Do you want to know how to save a lot of money on your groceries? This is exactly how you can cut your grocery bill in half!
Grocery prices are going through the roof. Seriously. Anytime I buy eggs now, I just have to close my eyes because they’re just so expensive! It’s never been so important for families to save money and spend money wisely when they have to.
Salaries aren’t any higher than they were last year, but somehow we are all supposed to just figure out how to continue feeding our families with groceries costing 24% more than January 2020!
I have a whole blog post about how much the groceries I buy for my family has increased in price you can check it out here!
The wonderful news is, that I can teach you how to cut your grocery bill in half with just a few actionable and easy steps.
1. Meal Plan
This may seem obvious considering I run a meal planning blog, but planning out what you’re going to eat and when you’re going to eat it is the fastest way to save money on groceries. Not only will you not waste food and throw out things that go bad, but you will only buy the exact ingredients you need.
No more wandering around the grocery seeing what looks good. You need to have a meal plan and shop for that plan if you want to save money. By picking out the meals that you want to make ahead of time, you have a list to follow.
It’s really easy to balance cheaper meals (i.e. vegetarian, or bean based) with more expensive meat based meals through a week when you’re looking at it on paper.
If you wait until you go to the store, you’re likely to fill your cart with steak, shrimp and organic chicken because that’s what looks good to you. Then, your monthly budget is totally lost because you didn’t have a plan.
The quickest way to cut your grocery bill in half is by meal planning.
I teach you exactly how to meal plan and make it easy here!
Also, it will really help you make healthier choices…and that’s always great!
2. Buy Generic
When I was in middle school, I always wished that we would have Kraft instead of Best Choice or Jif instead of Great Value. But guess what. My mom was on to something then and it’s still true now.
If you buy generic instead of name brand foods you will save SO much money. If the name brand is even just $0.75 higher than the generic brand when you spread those savings across 50 items in a typical grocery haul you’re going to be saving over $37! If you grocery shop 4 times a month, that’s $150 savings.
If there are some items that you just can’t bring yourself to use the generic of keep them, but be super selective and go store brand all the way with everything else!
One of the best and easiest ways to cut your grocery spending in half is by buying generic food items over the name brand.
3. Check Sale Flyers
Another thing I never used to do is check the sale flyers! We have a local grocery store in our small town that is always MUCH more expensive than the other options. I used to never shop there because my staple items were just much more expensive there.
Then I started really checking out the sale flyers. I don’t look at the whole sale flyer, just the front and the back. That is where they list all of the meat and produce that are on sale for the week.
By buying meat that is on sale from my local store I almost always save a substantial amount over the meat at my discount store.
You will be well on your way of cutting your grocery bill in half if you shop only what is heavily discounted in the sale flyer!
Stores have large amounts of whatever they put on sale and they need to more inventory. So, you get the better deal and save money on what is usually the most expensive part of a meal!
Don’t buy all of your groceries at the more expensive store, just the items that they have on a deep sale that you already know your family uses.
And then after you find the meat on sale…
4. Stock Your Freezer
When you find that good deal on meat it is SO important to buy as much of it as you can store and afford and keep it in your freezer for later.
If you find boneless skinless chicken breasts for less than $2 a pound you can buy all that you can afford and store and not have to spend that money in future weeks and months.
For example, say your local grocery store has a sale on ground beef. You usually buy small quantities of ground beef at a large discount store for $3.50 a pound. The sale flyer has ground beef on sale for $3.25 a pound. You don’t feel like it’s that much of a discount and you’re right. If you’re just buying one pound for the week, then the $0.25 savings isn’t worth your extra trip to another store.
However, if you buy 30 pounds of ground beef (and are set for a few months!) then you’re saving $7.50. The savings get even better the more you buy!
If you find meat on an even deeper discount, say $1 or $2 under the normal retail, your savings grow even faster!
5. Eat Whole Foods
No, I’m not taking about the grocery store chain. That’s a definite way to totally blow your grocery budget.
A simple way to cut your grocery spending in half is by eating whole foods instead of pre-packaged and processed items.
You can buy simple kitchen staples like flour, eggs, milk, butter, rice, meat and potatoes and make SO many healthy meals for your family. It really isn’t hard and you could start with as little as 5 ingredients!
Check out my 5-ingredient meal plans here!
By eating and buying whole unprocessed foods, you will have your grocery bill cut in half before you know it!