Finding the best way of combining your needs with what’s on offer in shops and supermarkets is not easy. Between all the special offers, treats and sales temptation rules and makes you sometimes forget what you came shopping for. A short guide.

Shopping today represents an ever increasing challenge to both experienced shoppers and novices. That is because the character of shopping has changed over the last twenty odd years. Whilst you were shopping in order to meet your requirements and to obtain what you needed, in other words for fulfilling your needs, the new type of market suggests something else to you. It suggests that you should buy things you do not need, because companies want to sell them to you and make profit. Today, manufacturers and sellers actually care less about what you, the customer needs.

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Once you understand this first passage, the rest just falls into place. It basically means that you have to develop strategies to get your way instead of doing what the retailer or supermarket suggests you should do.

There are many strategies of saving money when shopping in supermarkets, grocery stores, retail chains or corner shops. In times when you have to save money, finding the right strategy for you is key. Here are some tips that help you saving money right away from today:

First and foremost, you should establish what you need by sitting down and writing a shopping list. This is the most important strategy of saving money. How can you save if you don’t know exactly what you are looking for. So, sit down and write it all on a sheet of paper, one item per line, so that you can later tick it off, or make some comments, for instance “wasn’t available”, “was too expensive”, “didn’t look good” etc. And on the bottom of the list you can write “These are the only items I’m going to buy!” in case you forget that this is your list of needs already, and there are no more items you’d really need.

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Secondly, it is helpful to have a look at the desired items from the list in the shop first, before you put them into your trolley. How is the quality? How are the quantities? How cheap or expensive are they? Comparing prices between shops and critically assessing the quality of the items ensures that you don’t only buy cheap, but with a good price to quality ratio, which certainly beats buying cheap only. What you look out for, is the best possible quality for the lowest possible price. In terms of quantity, you have to be careful with combo offers like 2 for the price of 3, etc. Can you really make use of 3 items of the same kind, or will it be wasted, respectively go off? Think this thoroughly through before making your decision.

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And then, of course, there is the price, and what you’d either like to pay or can afford to spend. You can lay it out as the amount of money you can spend per item or per shopping. Just like the public household you do well when following a certain budget that goes in line with what your household has available. That saves you from overspending in the long run, and forces you to look out for the cheaper items if their quality is comparable. Another important factor for saving money when you do the shopping.

With the first two tips, you have to fight what the shop suggests to you, or at least be critical. The third factor is of a general nature: you can only spend what you have. With the third strategy of saving money, you’ll make targeted use of certain special offers in your shopping tour.

Use them, where they make sense. You can buy bulk items if your intention is to store some of these goods, and if they don’t go off within the period of time you expect them to use. All shops have special shelves where items are reduced, like items reduced to clear, close to the sell-by date, or items with lesser demand. Go for them if they make sense. Buy a loaf of bread for 1 Euro or Dollar if you are going to use it soon and it looks and feels good, although the sell-by date is tomorrow. Buy fruits and vegetables that “go off” the next day, if you plan on making a dessert of vegetable soup in the evening.

Photo via Be a heart-smart shopper

Finally you can combine all these strategies into one: Be smart, and don’t just follow your instincts when shopping. It can save you a lot of money.