There’s about a zillion lists of how to save money on food, because hi, food is hella expensive and not at all optional.
You gotta eat, pals, no matter how frugal or On A Budget you are, but that doesn’t mean you need to eat the fanciest, most expensive food, all the h*ckin’ time.
And I should know, because for a while, that was totally me. I was the person who spent $40 on meat to put in a stew.
A stew.
Literally, I took the meal that is renowned for being a cheap way to deliciously cook frugal af cuts of meat (I know this now) and bought probably the most premium meat I’ve ever purchased to put in it.
Thanks, the New York Times Cooking emails. (They’re great emails, to be honest, but they will not always be great for your wallet.)
Needless to say, no one would have been surprised to see our $800-for-two-people food budget a few years ago, especially since cooking was one of my favourite weekend activities. It still is, but it turns out, with a few tweaks you can enjoy cooking and simultaneously not spend $400 per person to satisfy a basic need.
So while this isn’t going to be a list of every thing you could do to cut down on your food budget – because that would be too long, and include really formulaic, boring advice that I’ve never personally tried – it is a list of everything I-slash-we actually did to get our food budget down to a much more reasonable $600 a month.
And spoiler alert, some of these haven’t even taken full effect yet, so it might go down to – I get goosebumps just saying this – $500 a month for two people.
Guys, an extra $100 in our budget! That is Big News around these parts. And it’s 20 extra lattes, give or take, and pumpkin spice season is almost upon us.
Literally Just Find New Recipes
There was a good solid two years where I thought, no joke, I was going to be the next Martha Stewart. I got the magazine, I bought the craft supplies, and my god did I ever go hard with the recipes.
Oh, this one needs seventeen ingredients, none of which we have in the house and all of which we never use? (See: we didn’t even have them in the house. I’d never heard of some of them. I still have an untouched thing of wasabi powder in my cupboard.) To the store!
Did I have a plan for how to use up the leftovers? Or how those ingredients would work in other things I wanted to cook?
You know the answer is no.
This is a deeply bad example, and you should aim to do the exact opposite. When you buy any individual thing – wasabi powder or a loaf of bread or anything in between – you should have a good idea of how and when you’re going to use the rest of it.
Plus, it helps if the recipes you choose in the first place don’t tick all of the following boxes.
- More than ten ingredients.
- At least one very costly ingredient.
- At least one ingredient you’ve never heard of.
- At least one ingredient you need to go out of your way to find.
So think a little less elaborate Martha Stewart cake, and a little more delicious and simple Minimalist Baker. Or a little less New York Times fancy-pants stew with $40 cuts of meat, and more Budget Bytes.
Seriously, you can make some hella delicious food without making it an all-day, dozens-of-dollars affair. If you’re looking to cut back your food budget, get yourself some frugal recipes that you actually like. (Other good options: anything with the word “crockpot” in it, anything from this book, anything vegetarian or vegan, and anything that you can freeze for later.)
Shop More Efficiently
I’m not about to tell you to become a hardcore couponer and travel halfway across town to get a good deal unless you’re already about that life. That said, there are ways you can add a bit of ruthless efficiency to your grocery-shopping game.
Check out your local options.
Yes, that one grocery store is a two minute walk from your house, which is lovely. But while I’m not going to tell you to trek across town to save two dollars, I am going to tell you that it’s worth at least shopping around to the options that are within a reasonable distance of your place.
What’s “reasonable”? Well, if you’re walking, it’s a much smaller radius, but it really all comes down to you and your routines – and how badly you want to find some savings.
And pro tip: Before you go scope out your other local stores, make sure you know how much your grocery staples run you at your usual store.
Anyone having a moment of horror that you don’t actually know any of them? Like how much an apple or a package of salad greens costs? Yeah. Me too, for most of my life.
Get thee a Costco membership, maybe.
Costco’s not for everyone, and I get that. If you live downtown and you don’t have a car, skip right on over this section. But if you routinely buy things like meat, cheese, dog food, pharmacy items, glasses, or just things in bulk, Costco might be worth the crowds and the cost of the membership.
Use Flipp, it’s so flippin’ easy.
I don’t have a cool hour to spend flipping through the stack of coupons and flyers that come with our community newspaper. I do have 60 seconds to search to see if something I’m going to buy anyways is on sale, and that’s what Flipp is great for. It amalgamates all of your local flyers and deals, so you can search for great scores on pretty much anything that gets advertised in a flyer.
Are you going to go out of your way to save $0.10 on bananas? Man I hope not. Value your time more.
Could you make a special trip if you’re cooking for ten and there’s a great deal on your main protein? Yeah, you definitely could. (I do this every time I make my famous dinner-party ribs, and no one has yet told me they taste like they were on sale.)
Yes, You Need a Meal Plan – And a List
On Monday this week – literally two days before I was set to publish an article on saving money on food – my grocery list and my kind-of-impromptu meal plan saved me from overbuying groceries.
Yeah, this still happens. And yeah, shopping lists and meal plans really are that magical.
