Money Saving Monday–How to cut your grocery bill
Are you always wondering where the heck your money goes each month?! I really did not have a good grasp on HOW MUCH my family was actually wasting on groceries until I started to track my spending. I WAS SHOCKED!! I was WAYYYY overspending on food, but we were eating it…so how was I supposed to cut out anything?!?! We HAVE to eat…right?!?! Well yes…but also no. There are lots of ways to cut back, but let me tell you how I have managed to cut our grocery bill BASICALLY in half.
How much should I budget for groceries??
There are lots of facts and figures floating around about what is the RIGHT amount for a family to spend on groceries. Super frugal budget-ers claim that $100 per person per month is the correct amount. While the USDA claims that $146 would be a frugal food plan and $191 per person per week is a more moderate amount. I like to include ALL household products in my grocery budget since I shop for those items together at the same store. This includes all consumables for me…dog food, laundry soap, deodorant, etc. If you have these items in a separate category in your budget, you SHOULD be able to aim for closer to $100-$125 per person. Since I keep them all in the same budget, I like to budget $150 per person per month, or $600 for my family of 4 per month. BUT when I want to add more to my sinking funds or tighten up the purse strings to save money, I set my aim back to the $100 per person mark and try to stay around $400 per month. It is doable, but I find that I am unable to keep any sort of excess or stockpile of food with such a tight budget. I can do it for a short period, but it is not sustainable for me without completely depleting my pantry and freezer stores.
REMINDER: To see how much you are currently spending, it is important to start by TRACKING your spending for a month. This will give you an idea of HOW MUCH you need to cut your grocery bill. So step one…find out how much you CURRENTLY spend on groceries!! START HERE…then come back and see what I do next to cut back…
SOOOO how DO I cut my grocery bill??
Fewer grocery shopping trips:
My biggest piece of advice is to STAY OUT OF THE GROCERY STORE!! It seems so simple, but the more trips you take to the store, the more money you will inevitably end up spending. Even if you plan to just run in for ONE thing, it almost NEVER works. It is soooo easy to nickel and dime your grocery money away on small extra trips to the store.
Start the pay period with a LARGE grocery haul:
Instead of taking multiple SMALL shopping trips, I like to take ONE huge trip at the beginning of the month, and then fill in any gaps in my food supply in small shopping trips throughout the last 3 weeks of the month. So the first week of the month, I tend to spend 1/2 of my entire monthly grocery budget on one large shopping haul. I get most of the meat and meal prep items I need for the entire month RIGHT at the beginning. It can be scary to watch such a LARGE portion of the grocery budget disappear, but it means I do not have to shop again for quite a while. And NO shopping means NO spending.
NOTE: You can use this SAME method if you are on a bi-monthly budget. Just cut your LARGE trip in to TWO trips. If you get paid twice a month, you can divide your budget into TWO and try spending HALF as much on each trip. OR if you are scared to spend such a large chunk of money at once (or believe your kids will eat a month’s worth of food in 3 days), you can modify your shopping trips to fit your lifestyle.
Divide the rest of your budget over the remaining weeks:
After I have made a huge grocery haul at the beginning of the month, I do not need to get much throughout the rest of the month. I fill in with milk, produce, kids snacks, and any ingredients I might have missed. Since I already know how much I spent in week 1, I can easily divide the remaining grocery budget over these small shopping trips. I REALLY try to skip week 2 completely and either do 2 small trips, or 1 medium trip for the month. It does not ALWAYS happen…but I am THRILLED if I can only shop twice a month…and SOOOO is my wallet.
How I cut my grocery bill by using Walmart Grocery pick-up
Grocery pick-up has changed the way I shop for groceries FOREVER! Gone are the days of me wandering the aisles of Walmart and mindlessly tossing things into my cart. THAT DID NOT WORK FOR MY BUDGET. I would go inside for milk and yogurt, and come out with a lamp, 2 new pairs of shoes, and a goldfish. And sometimes I would forget the milk and have to go back again the next day anyway. By shopping online, and being conscious of my choices, I am able to ALWAYS stay under my budget. So HOW DO I DO IT?!?!
HOW does grocery pick-up help me cut by grocery bill in half??
FIRST, I plan ahead a little bit. I write down about 20 different meals that I plan to make throughout the month. It helps for me to flip through my recipe binder and see what we have not had in a while or what sounds good. I like to turn this job over to the kids too. Then when THEIR meals come up in the rotation, they feel like they are getting their choice and RARELY complain. OR I will grab the recipes from my EMEALS account…you can see my thoughts about EMEALS over HERE.
I actually take each recipe I plan to use for the month OUT of my binder and carry them all (along with my list of dinner ideas) to the computer. At this point, I already know that my budget for the month is $600 and that I would like to stay under $300-$350 for this first large shopping haul. I try to get enough of the MAIN supplies to make EVERYTHING we want to have for dinners for the month. I only include about 20 meals on my list because some nights are left open for leftovers, breakfast nights, use what we have nights, or simple dinner like grilled cheese or cereal.
