I’ve tried the coupon thing. I know it works for MANY people. But, I am not one of them. At this point, we just aren’t finding coupons in our TINY town for HEALTHY, REAL foods. I could save a little on toiletries, but I’m ordering more and more online (as you will read below) and the savings from coupons just isn’t worth my time right now. So, how do we save money on groceries WITHOUT using coupons??

10 Ways to Save on Groceries Without Coupons

1. Know in advance this will take TIME.  I am serving my family by finding healthier foods for them, sticking to the budget, and cooking more. Plan to take more time in this area. If you know in advance it’s going to be more time consuming than serving the fastest, easiest junk foods, it might be easier to accept. 🙂

2. Aldi ~ the closest one to us is nearly an hour away. But, when we happen to already be over that way, we will stop and stock up. Even if you can go once a month, we find the savings there better than Sam’s, but that is just us.

3. Amazon Prime ~ I have written before about buying groceries online. But, or a quick re-cap: get an amazon prime account (which we also use for cable/tv!) and order at least 5 items through their subscribe and save program. This will save you 15% on each item!! (You can try Amazon Prime FREE for 30 days ~ Join Amazon Prime – Watch Over 40,000 Movies )

4. Azure Standard ~ this is a fabulous sort of food co-op for organic, natural and bulk foods! I am a local drop manager so I have become more and more aware of the awesome stuff that Azure is doing. We order online and pick up our food from the delivery company (Covenant Ranch – PRECIOUS family) ONCE a month. If you are local and interested, send me a message! If you aren’t local, check out the list of locations to see if there is one near you!

5. Local co-ops (Global Organics) ~ we happen to have a local delivery of JUST organic produce in our area from Global Organics. But there may be other such co-ops in your area!! Look online, ask friends, ask on facebook. 🙂

6. Cook more. Believe me, this one is not fun for me. But it really, really helps save. I don’t enjoy cooking. I hope I will someday. 🙂 But, for now, I do it to serve my family and because I truly do want us to eat healthier and more affordably.

7. Just stop buying the processed junk. It’s not good for you. If you stop buying it you are SAVING money. 🙂

8. Meal Plan ~ this helps me a LOT. I start getting high blood pressure about 3-4pm each day if I do NOT have a plan for dinner. I absolutely HATE coming up with meals. I’m terrible at it! But if I have a list of meals ready to choose from, with ingredients already purchased, I am good to go. I have found that making a list for the month helps me more than assigning a certain meal to a certain date.

9. Find discount stores in your area ~ you may not have Aldi, but you might have a different store. We have  Flowers bread stores and I go in, buy 8-10 loaves and toss it in the freezer!

10. Go into walmart (or Target) as LITTLE as possible. Truly, this saves my husband quite a bit. ha!

More Frugal Tips

• Lots of Tried & True Recipes (the more you cook, the more you save)
• Make your own cleaners – we mostly use vinegar and castille soap in our home! You can do a LOT with very few ingredients!
• Make your own lotion – SO much cheaper, SO much better for your skin, and takes LESS than 5 minutes! really!
• Grocery shop online  – and how to SAVE money doing so