Why you should never grocery shop longer than 30 minutes

Have you ever found yourself shopping in the grocery store and you end up wandering up and down aisles, even aisles you have been down before, and don’t really know why? Well, next time this happens, you should go straight to the checkout line! Because for every minute you spend in the grocery store after the first 30 minutes, you will spend an extra 50 cents per minute, and most of that is impulse buys.

Most grocery stores are laid out so that it will never take you longer than half an hour to go up and down each and every aisle, unless it happens to be one of the super sized big box warehouse stores.

Try not to make grocery shopping an hour long extravaganza. Go with a shopping list in hand and then time yourself so that you can only spend 20 minutes, or a maximum of 30 minutes, in the grocery store, including checkout time. This will help you avoid those impulse buys that add the cost to each grocery store visit.

Also avoid falling into the trap of “well, I don’t have to pick up the kids for another half hour, might as well go up and down the aisles a bit longer incase I see anything I need.”  This is a huge budget buster, since rarely do you add anything you really needed.