It doesn’t have to be complicated, either. When you hear “meal plan”, your mind might go straight to Instagrams of hardcore meal preppers with muscles in places there maybe shouldn’t be muscles, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s literally just knowing what you’re going to eat, and when, and how much.
If that’s “I’m going to eat a whole bag of chips for dinner and catch up on Big Brother because I’m an adult and this is one of the perks of adulthood,” that’s fine. All you need to know is that no, you won’t need to make an extra mason jar salad for that night.
Balance, you guys. It’s all about balance.
Once you’ve got a plan in place, no matter how rough, you’ll be able to make a grocery list that accounts for how much food you actually need – and you’ll be able to cross things off the list that you know you won’t end up eating in time. (It goes without saying that you should know what food you already have in the house, right? Perfect.)
See? You’re already saving money and spending less. Look at you go.
Cut Back on Expensive Things (Like Meat)
Before we all get in a big internet fight about how dare I suggest giving up insert-expensive-thing-here, let’s take a breath.
You don’t have to give up anything you don’t want to give up. Team Latte until the day I die.
But…
A case could be made for cutting back, sometimes, on the expensive things you like to eat on a regular basis. It’s probably one of the biggest ways you’ll be able to find reliable savings in your food budget, and since that’s why we’re here, it’s something you’re going to have to reckon with.
You’re probably trying to shave down how much you spend on food to find more money for other things that are important to you, like paying down your debt, saving for a trip, starting your own business or a zillion other fun things you can do with money.
Spending money on that expensive thing you like to eat is great. Trust me, I know.
But so is being able to take that vacation, or retire someday, or being able to afford a dog.
To figure out a balance that works for you, I’ve got a super-simple first step.
Just start by actually reading your grocery receipts.
You don’t even have to start tracking your spending (yet, that is) but when you walk out of the grocery store with a $50 receipt or a $100 receipt, you should understand the breakdown of what each item costs.
For example, I was pleasantly surprised to see that a block of tofu I bought recently came in at under $2.00. And I am constantly horrified that we spend anywhere between $8 and $10 a week on apples, but it’s an informed $8 to $10, because when I try to buy the cheaper apples, someone accuses me of trying to poison him with substandard apples.
If you know how much your food items cost, then you’re in a good place to determine which ones are worth it, and which ones you could handle scaling back on a bit to find some extra savings.
Like if I really cared to get our apple budget down, I could stop eating them too, because they’re a take-it-or-leave-it snack for me. And for both health and budget reasons, I’m choosing to eat less meat, and our Costco bill is significantly smaller with meat for only one person on it.
What else can I do to save money on food?
I’ve left out a lot of other great options, in the interest of space and the interest of not reiterating every other standard save-money-on-food article on the internet. That said, those lists are out there, and they are worth reading! But for now, if you do these four things in a way that makes sense for you, you should be able to find at least $100 in monthly savings on your grocery bills.
- Find new, cheaper recipes
- Shop more efficiently
- Make a meal plan and a shopping list
- Cut back on particularly expensive things
Oh, and pack your lunch for work. There, now you’re all set.
Great post Desirae just wanted to say I use Flipp all the time and love it.
Thanks Matthew! It’s such a great app, I love it.
I cannot tell you how much I wish we had a Costco close enough to us to make a membership worth it. We use SO MUCH coconut oil and hot sauce alone that a membership would save us so much money. For now, we’ll keep taking advantage of our parents’ memberships when we visit!
Oh man, the COCONUT OIL! Aka my favourite moisturizer, lol. And honestly, knowing our patterns, I think I could reasonably – if I felt like it – stock up for a solid six months on non-perishables there and be pretty dang accurate. (But that’s only because I live in a suburban monstrosity with ample storage, lol!)
Minimalist Baker has some of my favourite recipes! It made the transition from being a meat eater and coming up with creative recipes that don’t have a ton of ingredients much easier. There are so many great food bloggers!
Another app I use is Paprika. It stores all my online recipes and let’s me create a meal plan and grocery list from those saved recipes. I think I paid about $7 for it but it’s been totally worth it! Being able to just add my frequently made recipes to a weekly plan and click a button to add all the ingredients to a grocery list is so easy!
Ooooooh I’m going to have to look into that, it sounds amazing! Thanks so much for the suggestion Erin (and omg, I know re: Minimalist Baker! So good!)
I recommend Leanne Brown’s book, Good and Cheap, to every single person who wants to eat well on a budget. You can buy the book or download a free pdf copy from her website. It’s full of tips, good food.
Oh that’s awesome Meghan – I haven’t heard of it but I’m going to check it out now, thank you!
Loved this post!
Thanks so much Kristen!
Great post as always! I’d also throw in Bulk Barn for those one-off recipes that call for things like wasabi powder etc to be able to buy only what you need and not have waste. Another – sometimes realistic – idea is to make some things, for example chicken fingers, from scratch rather than boxed. Or is minute rice really worth the extra price?
