We learn most of life's lessons from our parents. How to dress, how to be safe, and how to shop are just a few things we learned by the age of 5. It's not a class Karen Millen outlet offered in schools, and there are just as many bad habits and good habits when it comes to shopping.
My mother often shopped out of necessity. When we were out of milk and bread, we went to the store. There was not a planned time to shop, let alone a special day. We never meal planned, or followed the weekly sales circulars. It's no wonder we spent more money than other families on the basic grocery needs. We were good at looking at shelf prices. My mom taught me to always look at each brand on the shelf and compare it to the other brands. If there was a less expensive alternative it made it safely into the cart.
As I've taken a look at other lessons my friends and co workers have implemented into their grocery shopping I have adapted my shopping plan to include other ways to shop. For example, one of my friends only buys generic brands foods. When I asked her about this, she told me that her mother had always insisted that generics were the least expensive in the store, therefore the best bargain. She also only purchased items when the store ran a sale. Could this be right? Was I misled my entire life by reading shelf labels when I could just go for the less decorated box? I decided to Karen Millen Sale find out for myself.
Another friend said her mom always taught, "Fresh is best, spend the largest portion of your budget in the produce and meat department." Another interesting lesson learned! Maybe my budget should be split into categories and percentages allocated to just sections of the store. It's often been said that Healthier foods are fresh, but what about all of the frozen seafood packs, or frozen fruits?
Finally, I asked one more friend about how she learned to shop. Her mother had schooled her as well, with the teachings of coupons. She ONLY purchased name brands, but saved money by using manufacturer coupons. Now I was truly confused. There were as many methods as there were choices in the store. What should I be teaching my three kids about grocery shopping?
Here is what I've come Karen Millen UK up with as my plan of attack! I have started with long term meal planning. My family enjoys Mexican foods, Pizza night on Thursdays, and comfort foods two nights per week. By looking at my family's habits, and the meals my kids like best I was able to look at a long term pattern of meal preparation. I know that I will fix Mexican once per week for a 13 week period. From this, I learned that I need no more, and no less than 13 sets of taco seasoning, chips, and tortillas. Now that I had a meal planned, tackling the store seemed easier.
I followed this basic outline for each week. My 13 week shopping list was huge! So I adopted friends advice and lesson. I started collecting coupons for the items on my long, long list. I also used friend #2's lesson and started reading the sales circulars. It seemed to reason that if I were able to find items on my list that were on sale, and had a coupon, I would save double, and get items that I really wanted.
There was one major problem. I didn't have $1000 to buy all 13 weeks of food at once. What was worse, I ran out of milk and bread! I was back to my mother's form of shopping. That's when a 4 week plan developed. I began stocking the basic pantry of 13 weeks of meals for my family, with one week of groceries at a time. I was able to keep milk and bread in the house, and stock the meals that would save my family money, while satisfying their tastes at the same time.
This brings me to teaching my kids. I have started taking my children, 11, 6 and Karen Millen dresses 4 to the grocery store to shop with me. I take one child at a time. I show them our meal planning list, and the pantry before we leave. I then explain the store and coupon match ups as we make out our shopping list. Finally, we pick up some generics, which are on sale and keep us under budget. Hopefully, my children will get the benefit of learning from several motherly shopping advisors, and will find ways to make grocery shopping pleasurable.