Food Trucking: How To Change Up Your Grocery Routine To Save Money

Most consumer understand the value of a dollar, and that thought resonates quite loudly at one particular place of business: the grocery store.

The average individual spends about $4,500 per year at the grocery store, roughly $90 per week. That number is about double for a family of three to four.

When you add in the convenience of restaurant dining and take out during the day, the number jumps up to nearly $10,000 per year for a family of four, not exactly a number you can simply ignore without issue.

While you can start by getting better at skipping the eating out at restaurants, to begin with, and cutting that from your expenses, what about the actual art of grocery shopping as it pertains to saving money?

The easiest way to shop smarter and thus save money on an expense that is a need is to make a list before you shop, have a plan and don't go into a shopping situation unprepared.

Simply going from memory creates a difficult, taxing situation that tends to not only lead to overspending but also buying certain items and products that you already have, only serving to clutter your cabinets, fridge or freezer and end up throwing away food as a result (not to mention money being tossed down the drain as well).

And if you find yourself meandering down an aisle, not sure what to buy or just aimlessly searching, you'll end up spending at 18 percent more on each trip to the grocery store. Your attention is diverted away from that would be list and instead is on the end caps (typically where they put marketing material and signage for products that they want to sell and that a lot of times you don't need).

Finally, experts agree that shopping on a particular day might be better for your overall success at saving money at the grocery store. For starters, most sales start midweek and run through Sunday, with the dead times being Monday and Tuesday. Try your best to coincide your grocery store run with sales that happen on those days. You don't typically find sales on Sunday or Monday as those are the two days people shop the most, whether it is preparing for the weekend or recovering from it.

The grocery store is an absolute necessity, not something you can avoid altogether or get around from one week to the next. What you can do is prepare for the trip by not only picking the right time to go but doing so with a game plan that suits your needs, rather than succumbs to your wants.