If you’re feeding a family on one income or just want to spend less on groceries each week, improving the way you shop for groceries and stock your kitchen can make a noticeable difference in your budget. Small, practical changes to your habits can help you spend less money, without having to sacrifice delicious, healthy and satisfying meals and treats for your family. In this post, I will share the simple methods we follow in order to save money on groceries for your family.
Create a Realistic Grocery Budget for a Big Family
According to USA Today, the average 4 person household in the US spends $250-400 a week on groceries. That’s $1,000 to $1,600 a month. That’s a lot of money. Now I’m not saying it’s too much money, only you can decide that. But if you’re looking for ways to cut spending, it seems to me like that is a good place to start. You can’t make your mortgage cheaper (without moving), you can’t lessen your car payment (without paying off your car), but you might be able to cut grocery expenses, which is exciting!
If you aren’t sure what’s realistic for your family’s grocery budget each week, there are two approaches that you could take. First, you could just pick a low number like $150 a week and see if you can make it work, knowing that you might fail and that’s ok. The other option is to take your current monthly grocery budget and deduct $50 or $75 and continue to do that until you reach a place where it feels like it’s working. I will say, though, that you might need to learn or sharpen some skills to get good at this. I’m still learning as well. Some months I hit our budget perfectly, while other months I might go over a little. The point is that I’m always working to better our grocery budget and figure out what works best and what doesn’t.
Simple Grocery Shopping Tips to Cut Your Food Bill Fast
Before we get started, here are a list of money saving tips that you can implement to get your grocery bill down quickly.
- Focus on cheaper meat cuts. While steak is delicious, especially with a big family, it’s going to be a budget killer. Focus on whole chickens, chicken thighs (which honestly we like better when cooked correctly), ground beef, chicken and turkey. Avoid steaks, lunch meat, and other more expensive cuts. If you save steak for a special family night or date night, it feels more special anyway.
- Buy block cheese vs shredded. It’s a little more work, but cheaper and healthier. Shredded cheeses have added ingredients to keep the cheese from sticking together in the bag. I typically use my food processor to shred all of the cheese so it’s easy to use still)
- Check the generic brand. Walmart, for example, has their own brand called Great Value. I prefer to buy organic for most items, but Great Value has some really good organic options for very affordable prices. If possible, I choose to buy their generic brand.
- Decide if “organic” is always necessary or if there are ever cases where you’d reconsider. Like grass fed ground beef that isn’t organic, wild blueberries instead of organic, etc.
- Check the “unit price”. This is typically a smaller “price” in the corner of a shelf price tag. While an item may be less money than another, it doesn’t mean it’s a better value. This number helps you to see how much each oz or lb is, versus the entire product.
- Avoid Impulse Buys – stick to the list. $3, $4, $5 additions add up very quickly.
Simple Meal Planning Strategies to Lower Your Grocery Costs
Sometimes I have the time, energy and desire to plan meals for the week. There are weeks, though, where I feel overwhelmed and the idea of sitting down to plan doesn’t feel as realistic. Here’s my simple strategy for “meal planning” in a way that you always have a presentable dinner to feed your family, but it doesn’t increase your grocery bill or take a lot of mental capacity.
Look at the week ahead and determine how many nights you’ll need dinner, based on your schedule. Get enough meat for however many meals you need for that week. I like to have potatoes, sweet potatoes, several kinds of frozen vegetables, a loaf of french or italian bread (I usually make my own), onions and garlic on hand for quick and easy meals. You can make a large variety of things with these ingredients. You can make roasted potatoes (sweet or regular), mashed potatoes (sweet or regular), roasted vegetables, bread and butter or garlic bread, to go with any meat option you might have. This simplifies meals and makes it very simple. Add some salt and pepper, maybe some garlic powder and you have a great, quick meal.
I like to include breakfast for dinner once a week, as it’s easy, cheap and doesn’t include meat. It’s a great meal to make last minute when you’re all hungry and have the urge to eat out.
For some reason, we often feel like dinner has to be a “recipe” or have a “name”. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it can definitely add to your grocery bill, if you aren’t careful. My focus over the last year or so is to simply have a meat, protein and carb for every meal. It doesn’t have to have a style (Italian, Asian, American, etc) or be from a recipe book. We have chicken, sweet potatoes and frozen broccoli? Great. Ground beef, potatoes and frozen green beans? Great, I’ll make a quick meatloaf to go with the potatoes and green beans.
Saving Money on Groceries Has to be Sustainable
We aren’t looking for anything extreme or restrictive here. We’re looking for habits, recipes and routines that make this sustainable and realistic long term. While it doesn’t have to take a lot of time, you’ll probably need to give this some weekly attention to be sure you’re on track to stay on budget and feed your family well.
This doesn’t have to be restrictive either. I like to have what I’ve labeled “baking butter” on hand at all times, which is just organic or regular butter from Costco (not the grass-fed that we buy for regular use). This allows us to be able to bake whenever we want without feeling guilty of using all of our normal butter. This feels fun and keeps us from feeling restricted or wanting to go out and buy a treat. Also, baking at home is better for us than store-bought treats anyway and that is a motivator for me, personally.
