Shopping Tips on Saving Money at the Till

Saving Money – We are all penny savers

My guess is that we all have our own ideas and methods for saving money when we go grocery shopping. I will love to hear your ideas on how you go about saving that extra Rand. I, on the other hand, am a total newbie. I am a single dad with two kids. My kids are with me about 99% of the time so keeping them happy, fed, and alive (so far so good) is my number one priority.

Stick to Your Budget

With the rising cost of food and household essentials, this can get difficult. In the last month with the VAT & petrol increase, I had to make adjustments to my budget, and spoiling my kids will be put on the back burner for a while soon. So I went to the shop the other evening and was looking at getting the kids some chips and sweets.

A large packet of chips that was R 13 is now R15, looking at the items I decided to leave it and wait till the items go on sale again. Normally stores have a buy two items then you get R4 off. What works for me is normally I how to buy stuff that I feel is too expensive and mostly luxury items.

Read more about budgeting.

Go Shopping at the End of the Month

I found that shopping at the end of the month is probably the best time to shop as stores offer more sales and this leads to more savings. I know shopping at the end of the month can be a nightmare but it is getting better with stores offering more and longer shopping hours and I find that shopping at a center instead of a mall is easier.

This is my Shopping Tips on Saving Money at the Till

1. When I go to the store I make sure I have my shopping list as I do not want to forget something. Cause when you forget an item you either have to buy it from the corner store or drive back to the shopping centre.
2. At the end of the month, there will always be something on sale. I also make sure that if I buy sale items that they will be items that I will use before the expiry date.
3. I walk the whole store mainly the ails with the food or household items to check what items they have for sale.
4. Make sure you compare brands, quantity and check that the sale item might not be better to buy in a bigger bag. For example last month the store had a sale on 3kg bag brown sugar that they charged R30 for. That same brand cost R72 for the 5kg bag of brown sugar which I will normally buy. So I bought two 3kg bags at R60 for 6kg’s.
5. Look out for the buy three or four items deals. You can save up to R20 if you buy items

Very Important

• Check your slip to make sure you paid for what was on sale.
  I cannot stress this enough and I have found that all stores no matter the retailer make this mistake. They will mark items on sale on the shelves but when you get to the till and pay the cashier the items you thought were on sale have not been registered as a sale item on their system.

Please make sure that you double-check your till slip to make sure that you paid the price that was advertised in-store. I have experienced this at all retailers.

View major retailers websites for daily deals:

Pnp
Checkers
Shoprite
Woolworths
Spar

Calculate Your Budget – Try not to spend over your budget.