A routine for keeping groceries at or under $300/month for 2 people

I saw a post recently on this topic and wanted to compare notes. Cue the rant and incoming wall of text.

Prices have gone up dramatically in the USA but it's still not THAT expensive to eat, especially if you shop the sales, stick to staples, and are willing to eat mostly the same things all the time.

We don't even eat as cheap as we could because we like mostly 'real food', i.e. ingredients with as few fillers/additives as possible.

Desserts/snacks are also not included because it varies and we don't eat them regularly.

I just made a 'mud pie' (chocolate cookie crust, campfire peanut butter cup Tillamook, whipped cream, Ghiradelli chocolate sauce, and chocolate chips) though with some of the leftover money.

DISCLAIMER: We are mostly vegetarian (we consume some eggs, milk, and cheese, and there are anchovies in our caesar salad dressing). Meat is not included on this list because we eat chicken once per month at most. Some months we skip and just don't feel like it.

Here is a rough list of what we buy and approximate prices:

Breakfast ingredients:

– Coffee, probably our biggest regular splurge. We stock up on it when it's on sale, whenever we can. Varies from $5 per 10 oz (dollar store coffee usually) to $7-8 or higher (Lavazza when on sale). We like our coffee. Still, we probably go through a bag or two a month at most. She drinks 1 cup/day, I drink approximately 2-3 cups/day. I leave the expensive coffee for her and I usually drink the cheap stuff. We do pour-overs so we could probably get it down cheaper if we did drip. She uses milk and sugar, I just use milk.

– Oatmeal, usually $1.25/pound (usually from the dollar store or bulk order online)

– Bananas, 79 cents/pound or cheaper

– Cinnamon in bulk, largest container possible ($9.49 for 7 ounces)

– Honey, largest container possible ($11.99 for 40 ounces)

– Granola ($3.29 for 12 oz)

– Eggs ($2.50 for 12)

– Milk ($3.79/gallon)

If you buy eggs 3 times a month, that's $7.50. Granola once a month, $3.29. Cinnamon and bananas once a month, $21~. Bananas and oatmeal even four times a month, $8.95. That's $40.74 not counting coffee/milk. Four gallons of milk, let's say $16. If you get the most expensive name brand coffee, that puts you up another $15 to $71.74, I think. Let's call it $72 for the hell of it?

Lunch ingredients:

– Bread ($2/pound for whole wheat store brand)

– Peanut butter ($7-8 for the largest container of Teddie brand possible)

– Jam (no high fructose corn syrup, let's just say $7, not sure how many ounces)

Four loaves of bread, peanut butter 2x/month (we use a lot), and jam twice a month, $38. Let's call it $40. We're up to $112.

This leaves $200 for dinners.

"Standard" dinner / misc ingredients:

– Rice (20 pounds for $12) – $12/month

– Beans (15.5 oz can for $1) – 10 cans/month, $10/month

– Chickpeas (15.5 oz can for $1) – 10 cans/month, $10/month

– Lentils (1 pounds for $2) – 5 pounds/month, $10/month

– Pasta and sauce with cheese (88-99 cents for 1 pound store brand pasta, $2 for 28 oz jar of tomato sauce, $3 for a jar of store brand alfredo sauce, $5 for parmesan cheese) – 10 meals/month, maybe $40 max and that's not counting leftover meals. If you can finish a pound of pasta on 2 people in one sitting, then you're eating more than we are.

– Salad (caesar salad, $4 for 3 heads of romaine, $5 for dressing, $5 for shredded parmesan, $1.29 for croutons) – $20 makes about 6 salads with parmesan leftover

– Potatoes have been buy 1 get 1 lately, 10 pounds for $4-6, $10/month

– Broccoli ($1.49-1.99 pound), 1-2 pounds/week, $16/month

– Tomatoes ($2.99 for grape tomatoes, sometimes plum tomatoes if on sale) – $6/month

– Noodles (4 kg for $5) – $5/month

– Flour ($4.49 for 5 pounds) -round it up $5/month

– Shredded cheese ($2.29 for 8 oz of store brand) – $15/month

– Cheese slices (not 'cheese product' — when on sale, $5 for a pound) – $5-10/month

– Parmesan cheese ($5 for 6 oz) – $5/month

– Tortilla chips when on sale (just got 3 bags, 11.50 oz each, for $5 total. Usually one bag is $2.19 here. Regular price for Santitas or whatever is like $3 these days)

– Couple of green peppers ($1.25 each, the wifey likes them for snacking)

– Cucumbers when on sale ($1.29 each)

– Ranch dip ($5)

– Vegetable oil ($3.79)

– Sugar (not included in price, $5/bag?)

– Butter, $4/pound

My wifey hates garlic/onion so you'll notice those aren't on the list. Please note, also, I didn't include cupboard basics like salt/pepper.

Adding everything up above including the estimated FORTY DOLLARS PER MONTH on pasta, I think it comes to $210?

If you can eat EVERYTHING in the above list on two people then God help you. We can't. Our cupboard is constantly full. We don't have to buy cinnamon every month. Etc.

Most meals we make end up in leftovers. When we cook rice, we cook 2 cups at a time (the rice cooker cup, not an actual measuring cup!) which means we have enough rice for 2 days.

