SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4 News) - When economic times get tough, the tough look for ways to cut costs. And one Utah mom says the place to do it is at the grocery store. She’s been slicing her receipts in half.
"Before we started shopping this way, we were spending about four hundred dollars a month on groceries. With times getting tough, I was trying to find a way to cut back and that's the first thing I thought of was groceries, because that is under my control."
Shauntell Ottley has three children and her husband was out of work, so she says she had no choice.
She had to find food for her family - for less. "When I first learned how to do it, I was skeptical. But within the first week, I spent one hundred and twenty dollars the first week, and I saved sixty-seven."
What did she learn? How did she do it?
Ottley walked the grocery aisles with us so we could see the savings.
Earlier that day she accessed a free website that takes local store ads and combines them with any available manufacturers coupons.
Then she printed out a list of what her family needs.
"So then I use the coupons for items already on sale, and I was getting them at an even greater discount," Ottley says.
From half off the cooking spray, to forty cent spaghetti sauce, we stocked up and Ottley checked out.
She spent forty-seven dollars and saved eight-eight.
For Ottley’s family of five, spending seventy percent less means more financial freedom.
"Saving this amount on our groceries has allowed us to live on our own now. We're on our own and I can't do it without crying, our fifty dollar budget makes it so we can be independent again."
To shop and save like Shauntell Ottley, go to
grocerysmarts.com.
