Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Bulk Up!
I posted an Amazon Listmania list this past weekend that included budget gluten free items. I found pancake mix for $2.55 per box, bags of oatmeal under $4.50, and cornbread mix for $2.27 per bag! I was so impressed with the prices there. I know the overall price of a bulk purchase is more than what is normally budgeted for a particular item, but doing one purchase every two weeks or every month is still a great way to save a few dollars on your grocery budget.
There are so many ways to save money on the monthly grocery budget, but so few options are regularly taken advantage of. Not everyone clips coupons and not everyone has access to larger grocers or specialty stores. For these people, and many others, finding discounts online is becoming a more popular and mainstream option. Colleges are encouraging students to order foods online now in bulk to help save money on their meal plans, and households are turning to online bargains to shave dollars off the monthly food budget.
Dig around and you'll be surprised at what you can find. Be ware, however, of those home delivery services. Several of our friends were thinking how neat it would be to have fresh produce and groceries delivered to your door, but after the company tacks on fees for fuel and delivery it makes the services too expensive to remotely consider.
A step down from the grocery delivery is the food share program or CSA programs available in most parts of the country. Check out www.localharvest.org for CSAs near your location as well as a myriad of other farm goods that are deliverable to your door. CSAs consist of a specified amount of vegetables each week or every other week for a certain amount of time. Pick ups are the general rule and little supplementation is needed to get you through a week filled with produce. These can be a bit more expensive than just buying produce, especially if you do not use all of the produce each week.
Buying larger amounts of an item is generally a sure-fire way to get a discount. Whole Foods regularly offers a 10% discount for buying a case of an item. It may seem silly to buy an entire case of canned Indian food, but when you eat it at least once a week and can save .47c per can – that's a $5.64 savings on your groceries just by purchasing one item in bulk.
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