Take Control of Your Grocery Spending: On-line!

Taking control of your grocery spending, your diet and maybe even your waste line: Sign-up for on-line grocery shopping and delivery!

I visited Safeway.com and signed up for grocery delivery. Considering how frugal I am, it may seem a little strange that I am willing to pay an extra $7.95 to get groceries delivered. But, ask yourself how many times you have gone to the store to "pick up a few things" and ended up spending twice as much (or more) than you intended? Even worse, how much of that extra cost was unhealthy junk food bought on the spur of the moment?

Another common problem is that I forget to take my carefully prepared shopping list and try to remember what was on it while I am shopping. I end up buying stuff I do not need and forget the stuff I really need. Then, I have to go to the store again!

The solution??? Order exactly what you need without the temptation of seeing all the extra stuff at all. When I order online I can get eggs without walking through the chips & cookies aisle! I can get milk without seeing the baking aisle!

To best take advantage of this great service, sit down and make a list of meals you would like to eat for the next week or so. Then make a list of what you need to buy to make the meals. You can check the pantry and the freezer while you are actually on-line shopping....no more redundant purchases. In every category you will have the option to sort the foods by "A to Z" or by "Price-Lowest first" that alone is a great money saving tool. You can see the price of each product by weight. One cheese may be $10.99 per pound and a similar store brand of cheese may be $5.99 per pound. Once you have made your whole order, you will see that total and be able to add or delete items to make the order fit your exact budget, period! No more nasty surprises at the check stand.

You can use on-line shopping to get control of your food intake too. By actually searching for the items you want to buy, you will become more aware of exactly what you are buying. You can choose lower fat, or lower calorie foods with ease and plan for portioning. For example, we all know we need to eat 3-4 servings of veggies and fruits per day. Basically that means 1 pound of fruits and veggies per person per day. If you are shopping for a week of meals, then you can check the shopping order and make sure there is at least 7 pounds of produce ordered. If you are a single person, you can portion meat more easily by making sure the total weight of the meats on your weekly order is no more than 8 ounces per day--3.5 pounds per week.

I am pretty happy with my on-line shopping so far but there are a few things that I would like to see added:

Currently Safeway.com is not accepting EBT cards(Public Assistance Food Cards), so as usual, the people who might benefit from the service can't use it. EBT card holders are typically using the card to buy much more expensive and much less healthy products from the closest convienence store instead of being able to get good food delivered.

Safeway.com is not accepting manufacturers coupons either so, if you are a clipper then, on-line shopping might not be for you. Personally, I rarely use coupons and if I do, then I take them to the store and buy ONLY those items.

Once the service gets tweeked, I think on-line shopping may become THE way to shop.