I’ve written a little before about how we save money on groceries by my quasi-meal planning (we typically spend around $350-450 for a vegetarian family of 4 living in Massachusetts), but I wanted to share a few more ways we save on groceries.
1. Use what we have on hand in our fridge, pantry, and freezer. The simplest way to save money is by not wasting the food we buy. I’ve become quite proud of my Chopped-level skills at making an awesome meal out of an “empty” fridge. When planning food for the week, I take a look at what I have first, then supplement with a few items from the grocery store. Although I love to cook, I don’t like to have to buy a lot of specialty items for recipes. Plus, when I buy those specialty items, whatever isn’t used by the recipe tends to go bad since I’m not used to cooking with it.
2. Pay attention to prices. Prices vary a lot from store to store, so if I just assumed that the cheap grocery store had the best prices, I would be wrong. For example, I know that Target has cheaper soy milk than they do, so I’ll pick up a carton while I’m there. Likewise, if I just grab the first bag of frozen peas I see at the cheap grocery store, I might grab the 1-lb bag for $1.88, but right next to it is a 3-lb bag for $2.50. By just starting to notice how much things we buy usually cost (per ounce, pound, etc), I have saved a lot of money.
3. Where you shop matters. I shop at cheap, no-frills grocery stores. They are less fancy and pretty, but they are cheaper. I do care about fair trade (particularly coffee and sugar since we use a lot of both) and local (possible mostly in the summer months), but for the rest of my grocery list I usually head to a discount grocery store (like Marc’s or Aldi). Trader Joe’s is also a staple, it’s just farther away (sadly!). I find that these stores and their off-brands have cheaper prices than if I have a coupon – so I save my time and just shop there.
4. Check out CSAs, farmers markets, or other local food options. You might think that locally produced food is super expensive because it’s something yuppies are into. And you would sometimes be right. But we have found that our CSA saves us a ton of money and gets us eating awesome, healthy food in the summer. We belong to this one, which also gives us locally produced cheeses, eggs, pasta, and other goodies in addition to fruits and vegetables. Plus, sometimes you can find ‘free range’ chicken eggs from some farmer on the side of the road for $2 a dozen. Pretty awesome if you’re used buying humanely raised eggs from the grocery store.
5. Frozen vegetables and dried beans are my BFFs. Not only do they make meals healthier, they are ridiculously cheap. I throw frozen vegetables in just about everything – from eggs to potpie to smoothies. It cuts down on prep time because they are already cut, washed, and ready to be used. In the non-CSA months, I buy almost all frozen vegetables (except potatoes, lettuce, and carrots). Dried beans require a little more time than canned beans, but it’s not actually much work if I cook a bunch and keep them in my fridge to use during the week.
6. Have staples – both in groceries I buy regularly and meals I cook regularly. This requires less thinking and less planning, so I’ll be more likely to actually cook. It also ensures I usually have at least some ingredients on hand for one of our staple meals. (Here’s our grocery list of grocery staples. My meal staples are in this post).
If you’re looking to save on your grocery budget, you don’t have to be as frugal as us. Maybe you love to try new recipes daily, maybe you feel like name brand food is worth coupon-clipping for, maybe you love shopping at Whole Foods more than anything – but even by just paying attention to prices and cooking with what you have, you’ll probably save a little money.
We joined a CSA this year and I’m really excited for it! On another food-related note, thank you for your Asheville recs, Tupelo Honey Cafe and French Broad Chocolate were amazing! I can’t wait to go back to Asheville.
Have you read “An Everlasting Meal?” She talks a lot about how to use up leftovers and tid bits of this and that in delicious ways; it was enlightening to me to see just how much food I had been throwing out! I am now MUCH more conscious about meal planning, and it has reduced my grocery bill significantly.
xox
Thanks for the post! It is always interesting to see how other families manage groceries and finances. In our household (2 adults and 8 month old), hubby and I both kinda dislike doing groceries, so we do avoid them whenever possible! heh. Living in the bay area, we are blessed with year round farmers market and we do our weekly shopping there on 90% of the weeks. We end up spending around 30-40 bucks/week on fruits/veggies at the farmers. And we do end up getting a lot of produce (I am a vegetarian and hubby is a vegetarian 80% of the time). We run to the local grocery store or trader joes to replenish basics like milk, almond milk, salt, almond butter, nuts, oats. And about once every 2-3 months we hit the Indian store to stock up on lentils, rice, indian spices. I do think Indian stores have much cheaper beans/lentils/rice as compared to bulk section at whole foods. So all in all we spend about 60 bucks/week on groceries. Also, we do eat out 1 dinner and 1-2 lunches outside (or at work) during the week.
