If you want to take your money-saving efforts at the grocery store to the next level, start with either of two free websites.

GrocerySmarts.com and SavvyShopperDeals.com help consumers identify the best sale prices each week, as well as any coupons that can be used on sale items to save even more money.

GrocerySmarts.com is fairly easy to use. Simply select your state in the top right corner of the page. Then select the store you want to shop, and you'll get a list of this week's sale items, along with a list of any coupons that can be used on those items. A new set of match-ups appears each Wednesday, the first day of the grocery ad cycle.

GrocerySmarts ranks deals at each store on a scale of one to five stars, with five stars being a great price, four stars a good price and three stars being average. Recent five-star deals have included free Ronzoni pasta, 2-pound blocks of Tillamook block cheese for only $2.99 using a $1-off printable coupon from Coupons.com, and Kellogg's cereals for only 67 cents a box using a coupon worth $5 off five boxes from the July 10 RedPlum coupon insert.

SavvyShopperDeals.com is similar to GrocerySmarts. To use this site, go to SavvyShopperDeals.com/utah, then to the pull-down "Shopping Wizard" menu and click on "Grocery Deals." Select which store you want to shop. SavvyShopperDeals ranks deals as "Good," "Great" and "Wow."

The sites have similar content and can be useful tools. Once you start using them, you'll quickly realize that the key to saving big at the grocery store is to buy most of what your family needs when items are on sale and then use a coupon to drive your out-of-pocket costs even lower. Boxed, canned and frozen food can be stockpiled at super-low prices, and family meal plans can be fashioned using food purchased at a discount.

One of the keys to making it all work is to start keeping your coupon inserts from the Sunday newspaper or the mail for at least three months, writing the date on the front of each insert and keeping them in a box or file for easy reference. Many consumers clip a few coupons and toss their inserts in the trash or recycling bin afterward.

But keeping your inserts for several months can be a benefit when using either GrocerySmarts or SavvyShopperDeals because many times an item will go on sale weeks or even months after the coupon appears in an insert.

Although some coupons expire quickly, others don't expire for several months.

A number of more-dedicated coupon-clippers get multiple copies of the Sunday coupon inserts — either by getting more than one edition of the Sunday newspaper or by asking friends or family members for extras. That way, when there's a really good sale, you can use coupons to help create a stockpile of a particular item.

There also are many good coupons available to print on manufacturer websites and on sites such as Coupons.com, SmartSource.com and Redplum.com. Typically, you can print two of each coupon from these sites. If you see one for a product that goes on sale frequently and one you know you are going to use, print it now because Internet-based offers can disappear quickly.

Lesley Mitchell writes One Cheap Chick in daily blog form at blogs.sltrib.com/cheap.

lesley@sltrib.com

Twitter: @cheapchick —

Two websites that can save you money

GrocerySmarts.com • Select "Utah" as your state from the menu and then choose the store you want to shop. Click on "How To Use This List" at the top of the page for a tutorial.

SavvyShopperDeals.com • Go to SavvyShopperDeals.com/utah, go to the pull-down "Shopping Wizard" menu and click on "Grocery Deals." You can select which store you want to shop. Unlike GrocerySmarts, which ranks deals using stars, SavvyShopperDeals ranks deals as "Good," "Great" and "Wow."