How to Budget on Groceries & Food

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Let’s be honest, budgeting food can be pretty difficult. I don’t know about you, but the combination of groceries and eating out makes up almost 20% of my budgeted monthly expenses…. Yikes.

Not to mention the ease and convenience of going out to eat can be INCREDIBLY tempting. So today we’re going to be talking about budgeting food and how to shop groceries on a budget!

I should mention, I love food, and I will never suggest just eating rice and beans…. I think that is a horrible idea and saving some extra cash is not worth putting your body and your health through that.

Here are 15 money saving tips for food!

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Table of Contents

Set a Grocery Budget

The key to budgeting food is to ACTUALLY make a budget. Set an amount you would like to spend on groceries and an amount you would like to spend eating out. I think these two should be separate items.

If you have no idea where to begin, start tracking how much you are currently spending on food per month. When you’re first starting out, I would recommend budgeting food for one person around 200 to 300 dollars. When I was hardcore trying to save money, my budgeted amount of groceries were 175, but on average I would spend 130 a month on groceries.

If you are one person, your food budget per month should be around 200 to 300 and for every additional adult, you will probably need to add anywhere from 150 to 200 additional dollars. However for children, adding 100 to 150 seems reasonable.

Grocery Budget for 2: $350 to $450

Grocery Budget Family of 3: $450 to $600

And so on.

I wanted to add some photos of my meal preps throughout so you know I’m not eating rice and beans 😉

Set a Maximum Number of Restaurant Outings

The main reason people overspend on food every month is because they are going out to eat. Plain and simple.

Decreasing the amount of time you go out to eat will make the biggest difference in your grocery budget. Eating out everyday for lunch seems like the easiest method to get food. Afterall, who wants to spend a couple hours making food the night before so they can take it to work?

Not me. BUT! This is why the majority of people are overspending. The fact of the matter is, if you want to save more money by cutting down your food expenses, you’re going to have to stop eating out as much.

Set a number of times you are “allowed” to go out to eat every week/month. I used to only allow myself to eat out once for lunch and once for dinner every week. This MAJORLY cut down my food expenses instantly. Take baby steps and test yourself to see how much eating out you can cut back on.

Plan Your Meals in Advanced

Choose a day every week to sit down and plan what you’re eating. By meal, meaning breakfast, lunch and dinner; choose which meals you are going to make. Decide how many days you want to eat those meals and what you need to purchase to make those meals.

Typically, you should choose one thing for breakfast that you can eat everyday that week, one or two things for lunch and three different dinner meals that can last you more than one night.

If you don’t enjoy cooking you can also….

Meal Prep

Meal prep means you choose a day, and spend a couple hours cooking in bulk for the entire week. After meal prepping you should have enough food to last you the entire week.

I love meal prepping because it means you don’t have to continuously cook throughout the week. Everything is done in one day so you know exactly what you’re eating next.

Meal prepping can be difficult if you get sick of eating the same thing for multiple days. However, you can still meal prep! Instead of making one dinner item you can make multiple dinner items. The key takeaway is cooking it all at once so you have your meals figured out. Regardless of if you’re switching dishes or not.

Don’t Enter the Grocery Store Without a List

Never enter the grocery store without a plan. Unless you’re an amazing chef, if you end up buying a bunch of random food, you won’t really know what you do with it. Which means you’ll end up going out to eat instead.

You’ll think “I don’t have any food” but you do have food. You just bought food. You just don’t know what to make with it.

Additionally, having a list will also help you avoid temptation. If you get the munchies at the grocery store, having a list will help remind you of what you need and what you’re only just craving at the moment.

I’ve recently been using Instacart to order groceries, I was able to get a free membership from a perk at work before anyone says anything! Ever since using Instacat I haven’t made any silly impulse, munchies purchases! Because you aren’t physically in the grocery store you don’t get tempted by hunger. You have to plan out what you’re buying to put in the order.

I’ve found using Instacart has really helped me save money because I go in with a plan and only order what I need! Not to mention how much time I’ve saved. (This isn’t sponsored or anything I just genuinely love Instacart).

Only Go to the Grocery Store Once a Week

Only going to the grocery store once a week will help reinforce the previously mentioned items. You are more likely to show up with a list, have a plan and have thought through your meals if you know you’re not going back to the store.

Furthermore, only grocery shopping once a week will cut down the number of random unnecessary items that are purchased because you were hungry when you went.

