If your family is on a budget, it can be quite difficult to manage your grocery expenses. This is especially true in Mauritius, where the cost of living is among the most expensive in Africa. It might always seem like there’s nothing you can forgo because there are a lot of things that your family needs. As a result, it can be challenging to save money. However, you only need to dig deeper into your spending, and you’ll be able to identify the areas in which you can further cut back on expenses.
In this short guide, we’ll fill you in on some the ways you can curb unnecessary spending while still being able to buy the grocery items that you actually need.
Consider shopping online
Online grocery stores are surprisingly helpful for families on a tight budget. Aside from being a convenient way to shop, purchasing items off an online grocery store will help you save on transportation costs. What’s more, online groceries like TheShop.mu—the best online supermarket in Mauritius—frequently offers great discounts on the most commonly bought grocery items. Because the store’s inventory is laid out right on your computer screen, it’s also much easier to see the prices of each product and which of these you can get for a good price.
Make a grocery shopping list
Many homemakers are guilty of buying their groceries without first coming up with a shopping list. While some may deem having such a list to be unnecessary, a shopping list is actually helpful when you want to prevent impulse buying or if you want to focus only on items that you actually need. It’s good practice to take note of the items in your home that need restocking the moment you notice that your supply is running low. When it comes to food, you might also want to consider coming up with meal plans in advance. This way, you can avoid buying unnecessary ingredients, which may only lead to food spoilage.
Shop only a few times each month
If you have a big family, chances are, you are grocery shopping twice or even thrice a week. To reduce your transportation expenses, try buying grocery items in bulk or purchasing more items all in one go. While this is harder to do for highly perishable food products, you can certainly do this when buying cured or packaged food items, as well as non-food supermarket products.
Don’t shop when you’re hungry
It’s a good idea to only go grocery shopping on a full stomach. Peopled tend to do a lot of mindless things when they’re hungry, and this includes being attracted to tasty-looking snacks in the grocery store. Before long, you may find your spending exceeding your allotted budget, simply because you you ended up buying all of those snacks! To prevent this from happening, make sure to eat a satisfying meal while you’re still at home.
Choose cheaper brands
If your family is on a budget, it’s probably a good idea to ditch the expensive brands and choose products that are more affordable but don’t compromise on quality. This is so much easier to do when you shop for groceries online because ecommerce websites or apps typically have that feature that allows you to sort the products in an ascending order based on their prices.
Take advantage of promotions and clearance sales
It’s also a good idea to shop for your essentials when your favourite grocery store is holding a sale. This way, you can stock up on non-perishables that you can keep in storage for a long time. Make sure to follow the store’s social media accounts, or regularly check their website so that you don’t miss out on such events. And even if they are not currently holding a store-wide sale, they may still be offering certain items at discounted prices. Make sure to check their website for such promotions.
Grocery shopping is an important task that you shouldn’t take too lightly. If you just splurge and buy whatever your family wants, your budget will always fall short. To ease the pressure on grocery spending, it will be helpful if you discuss the matter with your spouse and children. This way, they, too can be more considerate and mindful of the things they buy when you go grocery shopping.