Save on Grocery Costs

With grocery bills expected to rise 2%-3% this year -- due to an overall spike in commodity costs, from wheat to soybean to corn to oil -- there's never been a more important time to save.

Here's how:

Avoid impulse buys
Did you know that half of all shoppers go the grocery store three or four times a week and that more than half of all supermarket purchases are unplanned? It adds up: shoppers making a "quick trip" to a store usually purchase 54% more than they planned, according to a study published by the Marketing Science Institute.

The easy solution is to cut back on the number of times you go to the grocery store. If you go three times a week and spend $10 on impulse buys each trip, that adds up to $120 extra per month. But if you go only once a week, you'll spend $40 per month on impulse buys. That saves you $80 per month, or $960 per year. Simple as that.