Smart Supermarket Shopping

Have you ever been to the supermarket and come out having spent at least a third more than you intended to before you went in? I know I certainly have, and so this blog is about smart supermarket shopping – i.e. how you can avoid that happening in the first place. I’m going to give you three simple tips that you can adopt straight away.

1. Check those cupboards

That’s right, the first tip starts even before you leave the house. The reason is most of us go shopping and quite often we have no idea of what we’ve got in those cupboards (or freezer for that matter). There are two things wrong with that. First, you’ll end up buying things that you don’t actually need, which means spending money unnecessarily and, second, because you’re not using up those things, it’s highly likely that they’ll linger until they go out of date.

By spending five minutes whizzing through the cupboards, freezer and fridge, you’ll have a better idea of what you’ve got and can work out a plan for when you’re going to eat them. That way, you’ll spend less when you reach the shop.

2. Write a shopping list

That might sound geeky and boring but when you have a list, you’ll literally just buy what you need. You’ll also find yourself not forgetting things and it will mean that you’ll be less tempted to pick up other things and therefore save a stack of cash.

3. Be wary of offers

As we all know, the supermarkets are experts at persuading us to buy things. I have a bit of an insight into this because I used to work for a very large company that sold products to supermarkets every single week and I specialised in working with them to generate promotions that are most attractive to you and me and most profitable for them. A big part of this success is that most of these promotions are either designed to pull at our heart strings or designed to make us pick things up and put them in our trolley almost without thinking. So next time you’re shopping, take my advice and don’t buy anything on offer unless it’s either on your shopping list, or you have a plan to use it within the next 30 days. If you don’t, chances are that item is going to sit in the back of the cupboard and will probably end up being thrown away.

So there are, those are three tips that you can put into place right now which are going to make a big difference so why not try them today?

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