We've all experienced sticker shock at the grocery store lately. The essential foods we normally buy now cost a lot more than they used to.
That's why now more than ever, grocery store hacks can really make a difference.
On a recent episode of "Healthy Living" on the CBN NewsChannel, the founder of "Grocery Budget Boot Camp" shared some of the tips that help her students shave hundreds of dollars off their monthly budget while still eating healthy foods.
Tiffany Terczak, creator of the Grocery Budget Boot Camp, told us, "The vast majority of my students save on average $300 before the course is over."
"If I can make it easy on them, then that's my mission right there," she said.
Terczak's shopping tips come from personal experience.
"My husband and I were six figures into debt when we first got married," she explained. "We were just really struggling with making it all work...the numbers were not adding up."
That's when she decided the best thing to do was to tackle their grocery budget.
"The one spot in our household budget where were could save money was the grocery budget," Terczak said.
She continued, "Rather than spending my time using coupons and buying things that were really only working for processed foods, I just spent a lot of time in the grocery store. I figured out the grocery store's marketing tactics. What did they do to make us, as a consumer, spend more on money."
Terczak "reverse-engineered" those marketing tactics to create a system that would save her big bucks on her grocery runs.
"Thanks to that system we were able to pay off our debt. We built up an emergency fund and then several years later we bought our first home and paid cash," she explained.
"We are proof-positive that saving money on groceries can happen," Terczak added.
Here are some of Terczak's top money-saving hacks:
* Eat the food you have. Terczak says we have a lot more food in our fridges, freezers, and pantries than we think.
* Meal plan. Terczak says don't be intimidated by the idea of planning a week's or a month's worth of food, but rather, "think of what you are going to eat- based on what you already have - and write it down on paper."
* Shop strategically. "You want to be the very best shopper you possibly can be," Terczak shared.
* Finally, shop sales. "Sales are still very important and a lot of people are writing them off because of inflation or other issues that they are not important anymore, but the fact is that they are more important now than ever," Terczak said.
To learn some of the specific tips on how to save on food, watch Healthy Living:
Health Living airs at 8:30 Eastern each Tuesday on the CBN News Channel or the CBN News app. You can also watch it anytime on CBN News YouTube.
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