by Adam Dawson
With some work we’ve been able to get our grocery budget down to about $75/wk, or $300/month. That’s a 40% improvement on the $500 we were spending! This number includes our groceries, as well as the occasional incidental like dish soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toilet paper.
The biggest contributor to this improvement has been the simple act of meal planning. Usually on Sunday afternoon/evening, Emily and I work together to plan breakfast/lunch/dinner for 5 days, and we make our grocery list based on this plan.
Meal planning has been great, but we are still refining our skills. We find that we forget to account for leftovers, so our 5 day plan could easily be a 10 day plan. Or alternatively, we could make a 3 day plan and have enough to eat for the whole week.
Since the weather in Texas finally turned toward fall, we’ve also improved the grocery situation by making lots of hearty soups and stews which last several days. 2 weeks ago we were so sick of chili! By adding beans and other filling ingredients, we’ve gotten some great mileage out of cheaper ingredients.
Finally, we’ve started to realize that convenience and budget sometimes trump health concerns. At one point we followed a fairly low carb, fresh foods lifestyle. Although we still believe this to be the best way nutritionally, Trader Joe’s homemade pizzas and Costco soups and pastas have found their way into our menu rotation. These cheap and easy meals have really lowered the stress factor in food budgeting and meal planning.
The unexpected benefit in all this is that the savings in food spending did not come at the expense of our time, which I fully expected. In fact, we have MORE time now because meal planning and convenience meals have saved us time as well as money! My hope is that we can use this time to attack another one or two of our budget areas.
Great improvement!
Awesome!! Nice work!
Wrt convenience foods I usually keep a few frozen pizzas, Bertolli bags, and Lean Cuisines around for those nights when I’m just too tired or uninspired to cook something. Or if I don’t have enough time to cook something. Not the most cost effective way, but still cheaper than eating out.
Great job! I also keep some stuff on hand in the freezer to pull out when you get home late or what’s on the menu just sounds bleh. A couple of ziplocs of frozen spaghetti sauce and some frozen chili or soup have saved us from dialing for pizza many times.
With a little bit of meal planning (we do the bare minimum…not even make an ingredient list but what we want to eat each month and buy the meat/diary for the month with bi-weekly supplemental shopping for veg/perishables), me and my S.O. have been able to keep to the $250/month grocery bill, including toilet paper and soap, etc.
However, the quality of the food that we’re intaking is poor, i’d have to say. In the long run, I hope to be able to increase my grocery budget once debt’s out of the way, because it’s just not worth it to trade your health for a $100/month savings.
I precook a lot of our meals and freeze them. I always have a few homemade pizza crusts, two – three types of soups, chicken pot pies, enchiladas and lasagna prepped in the freezer. I divide all the meals in 2 – so lasagna is in two small square containers instead of one large rectangle pan, soups/chilis are divided up into freezer bags, etc so we don’t end up eating the same meal 4 days in a row 😉 For meals that are not pre-made, I still cook from home: I bake my own breads and pie crusts and make my own stocks. I love meal planning and grocery shopping with my husband, it is a great way to spend quality time together.
The biggest challenge from the monthly totals looked like eating out expenditures, that will be an excellent future post when you are able to cut that down. Good luck and great job cooking at home!
Meal planning helps so much. Plus I really think that one ends up eating more of a variety of meals with meal planning.
I think the biggest time saver when it comes to cooking is planning ahead. Knowing what to make n when let’s you jump right into the task when the day begins. And it helps to prepare semi cooked ingredients before hand. Like when making pasta sauce, make two or three batches together and freeze leftovers till next time you make the same dish. You save money by cooking with in bulk and time
Great job! That looks like serious progress. No doubt with practice, you’ll be tweaking the formula somewhat somewhere down the line.
Pinterest is my bible when it comes to meal planning. Every weekend, I look at the pins that I collected over the week and plan meals with those. It’s fun, creative and you can usually find a recipe for ANYTHING!
Tremendous progress, I’m very impressed. We can hardly avoid spending $300 each time we go to Costco! (obviously we don’t go there every month, but still!)
Remember to Freeze chili, soup in individual portions so you can take them with you in the morning for lunch @ work. My co-worker even freezes leftover pizza! Don’t forget to label! Awesome job on the budget!
Grocery budget plan – is like a tool to minimize both the time and the money you spend in the store. Thank you for very helpful information.