One of the biggest expenses in a budget comes from groceries, regardless if you live alone or your feeding a large family. Thanks to factors like drought, extreme weather, and manufacturing changes, prices for the most common food items seems to creep up every time you walk through the supermarket’s sliding doors. These fluctuations can cause minor headaches as you adjust the budget accordingly in order to meet you or your family’s appetite.
There is no easy solution to keep your food budget down. However, there are some tools across the Internet that give you a little breathing space when you prepare to allocate funds. Here is a list of the most common money-saving sites for groceries.
Coupons.com
The well-known Coupons.com allows users to select coupons from various manufacturers and send them to their own printers for future use. Many other coupon sites that tout the best savings tend to link to coupons.com. Sign up to this site is free, and you must download an add-on to your Internet browser so you can print the coupons. Signing up to the site also gives you coupons more specific to your region of the country. Those not interested in paper coupons can download digital versions to their supermarket loyalty cards.
Two caveats to Coupons.com. First, coupons can be printed only a few times before their locked. Second, the bar codes used on the paper coupons may not work on the scanners at your local supermarket, meaning frustration for both you and the cashier.
eMeals.com
There are no coupons to print on this site, but eMeals.com may save money for those who have a hard time planning meals. The site allows users to pick plans according to their eating styles and family size and provides recipes, grocery lists, and the local supermarkets offering sales for the needed items. Visitors to eMeals.com can view sample plans to see if the company is right for them before they sign up. A subscription fee is required for those who join eMeals.com, and costs vary depending on the length of the subscription and if they add on items like weekday lunches and breakfasts.
MamboSprouts.com
MamboSprouts.com is for those consumers who make markets like Sprouts, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s their main places to shop. That’s because the site features coupons for healthy, natural, and organic foods that you may not find at Coupons.com or your newspaper circular. Those who sign up can print coupons, receive alerts via and email newsletter, and even have a coupon book sent to them via snail mail.
Facebook and Twitter
Funny thing happened when Facebook and Twitter took off. Companies decided to use them to promote their products and offer special promotions to those who Liked their page or followed their tweets. They may seem invasive to some users of these social media networks, but following manufacturers of products normally purchased at the supermarket can lead to a special promotion or coupon with significant savings.
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