How to buy groceries in advance: 6 tips to save money and time
Miscellaneous / / April 26, 2022
1. Remember balance
Purchase for the future should not adversely affect the diet. Therefore, you do not need to switch to a pasta diet - make sure that the food is diverseA healthy, balanced diet / British Nutrition Foundation.
The menu should include:
- Protein Sources. They can be vegetable (any legume) or animal (fish, meat, dairy products).
- cereals. Ideally, whole grains like brown rice, buckwheat, spelt, and quinoa.
- Vegetables and fruits. WHO advisesHealthy Eating / World Health Organization eat at least 400 grams of fruits and vegetables (except potatoes) daily.
- unsaturated fats. Including vegetable oil, nuts and seeds.
The good news is that most of the items on this list can be stocked up weeks in advance. Even among vegetables and fruits, there are those that will easily last a month, such as carrots, cabbage, beets and apples. But you can't buy everything in advance. Cottage cheese, tomatoes or greens will not last long - for such products it is worth making a separate shopping list and restocking as needed.
2. Use the “more is cheaper” principle
Purchase for a month is the case when you should pay attention to the promotions "1 + 1 = 3" or "2 + 1 = 4". But it’s better to buy non-perishable products this way: with them there is less risk that the food will go bad before the expiration date. Store only what you really eat: for those who cook buckwheat at most once a month, it makes no sense to take four packs at once - even cereals have their own shelf life. Well, if buckwheat is your favorite side dish, but there is no profitable promotion for it, check the packaging options. Perhaps a larger volume in terms of grams will be cheaper.
Keep an eye out for other special offers on online delivery services or where you purchase products. When purchasing for a month, the check will turn out to be impressive, so any, even a small discount, will make the final amount more pleasant. And don't forget to check the shelf life of the products before buying promotional items.
It is profitable to buy products for a month in advance in "SberMarket». In his catalog there are constantly thousands of products with discounts up to 60%. The service features more than 150 retail chains, including Auchan, Magnit, FixPrice, Metro, and Lenta. By the way, there are not only products here - through the application it is convenient to replenish stocks of household chemicals and cosmetics, buy household goods, pet food and much more.
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Exclusive promotions are added to general promotions in SberMarket: to see all products at competitive prices, just select desired sales network and go to the "Special Offers" section. And pay attention to the interactive feed in the header of the service: nice bonuses are also hidden there.
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3. Choose bulk products
When it comes to large-scale purchases, this approach will help save a lot. Packaged products usually cost several times more than those sold by weight, because packaging is included in the price of the goods. But it makes no sense to overpay for it. This rule works, for example, with nuts, fruits, vegetables and freezing.
In addition, in one pack the volume of goods may not be enough - then you will have to overpay for the second package. The reverse situation also happens: it makes no sense to buy a whole bag of frozen vegetable mix if you need to add at most a third of this bag to the soup. If you do not have time to finish the rest, the delay will have to be thrown away, and the money will be wasted. With bulk purchases, everything is easier: you can take exactly as many products as you need.
For example, catalogs of online delivery services indicate the price for a fixed volume of the product, but before adding it to the cart, the weight can be changed both up and down. So, if you plan to use beets only once during the month to cook borscht, you won’t need a whole kilogram of this vegetable. It is enough to order 300 or 500 grams and not worry that the excess will go bad.
4. Prepare a place for each product
Remember the main rule: the kitchen should have enough space for storage. If not, the shopping list for the future should be reduced. It is better to go to the store again than to throw out vegetables or sauces that did not live up to cooking.
These tips will make organizing your inventory easier:
- Sort products by category. Let the cereals lie in one part of the cabinet, canned food in the other, spices in the third. This approach will save you from surprises like last year's can of beans lurking in a dark corner.
- Use storage containers. Firstly, this way you can organize the chaos of packs and boxes, and secondly, all products will be in sight. If oatmeal or flour is running out, you can replenish stocks in time.
- Designate space in the refrigerator for perishables. This part of the supplies will need to be used first.
- Make commonly used products more accessible. Store them closer to the door of the cabinet or refrigerator so that you do not have to climb deep into them each time.
- Review recommendations for storage conditions. For example, it is better to store potatoes not in the refrigerator, but in a utility closet so that there is access to fresh air. And fresh herbs, on the contrary, should be sent to the refrigerator: dill, parsley or cilantro will lose moisture more slowly in the vegetable compartment.
5. Call the freezer for help
You can upload there not only store semi-finished products. Here are some ideas for what else to freeze:
- Ready meals. For example, stews, soups, casseroles, pilaf, muffins, cheesecakes, pizza. Cool them, put them in containers and send them to the "wintering". By the way, this will not only allow you to keep food longer, but also free up time from fuss in the kitchen. To dine, it will be enough to defrost the workpiece.
- side dishes. This is an option in case you didn’t calculate with the volume and cooked too much. At the same time, such blanks will help save time - the food is already ready, all that remains is to warm it up. You can freeze buckwheat, lentils, rice (only if it turned out crumbly), mashed potatoes.
- grated cheese. After opening the package in the refrigerator, it will last several days, and in the freezer it will be suitable for pizza or pasta for a long time.
- Meat. It is better to cut it into pieces in advance: this way it will defrost faster, and it will be more convenient to cook.
- Chopped vegetables. Freezing is well tolerated by Bulgarian pepper, pumpkin, spinach, zucchini, carrots and eggplant. You can also send tomatoes to the freezer if you see that they are starting to deteriorate. Cut them up and put them in bags - it is convenient to add such a blank to stewed vegetables or pizza.
- Fruits and berries. After defrosting, you can eat them just like that, add them to morning porridge, use them as a filling for pies, or make smoothies and compotes.
- Bread. It can keep in the freezer for several months. Just pre-cut the bread into slices - it is convenient to defrost it in a toaster.
It is worth sticking stickers with names and freezing dates on containers and packages: this will make it easier to find the right products, and you will also not forget what you need to eat first. For convenience, you can divide blanks into categories using stickers of different colors: for example, pink for meat, yellow for ready meals, green for vegetables.
6. Think about heavy packages ahead of time
A typical monthly purchase is many, many products. Carrying heavy bags from the store to the house, and then lifting them to the apartment is an amateur entertainment. Think in advance how to make this task easier for yourself. For example, you can go shopping with your family, divide the preparation of supplies into several trips to the store, or not go anywhere at all, but use the online delivery service. In this case, you will not need to carry packages with provisions on your own. And the process of buying products will take noticeably less time - you just need to add everything to the application basket and place an order.
Couriers «SberMarket» they will carry the packages to the door and hand them over to you - all that remains is to put everything on the shelves! You don't have to worry about the quality of the products. During the assembly of the order, the service employees carefully check their condition and expiration date - if it has expired by more than half, such goods are not included in the delivery.
To make the purchase even easier next month, you can save in SberMarket favorite food lists. Mark your favorite products with a heart: a separate list of favorites will be created for each store. Select the desired list before the next order, and the products themselves will be transferred to the basket.
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