Keep Track of your Grocery Spending
To stay on budget, you have to keep track of what you’ve spent for that month to know what you have left to spend. I plan to spend $150 a week, so assuming I stay within that budget each week, I always know what I have left to spend. For me, this removes any guilt for spending money in this category. I know that I have permission to spend $150 a week on groceries. This money is designated for buying food, so that’s what we’ll use it for. We expect that it will be gone by the end of the month. If for some reason I spend $170 one week, I adjust my amount the next week.
Save Money by Using What you Already Have
I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times. I get it, often it feels easier to just go to the store. I’ve been trying to check my pantry and fridge first before grocery shopping. Ideally you’re checking your pantry and fridge before you even create a meal plan. Are there things that you already have that you can form a meal around? If I have pasta noodles, then I can plan to make that for dinner one night and buy anything I need to complete the meal. Maybe I have canned pumpkin… Can I make pumpkin muffins instead of buying snacks?
Do I Need This Item Today or Can it Wait?
Sometimes I find myself buying flour because I’ll be out soon. But what does soon mean? Am I out now? Do I have 2 cups left or do I have 10 left? I find if I can push off buying items that we don’t need yet, I tend to spend less overall and have more to spend on what we actually need right now. When I dig deeper into this thought, I’ve determine that it’s a scarcity mentality that makes me want to always be stocked up on things. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared and stocked for any sort of emergency, but it often costs more money and needs to be budgeted or planned.
Stock up on Affordable Snacks
Bananas are cheap. Typically a bunch of bananas is under $2. We buy 3-4 bunches of bananas a week for that reason. They’re an easy snack, they can be used in smoothies or protein shakes, baked goods or dipped in peanut butter. The options are endless.
Eggs are another example like this. I know that egg prices have gone up over the years, but we buy a lot of eggs as well. They can be cooked, hard boiled, used for baking or used to make quick and easy/cheap dinner (or breakfast) recipes like pancakes, egg casserole, dutch babies or french toast.
Stretch out Your Weeks to Save Money on Groceries
If you typically go shopping once a week, see if you can go every 9-10 days instead. This will decrease how many shopping trips you take in that month, which if you’re careful will save you money.
Another tip I use to stretch my budget is to do a Walmart grocery pick up order for just half of my budget for that week. Sometimes we’ll be out of bananas, eggs, bread… the basics. So instead of grocery shopping for my full amount, I get realistic with what we really need right now and try to make do with what we still have otherwise. I will typically spend $75-100 and see if we can make do with that for the week. I can always do another grocery pick up if needed, since I still have budget leftover for the week. Obviously this changes if the grocery store is far from you (our Walmart is 5 minutes from us). I wouldn’t recommend taking several grocery trips in a week if you’re going into the store (unless you can laser focus and stick 100% to your list). I like to do Grocery Pick Up here so I am in complete control of my total.
Buy Bulk and Avoid the Grocery Store
I’m aware that this is completely the opposite of what I just recommended in my last point, but it might be a better fit for you. We do this method with certain things, and it works really well for us. With a little focus and intention, you could have a well stocked bulk pantry and not need the store for quite a while. Or maybe you only need it for produce and fresh items. This book is a great resource for learning how to store bulk foods and strategies to stock up and rely less on the grocery store.
We buy most of our bulk items from Azure Standard. Typically, we buy (not all in the same month),
- 20 lbs of apples (and store them in the fridge for up to 6 weeks)
- 25 lbs organic rice (Costco is another option)
- 25 lbs organic quick oats (lasts us 4 months easy)
- Pure Cane Sugar
- 5 lbs coconut sugar (sometimes I get multiple 5 lb bags – we use coconut sugar often in place of sugar)
- 5 lb block of raw cheese (a little bit of a splurge but so good)
- 6 pack jars of applesauce
- Cinnamon
- Einkorn Pasta
- Cornmeal
- Wheat Berries
- Redmond’s real salt (25 lb bag)
- Puffed Kamut or Rice (replaces cereal – my kids love it)
- Cacao
- 5 Gallon Buckets
I just want to clarify that this isn’t a normal order for us. These are just things that we sometimes or often buy from Azure, as needed. If you don’t know how it works, Azure does delivery drops once a month. Our order looks different every month. When we buy a 25 lb bag of oats, for example, it lasts us 4 months usually (and we eat oats often). It’s important to be aware of pricing, because buying in bulk doesn’t not automatically make anything cheaper (but it can). Some things I’ve found to be cheaper at Azure, while other things are cheaper from Costco.
Buying in Bulk is not Automatically Cheaper
I wanted to dive a little deeper into this. Sometimes a bulk item might be a great value, but it’s a bigger cost up front and will stretch your budget. You’ll need to do the math and decide if this is worth it for you. I often find that if I’m trying to stick to a tight budget, Costco can be really dangerous. Yes, I might be getting a great deal, but each item uses up a lot more of my budget. If I stick to smaller items from Walmart or Trader Joe’s, for example, I might not get as great of a value, but I have enough for the month and it frees up more of my budget for other items that we need.