Buy Generic Brands

There is typically no difference between name brand items and generic brand items. The only difference is one company spent a shit ton of money on advertising so you would recognize their name and buy their marked up product.

Don’t fall for the trap!

Store brand items are significantly cheaper and you’re getting the same thing.

Don’t Compare Total Price, Compare Price Per Ounce.

Brands are sneaky nowadays. A product may appear to be cheaper AT FIRST. But if you take a look at the cost per ounce, which can be found on the label at the store, instead of the total cost, you may notice you’re not getting the best deal.

Don’t Buy in Bulk, Unless…

This is not the common opinion when it comes to saving money. Most people suggest you buy in bulk to get the best deals. However, I have found that buying in bulk, more often than not, means you end up wasting food because it goes bad before you have time to eat it. Which is not helping your budget.

Only buy in bulk if it’s items you use regularly, frequently and are non-perishable. Non-perishable means these items have a long shelf life. However, it doesn’t matter how long the shelf life is if you’re never going to eat it.

I repeat, only buy something in bulk that you use regularly, frequently and it is non-perishable!!

My favorite grocery on budget tip is to buy your produce weekly, but purchase your protein, frozen, in bulk. I used to go to Costco and get frozen chicken, salmon and tofu. Then I would buy my vegetables weekly at the store.

This helped me save money on the bigger items while still getting fresh, inexpensive veggies every week.

Store Food Properly

Along the same lines as the previous grocery budget tip, store your food properly. Saving money on food also involves not wasting food by letting it go bad. Any food you have to throw away is money wasted.

Learn how to correctly store all your food items so it isn’t going to waste before you get a chance to eat it.

Use ALL the Food in Your Pantry

People have so much stuff in their pantry!! But it just sits there and sits there. Be mindful of what you already have at home that you haven’t used for weeks! Try to use it.

Make meals using pantry items you already have at home. You don’t always need to purchase every single ingredient a recipe calls for, because you most likely already have a couple things.

Additionally, try making a meal only using what you already have! It might be a funky combination of items and flavors but using your pantry items will help save you money.

Make Your Own Sauce, Spice Mix and Dressings

Sauces, spice mixes and dressings are incredibly overpriced considering how easy they are to recreate. A simple marinara sauce can cost anywhere between 3 dollars and 7 dollars. However, using tomato sauce (which can be purchased for less than a dollar) and some spices you can make a delicious marinara sauce for fractions of the cost.

Get creative! Only purchase premade items when you think the cons of making it yourself, like your time, outweigh the pros, the price.

Drink Alcohol at Home

Alcoholic beverages are sooo expensive nowadays! Drinking alcohol at home instead of at a restaurant can save you A LOT of money. Honestly cutting alcohol out altogether can save you the most money, but that’s no fun.

Plan to have a drink at home before or after your outing to save some extra cash. Additionally, Trader Joe’s has some pretty good wines for only 6 or 7 dollars a bottle!

Check if Your Credit Card has a Grocery or Restaurant Deal

Many credit cards offer additional points for money you spend at grocery stores or on restaurants. Check to see if any of your credit cards have deals going on and only use that card! Just because we’re purchasing necessity items doesn’t mean we can’t maximize the points we earn.

I have the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card which is typically a hotel/travel card. However, they recently had a deal offering additional points for all your spending on groceries for a limited amount of time. So you best believe I was using it for all my grocery store purchases!

It’s good to check every once in a while to see what deals your credit cards are offering!

Additionally, my Chase Sapphire Reserve offers a free Doordash Dashpass membership. So every time I’m going to order take out for delivery, I make sure to take advantage of the free Doordash membership.

Scan Your Receipts for Small Rewards

I’m a big fan of using cash back apps. For groceries I use Fetch Rewards! You earn points by scanning your receipts in the Fetch Rewards app. These points allow you to redeem gift cards for stores like Amazon, Starbucks, CVS, etc.

I’m not going to lie, you’re not going to make much money here. But you can for sure get a free 10 dollars every once in a while simply from scanning your receipts.

Final Thoughts

There are ways to save money on food that don’t include only eating rice and beans. These budgeting food tips will help you learn how to budget on groceries without sacrificing eating delicious meals.

Afterall, what is life if you can’t enjoy good food? Dramatic, I know.

Let me know which budgeting food tip you enjoyed the most and are going to try! Lastly, don’t forget to join my email list to get access to my free resource library!

How to Budget on Groceries | Budgeting Food