5 Places which will help Cut your Shopping Bills

In our fast moving, modern lives today, one of the areas where the bills are on a constant rise are the household goods and groceries. Right from our regular washing powders to television sets to goods for children, we need a range of supplies every day and there’s hardly a period when we don’t buy anything at all. These expenses, while necessary, need to be optimized for better financial planning. We are sure you keep looking for great deals on your purchases in your area, but here’s a lowdown on the shops that probably offer you the best deals in the city.

Supermarket: Buying your monthly groceries and household supplies from some supermarkets may help you save about 5-7%. Here, you might get a range of brands as well as goods of not-so-well-known make and in various pack sizes too. But buying the smaller pack sizes may not be the most economical thing to do.

Online store offering good deals: An online store means convenience at your doorstep. It helps you save not just costs but time as well, which is precious especially as a mother. Also shopping at a store with a kid may not be ideal. There’s a fresh new service ideal for a busy-mom called Ample Price Club which offers most household products at really compelling wholesale prices. The savings can be up to 20-25% on the entire basket and they make it a point to offer a curated selections of quality brands across categories. You can buy stuff in large value packs (which you might not with a kid on your arm and a long walk to the car) which gets you even more cost-savings. We hear they’re giving out free-trials right now but will eventually move to a membership fee model. After that the more you buy the more you end up saving. We heard about them from our network of happy moms in Powai and we’re pretty glad that we did! 

Wholesale Market: One like Crawford market in South Mumbai or APMC in Navi Mumbai is the mega source of most common household supplies and what you will get there will probably be the cheapest in town. The drawbacks, though, are two – They may not be near your place and the cost and time of your travel there may not be worth it, unless you have something major to buy.

Cash and carry stores: Such stores, like Metro, though offer great deals, are only a couple in the city and also require you to have a business license to buy from there. So it’s almost out of your list of cost-saving ideas if you are an average retail buyer.

CSD Stores: At the canteen in defence cantonments, you probably find everything cheapest (as local taxes are not applicable to goods sold there) but there will be limited brands in each category. The most limiting factor of such stores, though, is the restricted access. So unless you have a friend or a close relative who is a canteen card holder, you can’t avail of it. If you have a chance, you must go for it as you are likely to get everything from pickles to diapers to gold in a well-stocked CSD store.

Happy shopping! 

_{Disclaimer: this post is sponsored by Ample}