When you are trying to cut items from your budget, the grocery store may not seem like a place that you can save a lot of money, but it is.  Below are a few tips on how you can save more at the store, and help build your nest egg.

Always shop with a list.  This helps to prevent impulse buys, and helps you remember what you need and not what you want.

Shop the entire shelf.  Many times grocery stores merchandise their shelves so that the more expensive brands are at eye level, and the less expensive brands and sale items are on the bottom shelves.  They do this because many people only shop at their eye level, so look high and low for those bargains.

Shop with coupons.  Although many may think you couldn’t possibly save that much, you can.  Especially when you combine coupons with sales.

Register for your stores loyalty cards.  You can often get better discounts and even special coupons when you register for a store card.

Comparison shop.  Read the weekly flyers from each grocery store, and see where the better sales are.  You may even want to start a price book.  A price book is a small notebook where you record the price of the item and the store.  This makes it easier to comparison shop, and to take the sale cycle.

Once you leave the store with all of your “saved” money, take the amount that you saved and place it into a special account.  That way you can keep track of how much you have saved.

photo source: dantini