I feel like if you ask anyone, they would say that they feel like they spend way too much at the grocery store and I’m right in line with those people. It’s amazing how much food costs. I hate it when I come home and look at the groceries that I bought and think I spend how much for all of this. It’s disheartening. But I have found some ways that make me feel not so bad about my grocery bill.
I am not an expert on this topic but here are a few ways that I feel that I lower my grocery tab.
Warning Loooooong Post but it's full of good ideas.
How to Save Money on Groceries
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1. Shopping at Aldi’s - I reached out on Facebook and I got some good advice from some other moms and started shopping at Aldi’s and man, this was game changer for my grocery shopping. I make my grocery list and just go through the aisles trying to match up as much stuff as possible. The eggs there are about 70 cents, 70 CENTS!!! that’s almost a dollar less than at Meijer. I also find good savings on mac n cheese and canned beans, fruits and veggies. They also have a good deal on their salad mixes, I always feel like this are overpriced at the regular grocery store. Wes likes to take the Cesaer Salad mix to work and I can grab those for about $1.49, thats almost $2.00 less than the big box stores. The other thing that I really enjoy about Aldi’s is that when I’m done shopping, I feel like I got a good amount of food for the price.
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| This was on Monday before I got him all dressed up and put in the oven. |
2. Whole Chickens - One way that I found out that I can stretch my grocery budget is buy making meals do double duty and one of my favorite ways to do this is with a whole chicken. You can buy this for about $1/ lb and you can easily get a couple of meals out of them. I bought about a 5 lb chicken for around $6. 5 lbs of chicken breasts would have costed me at least $10. I bought it at meijer instead of Aldi’s and paid 14 cents more per pound. Later this week, I will show a couple of recipes for this whole chicken. I roasted a chicken last night and after Wes and I eating dinner (James isnt’ a big fan of chicken yet) we still had over 1.5 lbs left. Thats enough for 1 if not 2 more meals.
3. Buying only what you’ll really eat - As simple as this sounds, this one is a hard one for me. I know that I should eat more fruits and veggies, so I buy them, don’t eat them and they go bad. That’s just wasting food and money. So when my budget is really tight, I buy things that I know, 100%, I will eat this week. So even though everything magazine and TV show is telling you that you should eat kale, carrots and a salad everyday, if you know, deep down, that you wont eat it, don’t buy it.
4. Shop the front page - I heard about this trick a couple of years ago, when you look at the ads from the store, always shop the front page. The stores put the best deals on the front page to pull you in, they barely make any money on those items and thats where you will save some money. Another good idea that i’ve heard about, if use those front pages to help you pick out which fruits and veggies you should buy this week. Buying V & F when they are not on sale can really bust your budget.
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| This was my shopping list last week, it was a slim budget week |
5. Go with a shopping list - Again, the same advice but there is a reason why it works. Not only does shopping with a list save you money, it also saves you time. The times that I have gone sans list, those trips are super long and i’m running around the store trying to get that one piece of the meal that I forget or decided to add and the less time you spend at the store, the less money you spend. I’m not the best at sticking with my list 100%, I alway seem something or remember something that I forgot to put on it. Or even worse I get sucked in by a sale item and decide that I need it right now.
6. Meal plan and leftovers - Like the shopping list, this idea as been around for awhile but if you are struggling with your grocery budget, give it a try. You can do it as extreme or as simple as you want. My sister, I think she still does this, schedules out every meal breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. I on the other hand, schedule out dinner and just wing the rest of it. Usually for lunch, I have either leftovers or the same lunch all week long. Which one I usually end up doing all depends on Wes’ schedule that week. On day that he’s on shift, he usually take the left overs from the next before and eats them but when he has a big break in the middle of the week, I eat leftovers because he doesn’t take a lunch to the shop with him. If he works a lot of days during the week, I’ll make myself a special dinner and leftovers for dinner. Doing this helps us save money and I don’t have to cook all the time, so it’s a win win.
7. Reuse meals - Some weeks my meal planning doesn’t always go as planned and we either eat out, grab pizza or do something else for dinner and I’m left with a meal that I had already bought items for but haven’t used. I’m not the best at this but why not put in your next week meal plan, it was good enough for last week. It’s almost a free meal for that week because you have already bought it. In the same idea, every couple of months, why don’t forgo the shopping all together, except for essentials - milk, eggs, produce and live of your pantry and freezer for the week. That can easily save you $50 every week you do this.
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| How tempting does this coupon look |
8. Use coupons wisely - Everyone loves a good coupon right? A grocery store recently opened up here and they were spending out a $20 off a $100 purchase and man I was so excited. $100 is my normal grocery budget and to get my normal amount of groceries for $80, I was one the moon. I say that I got about 6 of these coupons and then they stopped but by that time I was already into the store and kept shopping there and my grocery bill grower larger and larger. But thats when I reached out and found Aldi’s and I haven’t been back since. The coupons were amazing while they lasted but I need to find something else.
I feel like we get stuck in this idea that all coupons are good even if it requires us to buy more or items that we wouldn’t normally use. $5 off a freezer sweeper, thats a good deal but I already have one. So I’m not really saving there. My advice on coupons is to make your shopping list and then find coupons that match it, not the other way around.
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| Pioneer Woman Picture and Recipe - delicious |
9. Homemade - Another way to lower your grocery budget to try to make as much stuff homemade as you could but also be wise to know when it would cost more. Snack bars are one of the things that doesn’t cost too much to make at home but can really add to your grocery budget. There are plenty of recipes online but I like the pioneer woman one, I a lot of the ingredients are items you probably already have at home, if not, you can always customize them to the stuff you do have and it makes a lot in one batch.
Like I mentioned above the biggest thing with homemade it to know when you are saving money or when it’s costing you more. I got a bread machine for christmas and this thing is great, I’ve made bread (of course), pizza dough and pretzels with this thing. But right now, making homemade bread and pizza dough costs more than it would to just buy it at the store. I can buy a frozen pizza on sale for $4, it would cost me more than double to buy all the things to make it at home. Making pizza and bread at home is healthier and does taste better but for the purpose it’s serving right now, cost wins out.
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| This is not my current garden by a long shot, had to go back to 2013 to get this picture |
10. Grow a garden - What to have access to pretty much free vegetables all year long, grow a garden. I haven’t started on my garden yet and we didn’t grow one last year (I didn’t have a lot of free time last year in the summer with a newborn on all and I’m pretty sensitive to plants so I can’t go in and get to the weeds without breaking out so I have to wait for Wes to clear it out). You can also can your fruits on your labor and enjoy them all year long.
Those are the tips that I have for saving on the grocery bill. I hope these will help you with your grocery shopping and make you feel like you are getting your money’s worth.
What do you do to keep your grocery bill manageable?
Do you find yourself spending more in the winter or the summer?
- Megan
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