Hello! I am embarrassingly new to even having a budget. I figured starting with groceries/food was a good place to start. I was wondering if anyone had any beginner tips, like maybe something that seems obvious to people who have been living the frugal life for a while. Every time I try looking up inexpensive recipes they tend to contain more processed food than I would like to use, or huge amounts of cream cheese where it doesn’t belong, sour cream, or mayo. My family doesn’t really like any of those things and I generally try to have us eat healthy as my husband is diabetic and had open heart surgery a few months ago. We have 2 kids who are 10 and 5. My husband works from home and I’m a SAHM so I could do a lot of cooking/preparing.
Long story short, I guess I’m looking for any ways to cut grocery bills without relying heavily on processed foods.
Again, I’m brand new to this so please go easy on me if I’ve said something that was incorrect.
Help for a beginner! Simple/obvious tips for cutting grocery bills needed
byu/Odd-Amount-5127 inFrugal
Posted by Odd-Amount-5127
30 Comments
The most obvious (to me) and most fruitful tip I can think of is to meal plan. Decide the recipes you will make for the whole week on Sunday, make a list of what you need to make them, cross off what you already have, and then go out and buy the rest. Just making a plan and sticking to it, and only buying what you need, can help avoid of ton of food, and therefore money, from going to waste
Look up budget bytes. You might also look for dairy free recipes. I’m lactose intolerant so I do a lot of subbing.
Another easy way to cut back is by looking at the grocery store ads and planning your meals around that rather than just what sounds good.
I’ve been making different variations of rice and chicken or rice and beans, cooking in bulk, then freezing individual portions.
Rice and legumes are your best friends.
Healthy budget recipes can produce some nice results without all the process food.
Potatoes, pasta, rice, and dried beans/lentils are all relatively inexpensive and good for a base. Buy in bulk if you can, but definitely shop what’s on sale.
Rather than planning a meal and then buying those ingredients, buy stuff on sale and go from there.
Simple seasonings can go a long way. Salt, pepper, paprika, onion& garlic powder. If there’s any ethnic groceries around you they often have spices for way cheaper than the regular grocery store.
Roast your veggies for more flavor.
Meat is expensive— if your family will eat alternative proteins, start there. If you’re not ready to totally sub, do in part. For a recipe that calls for a pound of ground beef, I used to do a half pound plus a bunch of finely chopped mushrooms and onions and you can only tell if you know it’s there.
For me personally, food would be the last thing I would want to consider saving money on, especially if I had young children or family members with health conditions. A better approach could be to list all of your out goings — in categories, of course, and then find the largest one that you could save on it, and start from there.
Another option would be by saving on obvious non-essentials e.g. most subscriptions.
Chicken, beans, legumes, tofu, and canned fish like tuna or salmon, are relatively inexpensive and high in protein.
Add some potatoes, rice, canned and frozen fruits and vegetables plus some stock or broth and you will have the basics for a lot of decent, healthy, and inexpensive meals.
The SuperCook app allows you to enter ingredients that you have on hand and it will create a recipe for you.
Budgetbytes.com is a very good resource of low cost meals.
Look in to food stamps. There’s always a chance you qualify and if you do then that reduces your grocery bill. I was in college on financial aid and I got six months worth of food stamp assistance.
Go with a shopping list and stick to it. I allow myself one off-list food purchase a week. This was we can try new stuff and stick to a budget.
inexpensive foods to buy:
dry legumes
carrots
potatoes
onions, canned beets and corn
cabbage (usually)
frozen veggies
seasonal sales
apples and oranges
applesauce (great egg subsitute for baking)
canned diced tomatoes
chicken drumsticks r quarters not the breats (also look in frozen)
tofu and TVP
recipes:
cabbage stew
bean stew
lentil soup
dhal
split pea soup
okinomiyaki
vichy carrots
risotto
polenta
minestrone and all sorts of veggie soups
aloo gobi
dauphinois gratin
beet soup
chicken briyani
potato salad : beet potatoes corn ,peas and use vinaigrette (it’s so easy to make) or rice or pasta salad
lentil salad
roasted chicken and root veggies
also
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Thrifty/comments/1lk6ghu/how_to_reduce_your_grocery_bill/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Thrifty/comments/1lk6ghu/how_to_reduce_your_grocery_bill/)
Can’t believe no one has said this yet: shop from the weekly supermarket sales ads.
Plan your meals around whatever is on sale that week. And if you find a super good deal, like a closeout or approaching the sell-by date, stock your freezer.
I’d start with a blank sheet of paper and cleaning out your existing pantry and fridge. Take everything out one space at a time, toss bad food and write down what you have on hand. I always add quantity too, so refried beans x2 cans or chicken breasts x4.
THEN meal plan for the next week with filling in minimal ingredients. For example, burritos for dinner with beans, rice, meat and cheese, maybe buy a pepper or onion if you like it. The goal is to use the existing ingredients, not buy all those ingredients for burritos.
