Shopping tips

1. Use your cutting board to chop your grocery tab in half. Prechopped, presorted, prepackaged NO GOOD! Do it your self and save save save! The biggest budget-busters were bagged veggies , single-serving containers and presliced cheese.
2. Study the per-unit pricing tags taped to the shelves. The secret to savings is to simply pay attention to per-unit pricing. And your grocer provides a handy cheat sheet right on the shelf. The bigger box of cereal is no bargain at 8 cents more per pound than the smaller one. And oh, the horror of the innocuous $1.39 20-ounce bottle of soda, when a few aisles away six 2-liter bottles cost just $5. That's $23.19 less than what you'd shell out for the same amount of pop in the smaller size.
3. Ignore the lure of name brands and go generic. Opting for store-brand items over name-brand ones can cut your supermarket tab by one-third or more. When Consumer Reports went shopping, it stuck to a store-brand shopping list and picked up chocolate-chip cookies, orange juice, frozen lasagna, raisin bran cereal, coffee, and peanut butter for about $24 -- nearly $10 less than what it would cost to buy name-brand fare.
4. Don't overbuy.