4 Ways Groceries are Cheaper When Purchased Online

If going to the grocery store is time consuming and expensive, here are four ways that purchasing groceries online is cheaper! Stick with your food budget and live more frugally with these trifty tricks to make your online grocery purchase less expensive.

Have you ever seen advertisements for Walmart or Kroger’s online grocery shopping and thought, “Wow, I wish I could do that, but I just can’t justify the extra expense”?

First of all, good for you!  It’s really important to live frugally, following the steps for financial freedom and not making common mistakes.  Our family likes to try to stick to a $42 weekly grocery budget when funds are tight.

Well, I have a surprise for you…..I actually get our groceries CHEAPER when I use Kroger’s Clicklist than in the store sometimes!

4 Ways to Get Cheaper Online Groceries

Hey y’all, Tiffany here.

You’re probably wondering, “What’s her secret?!”  Well, there are four key reasons why shopping ends up costing me less in the long run.

Avoid Impulse Buys

First, I’m what we like to call an “impulse buyer.”  Especially when it comes to the Manager’s Specials areas of the store.

I probably end up with an extra $20 each week in “good deals” that weren’t planned on.  And I’ll be the first to admit that a lot of times, they are not something that I would otherwise buy.  So while it’s a great deal, it still means more spent out of pocket.

Fewer Trips

Second, I only have to go to the store once because I made our shopping list online – each time I realized I was out of something, I added it to our online cart instead of writing it down on a list.

It is so easy to forget an item on your grocery list, which means another trip back to the store.

And one more opportunity to buy something not really needed, spur-of-the-moment.  Honestly, how many of you say you’re going into Target for “just one thing” and end up with an entire cartload of items?

Digital Coupons

Probably the biggest reason I save more online is because there are many different digital coupons (with Kroger, at least) that offer free or greatly-reduced items only with a Kroger Clicklist order!  Many of them overlap with each other (a new one is released a few days before another expires), so you can get a lot of great items for not much!

And since these are considered store coupons, you can also use manufacturer’s coupons (either printable coupons, insert coupons, or even digital coupons) to help lower the cost!

If you’re not sure how to start couponing, we’ve got some great tips here.

Subscription Discounts

Lastly, one of the ways I get my groceries cheaper online is with Amazon’s Subscribe and Save service.

What is Subscribe and Save?  Basically, you can set up automatic deliveries of items you regularly use (like diapers or toilet paper), and you get an automatic 5% off.  You could set of a subscription for once every 2 or 3 months, but if you have 5+ items scheduled to arrive in a single month, you’ll get 15% off instead!

There are always household items and groceries with clippable coupons on Amazon that only apply if you checkout with Subscribe and Save, and they will stack with the 5-15% discounts!  You can see all of those coupons HERE.

Also, keep in mind that you can cancel Subscribe and Save at any time after the first one ships!  Right now, there are almost 200,000 items that can be subscribed to, so finding five to get the 15% discount should be easy!

This is especially useful if you’re trying to save money while having twins!

Our Example of Cheaper Online Groceries

The most common way I get my groceries cheaper while shopping online is with Kroger’s Clicklist.

Full-price groceries

To illustrate, here is what I purchased the other week at Kroger for $13.34!

• Zone Perfect Nutrition Bars, 5 count ($4.29)
  • Not picture, kids were hungry on the drive home!
• Always Radiant Unscented Pantiliners ($3.99, on sale for $3.69)
• Chobani Coconut Blended Greek Yogurt ($3.99)
• General Mills Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites ($2.99)
• Hellman’s Mayonnaise ($2.99, on sale for $1.99)
• Hormel Black Label Original Bacon ($5.49)
• Kool-Aid Jammers Strawberry Kiwi Drink ($1.79)
• Mott’s Assorted Fruit Flavors, Family Size ($6.59)
• 2 Quaker Chew Chocolate Chip Granola Bars ($3.99, on sale for $3.09 each)
• Sara Lee Artesano Bread ($3.29)
• Secret Chill Ocean Invisible Soild Antiperspirant Deodorant ($3.29)
• Tampax Pocket Pearl Regular Unscented Tampons ($3.99, on sale for $3.59)
• PSST Chicken Nuggets ($4.79)

All together, this would have cost us $50.07, plus the $4.95 Clicklist fee (so a total of $55.02).

Savings for cheaper online groceries

If you want to use coupons at Clicklist, you just let them know when you arrive that you have coupons, and they will come out and collect them before bringing out your order.  I used these manufacturer’s coupons (some were printables, some were from the Sunday paper, and some were digital ones on the Kroger app).

• $1/1 Hellman’s mayonnaise
• $.75/1 Tampax
• $.50/1 Always
• $1/1 Secret deodorant

I ended up saving $3.25 from our manufacturer’s coupons.

I then used these Clicklist-only coupons, which only worked if you purchased $50 or more (they are found on the Kroger app):

• Digital coupon for free Hormel bacon, Chobani yogurt, and Sara Lee bread if purchased through Clicklist (savings of $12.77)
• Digital coupon for free Zone Perfect, Mott’s, and Kool-Aid if purchased through Clicklist (savings of $12.67)
  • This expired two days after the first one was released, so there was an overlap where both coupons would work on the same purchase, meaning only ONE pick-up fee
• Digital coupon for free Cinnamon Toast Crunch bites with a Clicklist order (savings of $2.99)
• Digital coupon for $10 off a purchase of 5 select items (savings of $10)
  • We chose the Always pantiliners, Tampax Pearl tampons, Secret deodorant, and 2 Quaker granola bars

My total savings with Clicklist coupons was $38.43.  That is FAR more than the $4.95 I paid to be able to use Clicklist in the first place! It ended up being cheaper to get the groceries online than in the store!

Overall, I paid $13.3 for items that would have cost $50.07 in store (not including the Clicklist fee), so I got about 74% off our purchase!

Give it a try!

As you can see, it is definitely worth giving online grocery shopping a try to get your groceries cheaper!

Kroger Clicklist will even waive the Clicklist fee on your first few orders, so you won’t be losing out on anything!

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