There have been occasions when my shopping cart has held something along the lines of: four rolls of generic toilet paper, one box of generic cereal, the smallest package of sale meat, one gallon of milk (we usually go through two to three gallons of milk a week).

Now: Is that the week I’m going to spend $25 on laundry detergent so I can take advantage of a sale price that comes around maybe only every couple of months?

Or will that be the week I pick up the smallest available container of laundry detergent - which will come with a higher price per unit cost - because I also need that toilet paper, cereal and milk?

That short purchase is going to cost big in the long run.

Here’s a story at CNN today that talks about that situation: Downsizing food to fit smaller budgets.

A snippet:

The last time consumers were buying a little at a time to conserve cash was in the 1970s, when food and oil prices surged to record highs, said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm.

“Consumers are constraining spending to a point that shoppers only buy what they need for today or tomorrow and not next week or next month,” he said.

And some grocery chains and food companies are creating new options, from milk to pies, in part to ease the financial blow. The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., is adjusting its product mix to respond to the trend.

How do you get out of that situation? Pay attention to the sales / coupon / rebate cycles and work your purchases around them as much as possible. If you can load up only one extra item each week, so be it. Even just one step can help you snowball your savings.

For example, I stocked up on a bunch of cereal that was on sale last week. Now some room has been freed up in the grocery budget because I won’t be buying cereal for awhile.

This week’s grocery sales include hamburgers, hot dogs, cake mix and buns.  When I go shopping later this week, I will pick one or two of those products and buy two or three extra packages as a stock-up. Even if I have no plans to use them immediately, it would be silly for me to ignore prices that are so low.

Now, I’ve rarely bought so much of one product that I couldn’t use it before it expired. But if you are concerned about that possibility, then build a “leftover” or “pantry” day or week into your dinner schedule. That’s when you inventory the cupboard or freezer and use up as many grocery supplies you have already on hand as possible (before you go shopping again.)