That’s just some advice I use and/or pass on to my starving college student son 🙂
Ahhh that’s such great advice Kerry, and I totally agree! Especially for spices, Bulk Barn is so amazing – although I have to say, homemade chicken fingers sounds beyond me, lol. (But hey, if you’re making them, give me a call! They sound great, haha.)
And as someone who has always taken longer than a minute to boil rice, YES OMG A THOUSAND TIMES YES. I’m the biggest fan of rice as a food, and it’s SO CHEAP when you buy the big bags and take the time to cook them… plus it just tastes better.
PUMPKIN SPICE SEASON.
I mean, I totally read all of the important advice and didn’t just focus on the most expensive part.
I can’t wait to revel in our shared basic tastes in Dallas, where it will probably be far too hot to drink pumpkin anything.
FINCON!
Great post, meat is so so expensive jeez! I recently started exploring other stores close to my house and I’ve managed to save up some money on some food stuff.
In the past, I’d buy vegetables and fruits in bulk but I noticed that by the end of the week I’d have to throw them out because we don’t eat it all up most times. So I reduced that as well.
It’s safe to say, another way to save money on grocery is to ensure that you don’t have to dump them in the trash eventually. Thanks for sharing!
http://www.zinnyfactor.com
That’s the trickiest part with bulk perishables! I find it’s so tough to estimate, especially in terms of salad greens – if I make one or two fewer salads than I think, they get gross before I can eat them all. The struggle is real!
I find one of the ways I save is substituting in recipes. Often times the super specific expensive ingredients are nicer but substitutes might be easier and cheaper (already in your cupboard or fridge).
Yessss! Also an awesome way to do it – and honestly, that one stew recipe probably would have been amazing with just about any cut of meat, lmao. I probably should have known better and not tried to do it “right”. Like who am I showing off for? The NYT? They can’t see me.
Des, you alluded to it but might mention directly how much food goes to waste in a typical North American home.
There have been several studies showing it can be as high as 20%. The meal plan should prevent that waste but plans change so be prepared.
Definitely – awesome addition, Rorry! Even with households as leftover friendly as ours are, it’s important to make sure that you *can* actually eat it all before it goes bad.
Luckily I’ve got a great teammate in making sure nothing goes uneaten these days, haha.
I used to have a Sam’s Club membership during college (similar to Costco) and I loved it. I bought a few things in bulk and was able to save money on things I regularly got.
Also, Google “Buzzfeed 7-day meal plan”. They have an awesome post that breaks down how to do a week long meal plan without being overwhelmed. They even give you the grocery list, simple recipes, and what to eat on the different days. It’s great!
Man, Buzzfeed to the rescue! What did we ever do before them, lol. That’s so cool – definitely going to check it out!
too much food talk
too much time prepping food
too much cooking food
too much time buying food
too much time looking for deals on food
just want to open fridge and eat OR let somebody else do IT! cook–prep -buy -look for deals–just feed me.
Dear Desirae,
Another reason to check your receipt is that if your Canadian retailer abides by the “Scanner Price Accuracy Code” (https://www.retailcouncil.org/scanner-accuracy) and something scans wrong (higher) than the item could be yours for FREE (check for exact details)! Most of the major grocery stores abide by it. It doesn’t happen too often but I end up with a few free items each year. Free is my kind of price.
Besos Sarah.
I second the suggestion for Leanne Brown’s book GOOD & CHEAP. It is available free in PDF version and it was written with the $4/day food stamp budget in mind. Lots of color pictures and tons of variations! I just made the lentil/ground meat burgers the other night.
My own recommendation for saving on food is to stretch your meat. So after you’ve eaten that whole chicken, throw it in a pot with water, make some stock, pull off any extra meat and add it to the broth then throw it in your Vitamix with black beans, brown rice, cooked carrots, celery, onions and garlic and some salt, taco spice and oregano and voila! Black bean soup! Yummmm! (great for using leftover rice!)
Meal planning is huge. When we started meal planning we saw a huge change in our grocery spending. Better thought out meals. Less expensive meals. Less waste.
Our favorite inexpensive meals are all vegetarian. Lentil taco salad (with home made taco seasoning, its super easy). Black bean burgers (found an amazing recipe we love, we made big batches and put them in the freezer). And lastly black bean burrito wraps with franks red hot sauce and strong cheddar cheese. We probably have one or two of these each week.
These tips are spot on! Also, I often go down the YouTube rabbit hole and find videos like this for meal planning & cheap eats inspiration (ain’t no shame) https://youtu.be/U77t2N8_jJ0
Don’t forget batch cooking! When I was batch cooking religiously, it saved me tons of cash on my food budget. I’d cook one day a week (Sundays) and make 3-4 different large meals (a pot of curry, a pasta dish, roasted chicken to put in salads) then eat those throughout the week.
Keeps me from justifying takeout on weeknights because I’m too tired to cook, and also curbs food waste. You just can’t mind eating the same thing a couple of times in a week. 😉