Tools.- kitchen management

Kitchen management .   Organization is one of the keys to saving money and not wasting food.  
A few forms done  on the computer make it quick and easy to manage shopping and dinner.  

Kitchen management/ meal plans 

• A spread sheet can track a RBP  of an item and where you got it.    You are not tracking every item you buy, just the ones you buy on  a regular basis.   For most people, that is  about fifteen things.   
• Analyzing the weekly ads just takes a piece of computer paper divided in sections,  often mine comes from the recycle bin.  
• Coupon book.   A binder from the goodwill, plastic sheets for baseball cards/ and or photo sleeves , and a package of dividers from the dollar store.     Add a cheap calculator, small scissors and a red pen Ina pencil case from the dollar store.   

• Meal plan / kitchen management sheet has columns for what's on the fridge that you need  to eat, what you need to buy to fill in, and days of the week to make meal plans.   A matrix tailored to your families likes makes planning easier.    

Coupon book.  

Coupons are found everywhere.   On packages, electronic ones ( harder to manage) I guess mark them in your grocery list.   Newspaper inserts .  Some inserts come on our mail now.   Some are in the Sunday paper.  They don't come in holiday papers and Proctor and Gamble comes the first  Sunday of the month.     You can buy the Sunday paper the saturday before at the dollar tree. You can download coupons from your computer, two per month per coupon at coupons.com.   Filter food only. Pick just the ones you would likely buy and do it early on the month.   The coupons come out 

the first of the month, there is a limited amount of coupons that can be printed, and when they are gone, they are gone.    They will e mail you if more are loaded.   

Ibotta is a rebate tool.   I check the Ibotta list after I get home from the store.   If there are things I bought, I check the item, take a pic of the bar code, and take a picture of the sales slip.    It's an easy way to save a few extra dollars.    I, working towards an Amazon card but you can have Starbucks, movie tickets, wall,art and a host of others.    

Hope this helps.    A little planning can save a lotion time and money.     Once you are set up, it doesn't take much time.