Now we all know groceries are a must. You cant just… NOT eat. It’s the part of the budget that doesn’t budge. We buy what we need and that’s that… Or is it? Today I’m thrilled to share 5 ways I have personally lowered my husband and I grocery bill from $350 a month to $215! I had no idea these simple practices and disciplines could make a $135 difference each month. That’s a yearly savings of $1,620!
Before we get into this, let me leave a disclaimer. I’m into hard work. You want to get something done? Get better sleep? Save money? It’s hard work! I don’t have a simple list of 5 things to stop buying and I’m not going to suggest you cut out eating your most expensive, yet favorite, meal. I’m going to suggest you take your time and put in a little extra effort to spend less. Ok, here we go.
1. Make Your Own Staples
I’m huge into cooking from scratch. I know this can be more time consuming and sometimes, making meals from scratch can be impossible with all the household needs and distractions. I’m not necessarily suggesting you only cook from scratch. But what if, slowly, you adjusted to making 1 staple at home per month rather than buying pre-made?
Here are some examples of staple items I don’t buy anymore and make from ingredients at home
- Granola – It’s easy to find a simple granola recipe pretty much anywhere. This can be done super inexpensive and save you tons per month. It only takes about 30 minutes. Its also extremely shelf stable so you can make one big batch only have to make it once a month! My savings per month – $13
- Bread – This is something I have recently found to be increasingly easy. Now, I make all bread products from scratch – burger and hot dog buns, dinner rolls, sandwich bread, sourdough, pizza crust… You name it. You can start with simply switching one of those examples out for homemade and you will still save on your budget. My savings per month – $25!
- Yogurt – Again, a relatively simple project which takes around 45 minutes active time and can last you nearly 2 weeks. My husband takes yogurt to work every day so we were spending almost $20 a month on yogurts! Making from home also means I can adjust the sugar content and use an easier to digest sugar like Agave nectar. My monthly savings – $12
That alone is $37 a month, $444 a year in savings. Again, not everyone will have time to make everything from scratch. But even if its not buying burger buns and trying a homemade recipe instead once a month or just making granola from home. Don’t worry, you can still make a dent!
2. Meal Plan!
Here is my eternal word of caution to anyone trying to save on their groceries – Never walk into a grocery store without a plan. I find I spend the most and buy the least necessary items when I don’t have a plan. I meal plan every lunch and dinner we eat, and then make sure we have enough in our house for the same staple snacks and breakfasts – smoothies, granola and yogurt, summer sausage, nuts, cheese and crackers. Normally, I only have to restock one of those items per week. Especially the yogurt and granola, which I make.
Here is how I specifically meal plan
- Start by figuring out which nights of your week you’ll be cooking. decide on meals for those nights. write them down.
- Now figure out what lunches everyone will need. This can be what you’ll bring to work, what your kids take to school or what your spouse eats daily. whatever it is, write it down with the number of times its eaten and how many servings you’ll need daily.
- Finally, get that list of staples ready. This you can refer to each time you meal plan and usually remains the same. You can see mine above.
- Now we hunt! Go through your cabinets, freezer, fridge, pantry. Find the ingredients you need for every meal on your list. If you don’t have them, write them down on your grocery list. Make sure to check your staples too. For example, if I have burger buns on my list Ill confirm I have enough flour in my pantry to make them since I don’t buy those from the store.
I noticed a huge change in our grocery spending when I began buying only what we needed for the meal plan and utilizing what I had in my freezer and cabinets. I was able to drop our bill nearly $30 this way alone!
3. Buy Generics.
Ok, I might lose some of you on this one. Maybe not ALL generics… However, if you decide what your ‘necessary’ on brand items are and buy the rest generic you really can save money. There are also plenty of ways to spice up generic items that are cheaper than buying “on brand”.
Here are 6 things I switched from buying ‘on brand’
- Sour cream – truthfully, all dairy.
- Cereal – is it really that different?
- Pasta sauce – this is so easy to add some extra spice or tomato paste to beef it up.
- Mac & Cheese – Aldi brand is still great, add a slice of american cheese and you cant tell!
- Canned goods – I’m just careful that my fruit is in fruit juice, but I haven’t had any issues with this one.
- Meats – some days its a good idea to splurge on meat, but for the most part I have found Aldi meat to be just fine. This one will be difficult however if you’re used to name brand antibiotic / hormone free
4. Stick to Your List.
It’s super important to create a shopping list before going out. Its even more important that once you have that list you do not buy what isn’t listed. This is just a good discipline to have. Say no! To your kids, your spouse, yourself… The truth is you don’t need to keep that certain treat in the house, you’ll live without the fruit snacks or zebra cakes. I parry down my list to exactly what I need for the week, which goes down to the pieces of sliced cheese I need for my husbands lunches!
Here is the caveat… A list is just as important as your actual budget. So, I budget $50 a week for groceries. Occasionally Ill spend 35-40 and have an extra 10! Now, most of the time I save that extra money and use it to buy something more expensive I didn’t replenish on that trip, like meat or bulk items. However when I feel confident I have meat for the next few weeks or I’ve found some chicken on a good deal, Ill buy a treat for us. Even if its just a box of sugary cereal or those two packs of sliced cheesecake from Aldi (we LOVE those things…) I’m only adding an additional 3-5 to that week and I may still have that extra 5-10 after a small treat. So make sure you have a list AND budget! Which brings me to my final point…
5. Budget WEEKLY and only shop ONCE.
Here I’ll expand a bit on the above topic. We budget $200 a month for groceries. That boils down to $100 a month, per person since it’s just the two of us. If I want to budget weekly, which I do, I have $50 a week to depend on our groceries.
A normal grocery plan for me is to meal plan Sunday, and then Monday morning Ill go through my cabinets to see what I need based on my meal choices for the week and my staples/snacks. After those things are done I head to the store.
Occasionally if I think I may go over budget I will calculate what I’m spending a long the way through the store by adding the price of each item on my phone as I go. This can even help me pair down and ask questions like “sure, we normally keep pretzels in the house, but do I have enough nuts and cheese to last until I shop next week?” It may seem silly to only spend the $50 If you know you’ll be picking up the product your putting back next week but truly it can make such a difference when you eat what you have instead of just repurchasing the favorite snack or staple.
The second half of this heading gets into how often I shop. Once. If I go more than once a week its easy for me to pickup unnecessary items or treats. If my goal is to save money, I should be making it more difficult to spend money…
Conclusion…
Thank you so much for reading and I truly hope that all these ways of savings and budgeting help you lower your grocery budget – they’ve truly changed my life! I’m excited to expand on many of the topics I discussed in this post such as recipes for the from scratch cooking I mentioned and elaborate on our personal budget and yearly spending/savings goals! If you decide to stick around for any of it, thank you! And please leave me a message with your future post suggestions or any questions!