Cleaning out your current food and making sure it doesn’t go bad is step 1, then you could come up with proven recipes your family loves and make a meal plan.
I wouldn’t worry about price comparison and stocking up on sales yet – clear out existing food and see how much you can eat without big grocery shops.
If you have an Aldi near by the grocery prices are substantially cheaper and much healthier as it’s a European grocery store. I second using Budget Bytes website they have great recipes and show the price of each meal.
Plan your meals around the proteins that are on sale that week.
The grocery store flyers and sales determine my menu for the week. I am on a low sodium, heart healthy diet, and it is relatively easy to find recipes utilizing the items on sale. Just google search “low sodium recipes for _______ (insert your protein).”
I do not eat processed foods due to the sodium content, so my diet is largely whole foods- lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low fat dairy. Even with buying healthy ingredients, my food costs have dropped significantly.
Obviously, the lack of salt takes some getting used to, but, once your taste buds have adapted, you can start to enjoy some really good food with the right seasonings. I love casseroles, which are good for feeding families, and have had great luck trying low sodium casserole recipes.
Ground chicken and turkey in place of any recipe calling for ground beef is a healthy and economical hack. I eat tons of it.
Keep your receipts for a month to see where you shop and how much you spend. Then decide how much you want to spend. Reduce your spending 10% the next month if you think you’re spending too much.
Start with what you eat and try to get that food for less. Then think about cutting back then making substitutions.
For example, I do most of my shopping at Aldi because they have good prices overall. The local leading supermarket has sales all the time on produce, etc so I’ll go there and cherry pick items with the best prices.
Then you should stock up on sale items. My husband likes tuna and it costs about $1 a can. At Aldi it’s like 89 cents. Recently, it was on sale for 67 cents a can so I bought 10 cans. That’s a big difference, it’s shelf stable so it won’t go bad.
Buying drinks like soda is expensive so I’m cutting back on that. Usually my husband likes to get a bunch of 12 packs of coke. For my daughter’s birthday, I got some 2 liters on sale instead.
Now I’m using my calculator at the grocery store to see if the unit price on string cheese is better at Aldi or Costco (better at Costco fyi). So my grocery shopping still defaults to Aldi but I try to get certain things at Costco instead.
Another thing you can do is make substitutions. Cabbage is cheaper than broccoli but with a similar nutritional profile. Instead of sautéed kale and lemon, I switched to sautéed spinach and lime. Much cheaper but still nutritious.
I hope that helps.
Don’t forget to shop bulk & ethnic grocery stores. e.g. a big bag of rice at Costco or an Asian food store can be much cheaper than small bags at the regular grocery. Certain spices are cheaper at ethnic stores as well, if that spice is used a lot in the cuisine.
It’s useful to look at your current rotation of foods that your family eats and see what’s costing the most money before you start.
* is it that food goes to waste because you don’t use it before it expires/goes bad?
* is it meat that is expensive, and you need ways of stretching it?
* at 10 and 5, are your kids drinking a lot of calories? (milk / juice) where water would be healthier and cheaper?
* are you short on freezer space due to being in an apartment with a small freezer, or do you have or have room for a chest freezer that would allow for buying in bulk on sale / batch cooking?
–etc
Can you cut out meat and coffee? I have to spend so much on those two things alone.
Get good at making something easy, quick, that you won’t get bored of. Choose ANYTHING. Like a soup or a casserole. Preferably something made with inexpensive ingredients already (so no beef). Bonus points if it makes good lunch leftovers.
Make that thing basically once a week. One of the shelf stable ingredients goes on sale? Buy a bunch. If it uses half of an onion or something else, generally the other half will survive until the next time you make it.
> I’m brand new to this
Have to ask, do you have cookware/tupperware etc to plan and cook frugally? Just asking in case you are not or are aware of.
Many condiments are easy to make(mayo, ketchup, mustard) and not always ‘cheaper’ but you will know what is involved with your food moving forward.
Only buy what you ACTUALLY like eating for all your meals, and ONLY buy things when you need them. No need to buy multiple of things all at one go. You can buy more a couple of days before you run out. No need to fill your home with extras.
I started doing this. It simplies my life, reduces grocery visits (or Uber deliveries), saves time and money. Not to mention my kitchen is more organized than ever. I only have the things I actually like eating or the ingredients I actually use to make the things I eating. Quality vs quantity, nothing sitting in the cupboards, fridge, or freezer for ages, and I am not spending as much money every week/month grocery shopping.
I once had a friend send me a recipe and included in the information she sent was a sum of the cost of ingredients divided by the number of servings to get a cost per serving. I thought this was clever and might be a worthwhile calculation to do for someone cooking for a family.