Pasta always equals leftovers. And there's no way we spend $40/month on pasta. This is all an estimate. If you include Italian bread ($1.80/loaf), we probably come closer to like $25-30. Which would put us right around the $200 mark for dinners.

Any time there's dinner leftovers, that turns into lunch the next day usually, which gives us some variety from the peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.

Because some of the items are bought in bulk, and we can't eat it all in a month, that means sometimes we are able to get things like: sour cream, salsa verde, salsa, etc. This further increases our variety and prevents us from getting sick of eating the same things.

Instant ramen is not on the list and we're always stocked up on that at 3/$1 or cheaper.

The dollar store has Buldak for $1.50/package right now which is cheaper than the $10 for 5 packages that the grocery store wants. That's $2.50 that can go towards something else like a couple peppers, etc.

Sometimes, we buy mushrooms, snow peas, matchstick carrots, soy sauce, etc., and make our own ramen using instant ramen.

Now, there's not a lot of fruit on the list. Just bananas.

We try to shop fruit that's fresh and on sale. Granny smiths are $1/lb right now. Oranges were just 69 cents/each when I bought them last, and we still have some from a week or two ago. Strawberries were $2.99 for 12 oz at the other store that we shop at less often.

Some people prefer frozen, we like fresh. We live a street over from a grocery store and 20 minutes from another one so we go every few days and try to shop the sales.

We don't buy every ingredient in the amount listed every month. I try to shop cheap and shop sales and stock up with whatever is left over, and then the next month we buy 'splurge ingredients' a little bit, or towards the end of the month with whatever money is left over.

Some sample meals:

Breakfast:

– Oatmeal with banana/cinnamon/honey (I also like oatmeal with banana, cinnamon, and brown sugar)

– "Banana crunch", toasted whole wheat bread with banana, cinnamon, peanut butter, honey, and a sprinkling of granola

– Omelette with broccoli/tomato/shredded cheese

– Some months, usually the hotter ones, we get yogurt/berries, and do yogurt/berries/granola as a "treat" breakfast

Lunches:

– Peanut butter and jelly sandwich

– Salad and potato

– Veggie "bento" (grape tomatoes and cucumbers with ranch, and green peppers)

Dinners:

– Rice and beans (with veggie)

– Rice and lentils (with veggie)

– Rice and chickpeas (with veggie)

– Rice and eggs (with veggie)

– Homemade flatbread (just flour/water/salt/oil) with chickpeas and some kind of sauce (unlisted)

– Nachos

– Pasta

– "Girl dinner"

– Broccoli alfredo

– Red lentil "bolognese" (AKA vegetarian bolognese)

– Stir fry (very basic, broccoli and noodles, add some tofu/chicken)

If you have a few extra bucks, are a creative cook, or can shop sales, then you can easily do "butter chicken chickpea and rice", "tika masala chickpea and rice", "butter chicken potato and chickpea", "tika masala potato", sesame chicken ramen, other stir fries, etc.

We just did 'jamaican jerk chickpea and potato' by just using jamaican jerk seasoning fried in a little oil/butter.

If you like tofu then doing something like a 'sesame ginger tofu with broccoli and white rice' is not hard and very achievable. Tofu is currently one of the least expensive proteins.

As you can see too, we are still "splurging" in some areas like peanut butter/jam/honey. And not all ingredients are listed. We spend about $75/week and almost never go over $290/month.

If you don't care then you can get it down even cheaper and maybe add some extra meat into your budget. We are happy with being mostly vegetarian and all our blood work comes out fine. We do buy some vitamins and that's not included in the $300/month, but we get those on sale using ExtraCare bucks so they're practically free.

If you can throw an extra $50-100 on top of this list, then you're eating real good.

If you want to eat cheaper, cut back on some things and eat the same things every day. Oatmeal and banana for breakfast, rice/protein/veggie twice per day, etc.

If you are comfortable with things the way we are and are capable of shopping sales and cooking from scratch, eating oatmeal 5-6 days/week, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches 5-6 days/week, etc., then you can easily afford to eat occasional 'splurge' meals like french toast with blueberries and real maple syrup, ramen (we just did matchstick carrots, snow peas, mushrooms fried in soy sauce, and soft boiled eggs with chili Top Ramen), or chicken broccoli alfredo (instead of just broccoli alfredo).

For someone like me, breakfast/lunch do become a bit of a chore because I like more variety. For someone like my gf, she is more than happy and doesn't mind eating the same things all the time.

As you can probably imagine, cutting back on coffee, cinnamon, honey, etc., would help us dramatically and we could spend more money on other spices. We rarely buy granola. Yogurt and berries is a bit of a splurge. And so on.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the wall of text. Maybe this maybe helps someone who is looking to push their grocery budget to the limit. I could go on but this post is LONG ENOUGH.

Disclaimer: my girlfriend has a chronic illness and we're concerned about how much some food additives could be harming her condition. This post is a bit US-centric as a result.

TLDR: eat the same things all the time and stick to mostly staples/essentials. Buy a rice cooker. Avoid meat and stick to cheaper proteins.