Best Ways To Use Technology to Cut Your Grocery Bill

Put these apps on your radar before you put anything in your cart.

Author:: Angela Colley
Publish date:: Jun 27, 2013 5:30 AM EDT

NEW YORK (MainStreet)—A recent survey by HelloFresh found 52% of Americans spend more than two hours a week at the grocery store and 30% spend more than three hours roaming the aisles. Add that up and you might spend between 104 and 156 hours a year shopping for food. And if the time drain isn't bad enough, the study also found one in three Americans overspend by at least $50 a week on groceries –$2,600 a year. There's a solution to both problems and it's on your smartphone. These free websites and applications simplify shopping, cut down on coupon hunting, and make sure you don't overspend.

Grocery shopping online has come a long way in recent years, with grocery-exclusive sites like Alice.com popping up and larger retailers like Amazon and Walmart adding food products to their online lineup. But while shopping online may be the most convenient way, it's not necessarily the cheapest. For example, a 16.3 oz box of Kashi's Organic Autumn Harvest cereal costs $4.14 at Alice.com; recently, the grocery store chain Winn Dixie, had the same box of cereal on sale two for $6, roughly $1.14 less than Alice.com. However, with a little ingenuity, online shopping can be cheaper than in-store shopping. ShopAtHome.com's browser application finds deals online and gives cash back rebates on several sites. This free service works in two ways, either by searching for deals on specific sites, or searching for a product you're looking for – like Cool Ranch Doritos or Charmin toilet paper. Travis Henry, Director of Online Marketing for ShopAtHome.com says, "It's really a no brainer," if you buy groceries (or anything else) online. If you get in the habit of using the browser app, combining deals and coupons with rebate checks will add up. "ShopAtHome.com's average monthly cash back check is $42," according to Henry, but it depends on where you shop and what you buy. For example, Walmart currently earns 2 percent cash back, so you'd knock another $3 off a $150 grocery bill.

If you've ever aimlessly wandered around the produce aisle only to end up walking out with $100 worth of stuff you weren't sure how to use, you should know that menu planning saves a lot of time and money. Several sites help you with menu planning by automating shopping lists, suggesting recipes, or letting you save favorites. KitchMe, from Coupons.com, goes a step farther and finds sales and coupons for recipe items. The site integrates weekly circulars for "over 200 grocery stores and printable coupons from Coupons.com" into your recipes, so you automatically see how much you can save when you plan a meal, says Coupons.com's Consumer Savings Expert, Jeanette Pavini.

On average, Americans toss out $28 to $43 in food a month, according to a study by the National Resources Defense Council. That means $336 to $516 worth of food goes straight to the garbage bin each year. To save that money, you'll have to eat everything in the house, which gets tricky when you're staring at leftover tuna, dry pasta, and cheddar cheese with no clue what to make for dinner. Enter BigOven. BigOven's app, available on Android and iOS platforms, has a "Use up Leftovers" feature, which according to BigOven rep Steve Murch, "Will search over 400,000 recipes to show what you can make." For example, wondering what to do with chicken, rice and broccoli? The app pulled over 20 recipe ideas with those ingredients. Beef, green pepper and dry pasta produced another three dozen recipes. At the store, the app can help you come up with solutions for sale items. If you see something on sale, search for it on the app, and you'll get recipe ideas on the go, saving the hassle of buying something because it's on sale and not knowing what to do with it once you get home.

Of course, you could skip the grocery store all together. With HelloFresh you'll get pre-measured ingredients delivered to your door step. HelloFresh co-founder Hamish Shepard says carnivorous customers can choose from "three unique meal options from a selection of five each week." Vegetarian customers receive "three pre-selected, all vegetarian options." Your order – called the "recipe box" – includes all the ingredients you'll need, which Shepard says are "Exact restaurant-quality ingredients," and recipes cards with full instructions. The meals are the same price every week, which vary depending on how many mouths you're feeding; for example, a three meal recipe box for two people costs $69, while a four person box costs $129. Vegetarian options are a bit cheaper. A three meal vegetarian recipe box for two costs $69, while a recipe box for four costs $109. The boxes break down to "as little as $8.30 per dish," according to Shepard, which is slightly more than some at-home meals, but cheaper than most take out dishes. HelloFresh doesn't require a contract, but you'll need to put in a seven day notice to stop automatic weekly payments.

Grocery App Store

NEW YORK (MainStreet)—A recent survey by HelloFresh found 52% of Americans spend more than two hours a week at the grocery store and 30% spend more than three hours roaming the aisles. Add that up and you might spend between 104 and 156 hours a year shopping for food. And if the time drain isn't bad enough, the study also found one in three Americans overspend by at least $50 a week on groceries –$2,600 a year. There's a solution to both problems and it's on your smartphone. These free websites and applications simplify shopping, cut down on coupon hunting, and make sure you don't overspend.