Pricier than Ever!

The renowned advertisement may go like this -
Block of Cheddar cheese: $2.08
One gallon of milk: $3.40
Enjoy a homemade Pizza with milkshake: Pricier than ever!

If your family monthly budget is getting tighter than before, you are not alone. According to recent study (read it) , the price of dairy products, beef, and numerous grocery items reach record high this year. The rise of fuel price certainly started the chain reaction. But drought, cost of operations, and higher demand are also factors that boost this price rise. So what can we do? Rush to get bigger freezer? Maybe not a wise decision if you aim at saving money. Before you sell your car and buy that new freezer, consider other options.

This is what Grocery Surfers would do.

• Weed out: Instead of limiting the budget or changing the diet, start with decluttering the shopping list. Check your pantry room in GrocerySurf program for the right amount of food your family needs and the adequate frequency of your purchase.
• Target: List the items with brand names you cannot live without as a target to collect coupons or watch for sales. You can print GrocerySurf pantry list as a reference. (To know more...)
• Balance: Use the automatic reminder to make shopping list so the pantry stock is always enough but never too much.

GrocerySurf is a free online program that organizes the grocery shopping and pantry stock. Rather than having an extreme makeover in your lifestyle, it enables you to reach the goal of savings with less effort and down payment. The ultimate goal of using this program is not only to save money and time but also to do it with no compromise in lifestyle.

Grocery saving tip # 2: Use your grocery receipt

Except checking for the accuracy and amount of savings, you can also use receipt to keep track of fresh produce.

At checkout, separate the grocery items into groups - ex. meat, non-perishable goods, dairy, and vegetable/fruit. It can be in any order of your choice as long as it is in groups. Use the markers to keep track of fresh produce as follows:
Red dot - use within 3 days
Yellow dot - 3 to 7 days
Green dot - after 7 days


You can use a magnet and display the receipt on the refrigerator. Cross out the item after each use. This way, there is no surprising discovery of rotted treasure in the kitchen.

For more GrocerySurf saving tips, click here. You can also join GrocerySurf to save time and money with our online grocery organizer and receive the coupon alert for realtime grocery savings.

Grocery saving tips that work

Have you ever heard of people claiming that they spend less than 50 dollars or so weekly and feed the family of four well. Did you ever wonder how they could do it?

The truth is, there are numerous factors that lead to the differences in people's grocery expenses; for example, the physical location, the budget, family profile, and purchase habits. Therefore, comparing the real dollar amount of saving is not realistic and useful.

Here are some grocery saving tips that work for everyone regardless of the difference in lifestyle or budget.

• Collect sets of recipes and use them on regular basis. People waste a lot of money buying grocery items that are used only once or twice.
• Use coupons for items that you would purchase without a coupon. A coupon is not a reason to buy an item.
• Shop in the same grocery stores and get to know the people who work in the fresh produce / meat sections. They give great tips on storing food and the deal of the day as well as when to come in for the best selection during the week. Buying with quality in mind is also an underlying fact to save money.
• Making grocery shopping list is a great way to achieve the ultimate goal of living - healthy lifestyle and the balanced money/time management.
  

You can find more grocery saving tips by clicking on the tag "grocery saving tip". Upcoming grocery saving tips include "Freezer - the magic number 2.30 ", "Grocery Surfer's coupon guide." Subscribe "All about GrocerySurf" now, and you will receive all the grocery saving tips with RSS feeds automatically.

Grocery saving tip # 1: Less is more

Are you playing the coupon game? How much time do you put into it and how much money do you save? Some people immediately shout that "Hey! I save 500 bucks this month. That is 50% savings." But wait! Do you have that 500 dollars in the bank account? Oh~ it is in your pantry and freezer. I see. If everything goes well as planned, eventually you will receive that 500 dollars in a year or two.

Using coupon is a well-known technique to save money. Manufacturers surely know about it. They use coupon to promote new products, and compete with others. But that does not mean you have to play their coupon games. Coupon is not a reason to buy things. Every coupon is another chance to overspending.

If you use GrocerySurf shopping list and unload the items into pantry room for few times, you would have a list of brand name items that are "the regular" in your shopping list. In other words, those items are the ones that you cannot live without. And those should be your target for coupon clipping. Based on the auto-reminder, you would know the "exact" quantity you actually use in a period of time. So you get the quantity plus the target. The only thing you will need is to compare the price between the stores for the best buy by reading the weekly ads.

Less work = Better approach. Our life is fully packed with the duty, the wanted, and the dreamed of. We should always be cautious to try any method that promises the return in the future. The uncertainty may not be a benefit for life but another add-on liability.

Why and How - use recipes wise to save money and time

I love cooking, and I believe the recipe is the most magical form of literature.

It used to be written down on a piece of paper, or given down through word of mouth. Nowadays, We get recipes from all kinds of sources: family, friends, magazines, websites, and even from a box of cereals. Some of them are lifetime treasures, and some of them are simply great. However, Some of them come with beautiful staged photos, and some of them come with the ingredients long enough to make a necktie.

As you already know, free recipe usually comes with a price unless it is from your own circle of trust! I ended up with a pantry full of ingredients that are rarely used and too painful to throw away. Time for a change, isn't it?

First of all, based on how much time I have, I get new recipe only once or twice a month from the Internet. To get the most use of the recipes, I use the "ingredient search" to narrow down the recipes that use the basic pantry items in my kitchen. If the recipe comes with one or two ingredients that are not the "regular" in my pantry, I either substitute or skip it - for example, instead of the Italian arborio rice, I use the jasmine rice from the nearby grocery store. And of course sometimes I have to add one or two new items into my shopping list in order to get it right.

After awhile, I have a handful of recipes that are "tested" in my kitchen and "reviewed" by my family. I, then, make a very general meal plan that uses this set of recipes as a combination; for example, the grilled chicken breast tied with French baguette, the bacon and egg breakfast come with the English muffin. I follow my flying mood everyday to cook whatever I want.

It should work as I wanted. But it didn't.

I would get the pork rib for grill but forgot about the marinate sauce. I would pick the beef chuck on sale but forgot to get the celery root to cook with. And writing down the ingredients again and again for every shopping trip is getting me crazy. The method needs to be refined.


The recipe input is a key solution for this. It basically uses the recipes in the account and makes the household grocery shopping list combined with all the ingredients from recipes of my choice. I could add the ingredients from the recipe directly to my weekly shopping list. And the items are organized by aisles and stores all together in one list.

Sounds good? Not good enough. How about the surprising sale item found in the grocery shopping trip? How can I make sure that I get everything needed to cook with? Well~ we added the recipe search in the mobile phone. When I see the sale in the grocery store, I search recipe box to add items into current shopping list.

Thinking of the fuel saving and the nice meal on the table, it is the best reward for being a Grocery Surfer!