Avoid buying special ingredients for one recipe, I ended up with items that were seldom used, eventually tossed
Shop with a list. Do not deviate from the list. Buy store brands. Read the weekly circulars. Stick to the list.
I’m going to tell you the opposite of meal planning before shopping, because it’s what works for me. I get ingredients first, on sale, then plan around what I found.
In my area, we have a discount store called Grocery Outlet. I highly recommend it if they’re where you are!
I look for what’s super cheap. It’s getting harder with groceries getting more expensive, but deals are still out there.
I plan around the weekly sales through the apps for my areas stores. I try to keep my pantry well stocked from sales so that I have the right ingredients in advance of a particular meat or vegetable going on sale. Like I always have the shelf stable ingredients for pozole so if there’s a coupon for pork shoulder or if I find one discounted, I just grab some cabbage, cilantro, radish, and lime and I’m ready to make a huge pot of pozole.
I also use a lot of the cheap filler items to stretch my dollar. Potatoes, carrots, dry beans, and rice are all very cheap, filling, and healthy (except for the rice depending on what kind you use) and they also are really good at absorbing the flavors of the dish. I stretch ground beef by more than double by adding a ton of shredded carrots. It actually improves the flavor and most people wouldn’t even notice that there’s carrots in it. This doesn’t really work for burgers though.
Also, if you have a Grocery Outlet near you, that place is great for stocking up on pantry items and general groceries. Wine too!
Cook for multiple days, put some sauce in the freezer and switch meals up with potato, rice, bread, extra eggs etc.
For fresh fruits and veggies it is cheaper to buy frozen (in bulk) here, not sure if thats true for you but its worth it to check.
Also, for drinks; we make occasional smoothies and drink lemonade and water. Never soda or juices.
Good luck with saving! Its so fun once you get the hang of it.
My idea is for seasoned cooks, I’m afraid. Instead of going to the store with a meal plan, make the meal plan as you shop FOR THINGS ON SALE. Start with meat, look for stuff on sale. THEN decide your meal plan and what you’re having.
If you must, buy your meat, only meat, and then go home and see what you can make with it online? or do this in the store?
I shop two places….one is a small store, but within a large chain. (So I shop at a small Kroger). They are always redoing their shelves, dropping one thing to put in another, so you can buy a lot of stuff on sale, but you can’t really plan for it. I zig zag through the store as I figure out the meal plan, because I might have to go back and get something from produce or the deli counter to make the dish. My other store is Aldi, and I know exactly which store has the better cherry tomatoes and bread and which has the cheapest milk and whipped cream, but I do not know who will have the sale prices!
My favorite tip sounds really expensive, but it’s free and has been awesome for me and my family.
I order pick up groceries from the grocery store app. I can look at what I’m low on at home while shopping online, so I only get what I need. While I’m shopping in the app, my store will tell me if they have digital coupons available, and let me “clip” them. I place the order in the morning and pick up after work on my way home.
Secondly, I agree about meal planning. Real Simple used to do a weekly plan that gave a recipe list for the week and had overlapping ingredients but different flavors so you didn’t feel like you just ate the same things all week.
Someone posted here about making chicken and rice and using those ingredients for the week, and that is really easy. I also buy ground chicken (because my family doesn’t like ground beef, and it’s also a little healthier), and I brown up a bunch and make little containers to use in my crockpot or in a thrown together dish that just needs a little protein. For us, we had to get better learning different sauces to make to make the dishes feel exciting, and that’s where it can be easy to lean into processed foods.
Good luck!
Register for every rewards program you can get and learn to use the system to your benefit. This includes grocery stores and pharmacies. And don’t hesitate to shop the pharmacy for food.
Shop in salvage stores too. The money you save on non food items can be applied toward your food budget. And you might just find food there.
Right now it’s about a week before the first of the month i.e. payday. I’m waiting until then to buy several things. It’s only a few days. They’re not urgent. And it won’t count on this month’s budget.
I order dried foods from [bulkfoods.com](http://bulkfoods.com) which has good prices on a lot of things. I particularly recommend the TVP (texturized vegetable protein). I have started either completely substituting it for ground beef or ground pork, or cutting the meat in half and adding the protein. It is very high in quality protein and very low fat and carb content. It has no flavor of its own, so it’s good in anything that has a flavorful sauce. I have used it in lasagna, spaghetti sauce, meatballs, meatloaf, tacos, enchiladas, stuffed peppers, shepherd’s pie, chili, cheeseburger macaroni, goulash, keema, bulgogi bowls. You name it. It is very inexpensive per serving and my family really doesn’t mind it at all. They also have dehydrated vegetables that are great starters for soups, and tons of other stuff in bulk that is much less expensive than at the grocery store.
You can buy some TVP at the grocery store to give it a try, but it is too expensive there to really save you a lot of money. But if you try it and like it, then you can go buy it in bulk. It lasts, well, forever. I’ve never had it go bad or get infested or anything like that.