9 Tips for Spending Less on Groceries

1) Prepare your own food. Like me, you may have time constraints throughout the week, but if you find a few quick dishes that you know how to make blindfolded, you can save precious dollars instead of buying prepared foods. For example, I try to keep the non-perishable ingredients for chili, tofu scramble, lentil soup, pasta, burritos, and waffles in my kitchen; then all I have to do is buy the fresh stuff.

2) Plan your meals weekly. It may take a while to get it down, but keep track of how much you eat and you'll soon be able to know how many portions you can get out of a batch of, say, sweet potato peanut butter stir fry. Once you know, you can plan your breakfasts, lunches, and dinners at the begining of the week in a varied rotation so you don't get tired of eating the same thing again and again.

3) Eat brown rice with everything. It's cheap, healthy, and filling. 'Nuff said.

4) Eat left-overs. Some people I know swear they don't like left-overs. This is stupid. Eat your left-overs. It's the same food you ate the night before and some things like soup even taste better when the flavors have had time to marry.

5) Use your freezer. After making a big batch of chili or dahl, I set aside lunch-sized portions in plastic containers. Then, all I have to do is take it out of the freezer the night before, or even the day of, and bring it to work like a home-made microwave meal.

6) Shop around. Make a list of the items you buy frequently and compare the prices at different stores. In this shifting economy, you may have be like Santa Claus and check your list twice to see if prices change over time. People might look at you strangely as you're scribbling stuff down, but just pretend you are an investigative reporter.

7) Bulk up. A recent study discovered that bulk foods are 35% cheaper than packaged foods on average. And it's not always just grains and legumes; some stores have unique bulk products like cereal, chili mix, and maple syrup.

8) Treat treats as treats. I like sweets just as much as the next person, but I find that if I don't eat them constantly, I don't crave them. I buy them occasionally, but for the most part, I keep the ingredients to make carob chip cookies on-hand so if I really get a craving, I have to put in the effort to make my own. Or, if the devil really has a hold on me, I eat a spoonful of peanut butter with maple syrup drizzled on top.

9) Bring a reusable bag. Not only is this good for the environment, but (at most stores) it will save you five cents per bag. At Trader Joe's, I always enter the raffle for using my own bag, but so far have never won (sniff, sniff).