SAVE MONEY ON GROCERIES

Anybody who shops for groceries these days can see that the prices have gone up at an alarming rate on just about everything. The price of food increased nearly 5 percent in 2007, its largest increase in almost 20 years, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Consumer Price Index To help offset that rise, here are some money-saving tips:

• Make your comparisons based on price per ounce or per unit. At some stores you may need to consult your calculator, but others post unit prices on the shelf.

• Use coupons to the max. In addition to coupons from your local newspaper, make the most of grocers' Web sites, manufacturers' Web sites and sites such as www.couponmom.com, www.thegrocerygame.com and www.mygrocerydeals.com. Get friends to share coupons and increase the coupon usage with already on-sale items.

• Ask the butcher when the store routinely slashes prices, and stock up on the marked-down meat. Store it in the freezer.

• Stock up when the price is right on items you use a lot, such as paper towels and canned goods.

• Look for marked-down seasonal items such as holiday candy, or torn bags of dog food or charcoal. There is usually a bin of damaged or marked-down items.

• Use store brands. But still compare prices because sometimes the national brands will offer special promotions and coupons.

• Know what programs the store offers, such as senior discounts, double coupons or free coffee.

• Watch for scanner errors. If it rings up incorrectly at some stores, you get the item free. But you have to watch the register item by item and know what the items cost.

• Buy-one, get-one-free can be a good deal and many stores do not require you to actually buy two. Instead, it rings up half price at the register. But be sure that prices haven't been raised to offset the sale.

• Compare the salad bar per-pound price for items such as mushrooms and strawberries to prices elsewhere in the store. The salad bar can be useful if you're making something, such as a pizza, that requires only small amounts of ingredients.

• Check the package sizes. Big is not always better or cheaper.

• Make sure the produce you buy is fresh and that you are not buying so much that some of it may go bad before you eat it. The same goes for buying milk or other refrigerated items — choose the one with the latest expiration date.

• Weigh all produce. Bags of potatoes and already packaged mushrooms can differ in terms of weight even though they have the same price. Get the one with the most in it.

• Ask for a sample in the deli. You sometimes can get a large enough sample to make a small sandwich.

• Keep an organized pantry so you know what you already have.

• Look for recipes that use inexpensive ingredients.

• Use a list. Even if you depart from it, it helps to curb impulse buys. Unplanned purchases make up a third of the food items bought by 50 percent of all shoppers surveyed, according to "Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half, Supermarket Survival," (Acropolis Books, $9.85).

• Be flexible and buy what's on sale. If they have buy-one, get-one-free chicken breasts, it's a good week to have chicken.

• Keep use of convenience foods and junk foods to an absolute minimum.

• Don't shop on an empty stomach.

• Try to shop alone. When I shopped with my children, they added dollars to the total bill, with one item here and one item there.

• Shop as infrequently as possible and make your shopping trip as quick as possible. The longer you stay in the store, the more you spend.
Make your own

• Grate your own cheese instead of buying the grated packages.

• Don't buy chocolate milk. Add chocolate to your milk.

• Buy extra macaroni to add to macaroni and cheese. Most packages have too much cheese anyway, and you can get two or maybe three meals from one box with some extra macaroni.

• Make your own salad dressing. But watch for deals because sometimes a special sale coupled with a coupon will make the prepared dressings cheaper than you could make it.

• Use broth made from bouillon cubes instead of canned chicken broth.

• Buy frozen concentrated juices and add water instead of buying them already made.