ve been blowing about $10.00 per day or a cool $200 per month at minimum.

A few months ago, I decided to tighten up a bit (well, a lot actually) and this was one area I looked carefully a optimizing. So here’s what I do now:

1. When I leave the house in the morning at 6:45 am, my wife makes me a coffee and I carry it with me in a sealed coffee cup so that I can keep sipping it on the way to work. Cost of the coffee was $3, but it will last us for at least a month, so with milk and sugar, the daily cost would be about 25 cents at most.
2. Ditto for the breakfast – Bagels and cream cheese come much cheaper when you buy them in bulk and freeze them instead of buying them from the Bagel shop on a daily basis. Cost of a bagel with cream cheese would then be $1.00 while an egg and cheese bagel sandwich would be about $1.30 (estimated).
3. My second coffee of the day, which used to be a White Mocha, has now been changed to a small cup of Arabica from the office cafeteria. Cost of the cup is 94 cents in all.

Thus, with the above measures, my daily breakfast cost is between $2.19 to $2.49 which is a total of about $50 per month. Therefore, my monthly savings are $195 – $50 = $145. If you consider that most months have more than 20 working days or that I regularly use coupons to buy the bagels and cream cheese, then the savings would actually climb to more than $150 per month.

In addition to the above financial benefits, I’ve derived the following other benefits:

1. I’m using lesser cream cheese and cut my white mocha out – so my fat and cholesterol intake has reduced.
2. My homemade coffee is lighter and whiter so I’m basically cutting down on my caffeine intake too
3. I shut down my Starbucks credit card, thus reducing the temptation to drink even more coffee and spend even more money
4. I’m saving the time it takes me to walk down to the store and back, thus letting me work a little bit more and get more done at work.

Though I’ve made a great start, I haven’t really got all the way there yet. There are still some more things I could do to save even more:

1. Carry a little thermos so I can take more coffee from home and cut out that second cup from the office cafeteria (and save more too)
2. Kick the caffeine addiction altogether – good for my body and great for my wallet
3. Replace the Bagel addition with something healthier like cereal – more nutritious too.

Have you seriously considered tuning a meal to save money and eat healthier? Let me have your ideas.