Then I start adding stuff to my shopping cart. Very first I start with the MUST HAVES. Milk, eggs, bread, flour, etc. But also my household needs like shampoo and toothpaste. Side note…I get many of my household items through Amazon subscribe and save and have them delivered at the beginning of each month. These purchases are considered a part of my household budget and I include those items in my grocery budget. This includes toilet paper, dog food, disinfectant wipes, laundry soap, dish washing detergent, cat food, and printer paper. It is so easy to NEVER have to remember to get toilet paper again. It just arrives once a month and I NEVER have to worry about it. I DO have to remember to subtract that money from my remaining grocery budget though.
Helpful tip: When shopping grocery pick-up, it is MUCH easier to compare prices. I find that bigger is NOT always cheaper. Walmart’s website will give you the price in ounces for each item, so it is quick to see which is ACTUALLY the cheaper product. This makes it easier to save a LITTLE bit more on the items you are buying anyway. Every little bit adds up!!
OK…back to my grocery pick up order. Next, I start with the recipes and go straight down the list adding ingredients to my grocery list. There are usually 10 or so actual recipes, and then of course there are simple meals like tacos and spaghetti that I just KNOW what I need to purchase. THEN I try to add in the veggies and sides I want to have with each meal…and I add those to my list along with the meals. The extras is where I can end up saving. Let’s say I add a loaf of french bread to Lasagna night. After filling my cart, if I have gone over budget, the “french breads” are the first things to go.
Then it is easy to see how much money I have left in my budget for extras. Extras at my house usually include the handy snacks that my kids like to grab like granola bars, yogurt smoothies, and apple sauce pouches. Those are great if they fit in the budget, but if I am close to over spending, it is easy to purchase less expensive options for snacking.
THE BEST part about shopping through an ordering website like Walmart grocery pick up is that you can NEVER go over your budget. If you are over, you can look back through your list and see which items you can remove (like the french bread I talked about before). So for me, if I have gone over my budget, I look and see if there are any meals that I can simplify. OR are there ingredients that are not NECESSARY…like if I have cream of mushroom, then maybe I do not need cream of chicken soup. ALSO, cream of mushroom is gross…so that is a horrible example:)
I am not a pop drinker, so let’s use that as an example. Let’s say I normally drink 2 cases of pop per month. I add them both to my order, but I am over budget for the week. I can take one off and plan to add it into the budget for NEXT week. OR I can choose to remove BOTH and stick with water for the week. It is all about choices, but it is easy to see EXACTLY where your spending is getting out of hand. If I only have $100 in my weekly budget, then I can continue cutting until I have what I need AND stay under my allotted money. It is not like when you are in the store and they tell you the total AFTER everything is bagged and ready to go. You can change your mind and remove items at the last minute without shoving it between the candy bars (btw that is a huge pet peeve of mine, so don’t do it!!)
Do I always shop from Walmart grocery pick up?
NO. We have a great Grocery Outlet that I love to pop in to for my small shopping trips. They often have great deals and I can get WAY more bang for my buck by shopping the deals. I also shop for meat from other grocery stores when they have it on sale. I can stock up when meat is cheaper and load the freezer. I actually went a few years without shopping at Walmart after I had a few REALLY unpleasant shopping trips in a row. BUT once they started with free grocery pick up, I HAD to come crawling back. There are stores out there with better prices, but I only save IF I can manage to stick to my list. Once I stray from the list, I end up with a cart full of comfort foods and clearance Easter candy. It actually does not matter WHERE you shop, as long as you ONLY spend the amount you have budgeted for the trip. For example, if I have $175 dollars left for the month in my grocery budget, it doesn’t matter if I spend that money at Target, the farmer’s market, or Taco Bell. What matters is that I do not go OVER that budget. If you can go into Target and ONLY buy the items on your list and NOT spend extra money…more power to you. I can’t!!
Recap…
HOW DO I CUT MY GROCERY BILL??
- Track your spending and see how much you need to SAVE on groceries
- Create a workable grocery budget, stay between $100 and $150 per person per month
- Shop less often
- Start off with one LARGE well planned shopping trip, only fill in with small grocery trips when necessary
- Plan ahead before shopping and make a list
- Shop online and pick-up groceries
- STICK TO YOUR BUDGET, cut those extras!!
- Remember WHY you are budgeting in the first place…is it to fill those sinking funds, get out of debt, pay off bills, fund a family vacation, save for retirement…etc. I am usually saving for a specific item or a trip. So it is easy for me to say…do I want to eat french bread today or eat bread in FRANCE next year. Boom…MOTIVATION!!
So there you have it. THAT is how I manage to cut my grocery bill and spend that money on BETTER stuff like trips and home decor. Budgeting for me is ALLL about telling my money WHERE to go instead of wondering WHERE it went. Holler at me if you have any questions. When I asked in my IG stories, THE MOST requested topics for new blog posts were…mom budgets and decor how to’s, so guess what is on the agenda. Let’s chatty chat soon friends. JESS
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