Avoid Pre-cut, Pre-Packaged…
When buying processed, pre-packaged foods, you’re often spending more money. Especially at Costco, skip the snacks. When each item is $10-15, your budget will go quickly. We don’t buy snacks unless we’re going on a trip. Some snacks that we make at home are granola, muffins, cookies (with coconut sugar), gummies, protein bars/balls, protein shakes/smoothies. This saves us money, since we aren’t spending money on pre-packaged snacks. All of these items are also made using ingredients we always have on hand.
Buy the Same Things Over and Over
I find that it’s important that you get into a rhythm with what you purchase. It sounds boring and maybe that’s the point. The goal here is that you’re buying materials and supplies to make the exciting things. By keeping your fridge and pantry stocked with baking supplies, you can bake pretty much anything you could dream of. By keeping these items consistent, you know what you have and you can get into a rhythm of what recipes you make on repeat. This takes out a lot of the mental energy needed. By having a well-stocked pantry and fridge, you set yourself up for success. You can make pretty much anything you want to when you have eggs, flour, butter, sugar…
Find the Most Affordable Grocery Store in your Area
We do a mix of Walmart Grocery Pick Up, Costco and Trader Joe’s. I’ve spent enough time at both places to know where we should shop that week based on what we need. I also know which store to go to in order to get the best price on what I need. It might take some time for you to get to that point, but it can save you money in the long run. This might seem complicated to some, but we don’t go each of these places each week, or at least not on the same day. I try to grocery shop because we need specific items, not just because it’s the designated grocery shopping day. This saves us money and as long as I stick to the list, I don’t spend the entire budget on that specific trip.
Collect Recipes that Help You Save on Groceries
I’ve gotten to a point where I have go to recipes that align with the things I typically buy. If someone is coming over last minute and I want to make something, I have a list in my head of things I make often and I know are delicious.
Some recipes that I love are
Old Fashioned Blueberry Cobbler
Magnolia Dutch Baby (I skip the caramelized apples)
Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies (take them out of the oven before they look done, right around 8 mins… DELISH)
Quick and Easy Meatloaf (1 lb ground beef, egg, garlic powder, salt, pepper, oats or breadcrumbs, bake at 375 for 30 mins or so – make a quick bbq sauce with ketchup, mustard, coconut sugar, garlic powder, salt)
I cook a Whole Chicken in my Instant Pot with water, butter and spices. Once it’s done, I pull all of the chicken off and put the bones back in with 1 TBSP of apple cider vinegar and set it for an hour or more. Once it’s done, I have a really yummy, jiggly bone broth and a bunch of chicken to use for 1-2 recipes (makes a great chicken soup).
Oatmeal with frozen wild blueberries, a slab of butter, honey/maple syrup and a sprinkle of cinnamon
Healthy Gummies – my kids devour these, and I can pack them full of a lot of nutrition. We buy this gelatin.
Homemade Burgers and Hamburger buns – these have been a hit at our house recently and are relatively quick and easy. All you need is flour and yeast (sesame seeds are a fun addition), ground beef, salt, pepper, ketchup/mustard and anything else you want on your burgers. We sometimes saute some onions… delish! Such a simple and cheap meal that’s bound to impress.
Make Breakfast into Dinner to Save Money on Groceries
Breakfast food is cheap. We try to do breakfast for dinner at least once a week. Not only is it cheap, it feels exciting to the kids and is also quick. By replacing a normal mean with pancakes, french toast, eggs, egg casserole, waffles, dutch baby, sausage, you can easily save money on groceries.
This Dutch baby recipe is delicious and easy. It also looks very impressive coming out of the oven. You’re bound to impress. I don’t do the caramelized apples, but you could!
Keep it Simple
When in doubt, just eat whole foods. Focus on meat/protein, carb and vegetable. It doesn’t have to have a “name” or have been from a recipe book. Often times we make it all harder than it has to be and if we can just simplify, a lot of our problems are solved and you can easily save money on groceries.
My Revolving Grocery List (Varies by Week)
Fridge
- Cheese
- Yogurt
- Butter
- Milk
- Eggs
- Carrots
- Celery
Freezer
- Whole chickens
- Chicken thighs
- Ground beef, chicken or turkey
- Occasionally bacon, a fun splurge
- Frozen Strawberries (Costco)
- Frozen Wild Blueberries (Costco)
Pantry/Baking Staples
- Maple syrup
- Honey/agave
- Flour
- Peanut butter
- Coconut milk (I often add to soups or smoothies/protein shakes)
- Olive oil
- Coconut Oil (Costco – lasts forever)
- Oats (Azure – 25 lbs)
- Pure Cane Sugar
- Coconut sugar
- Cacao
- Cornmeal (cornbread)
- Powdered sugar
- Onions (great to have on hand for pretty much any recipe)
- Garlic
- Sweet potatoes
- Red potatoes
- Pasta
- Rice
- Bread (or make your own)
Fruit
- Apples
- Bananas
- Occasionally oranges or grapes
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