I think the thing that saves money for us is that both hubby and i cook really simple stir-fry kinda food. No need of special ingredients. The only area where I do splurge a little bit is baking stuff..I do love to bake and I end up buying good quality stuff online off amazon. But then, I end up using it always, so nothing gets wasted.
I get nerdily excited when I can use up the last bits of this and that in my fridge. Food waste bugs me. And using what we have feels like a game to me.
Maybe you already do this with your beans, but I freeze batches of them too. I make them in the crockpot so there’s always a ton.
Hi! New to your blog but this concept is one I’ve been struggling with the past few months! I just got married and I’ve been having to adapt to feeding two people, and my husbands appetite never seems to stop! We spent SO much money on food our first few months of marriage because I was trying to cook a new, interesting recipe every night to impress him…For the month of May, I’ve challenged myself to decrease the grocery budget 10 dollars a week (or five dollars per adult in the household.) So far so good, but it’s definitely a challenge since our budget was already tight. I joined a local, organic co-op a few weeks ago and it has definitely made a huge improvement! I don’t have to stress as much on how to fit my big food priorities (local, organic, fresh) into the budget now! It’s awesome! Meal planning was something I did as a single girl but I definitely take it much more seriously now that my life isn’t as flexible. You’re also totally right about the staples thing. When I realized my husband was just as happy eating a few of his favorite meals a week like steamed greens with roasted chicken, chicken pot pie or homemade pizza my life got so much easier! I still try about one new recipe every week but I’m sticking to what I get with the food co-op as my “new” foods instead of trying to cook something exotic with special ingredients! Great advice, thanks!
I would add to check the per-unit cost. Companies want you to think if you buy big, you save money per ounce or per pound. But, the reality is, companies too often up the per-unit price of the bigger containers. It infuriates me!
Man, do I miss Fresh Fork. We still haven’t found a CSA comparable to that in Pittsburgh. SIGH.
We spend a ridiculous amount on groceries. Both Nathan and Topher are bottomless pits when it comes to food! I think our biggest problem is where we shop: We’ve shopped at the same grocery store since before we were married and we feel like we’re cheating when we go elsewhere, even if it’s to save money. Pathetic, eh? Now that we’re down to one and a quarter incomes we need to be saving money anywhere we can so we’re in the process of switching stores (because I can’t just tear my husband away!). It’s further away and much less convenient but the money we save is worth it :)
Lately I’ve been not into cooking (very unlike me!) and that means our grocery shopping is less/suffers as well. The upside? I’m making do with what we have on hand more when I am cooking. Staples are my favorite; I find that I can easily throw together a meal if I have staples but when I’m out of things like egg or my favorite pasta? I’m screwed!
The biggest challenge with CSAs IMO is when you get a weekly delivery of stuff that has to be eaten quickly. For example, recently we got a CSA delivery where 4 out of the 5 items were bags of lettuce. Those don’t freeze and when they turn you have to throw it out, which I hate to do. Sometimes you get stuff like carrots and parsnips that you can eat some and throw the rest in the freezer for later.
Ah, yes. Our CSA is nice because it’s a balance of produce AND other food (like dried beans, cheese, eggs, etc). Also, we can have up to 4 vacation weeks a summer where we get the $25 credit and can buy stuff the following weeks with it. Which I do when I get overrun with food! (And am planning to do around when the baby comes this summer.) It’s a really great model.
Thanks for sharing these great money-saving tips! Frozen vegetables are the best! I prefer them over canned. It’s great when the frozen bags go on sale for under $1!
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