Shop the Store, Not the List

The price of groceries are unreal!  Here and there I have been trying to save money by watching what I buy and for the most part cooking from scratch.  One of the things that I started doing recently was shopping the store instead of going by a list. What does that mean?  It means that when I go into the store I may have a short list of essentials that I absolutely need, but for the most part I shop the store looking for those items on sale.  If they aren't on sale then I don't buy them. I wait. 

Here is an example of how this works.  We love grilled orange chicken and eat a lot of it in the summer.  Basically, I marinate chicken breasts in a mixture of bbq sauce, Italian dressing and orange marmalade.  A few weeks ago when I went to the store I decided to just shop the store.  I found bbq sauce and Italian dressing on sale and bought several bottles.  It won't go bad before we get to it this summer.  The orange marmalade wasn't on sale so I skipped buying it.  I will keep an eye out and eventually it will go on sale, and I can pick up several jars of it. By buying this way, I pay less.  One word of caution: If you try shopping this way, only buy the stuff that you know you will use!  You only waste money on something if you buy it and never end up using it.

The more you shop the store and stockpile those items that you use regularly the easier it gets.  Your essential list also becomes smaller since you have more items on hand that you don't need to buy.

So I am off to the store....to see if marmalade is on sale!