Like many others, inflation and a somewhat turbulent job market put pressure on our family finances in 2023. As a couple, my husband and I took a hard look at our finances to see where we could cut back and economize to weather what we expected to be a short-term "storm." One of the obvious places we looked to, and a place where anyone living on a tight budget should look, was our food and grocery budget.

Food and Grocery Spending is Highly Variable, and You Have Options
The grocery budget is one of the areas where I feel I can make a big impact on our monthly bills. I have more control over what we buy at the grocery store compared to our more flat-rate utility bills and debt payments, and food / grocery bills are "variable" expenses, since you can actively make choices that will directly impact that amount of spending. Plus, once you've moved to cheaper TV options or internet packages, you need to keep looking at all your spending categories.
Looking to cut your food budget? Here's what I did
I've listed out the things that I did to keep my family on a tight grocery and food budget within the past year. For my family of four, we typically came in under $250 a month, and that included breakfast, lunch and dinner, with occasional desserts. Your mileage may vary, as they say. I don't have two teenage boys in my house, but my kids aren't toddlers, and I can say with confidence that any student athlete eats a lot to replace the calories they burn.

I Meal Planned for a Full Month at a Time
If you've read my blog before, you already know that I've been a big proponent of meal planning for years. Most of the time, including now, I will plan our menu one or two weeks at a time. But in the latter part of 2023 and into early 2024, I planned our meals out for an entire month. Yes, I planned a month at a time!
I knew there were bound to be things that popped up and changed the plan, but this gave me a very precise estimate of what our grocery budget would be for the coming month. When something changed our daily plans, and I couldn't get the planned dinner ready for that night, I had multiple other options on the calendar where I could just swap one out for another. For example, if traffic was tight and we were going to be cutting it close to sports, I could swap out a dinner that would take me about 45 minutes to cook for one that was faster, like grilled cheese with tomato soup. Then on that grilled cheese night, I'd see if I could drop that 45-minute dinner in the plan instead.
Don't freak out when I suggest budgeting for a month at a time. I have a meal planning printable that's free and is easy to use. As you're listing out the meals, look at the ingredients they'll use and make your grocery list. For instance, I know I'll need half an onion to make an Italian sausage, green beans and potato dish we love. Within a week of cutting into one onion, I'll include another recipe that calls for - you guessed it - a half of an onion so I can use the whole thing and nothing goes to waste.
That same recipe also calls for half of a pound of ground Italian sausage, so I know that if I buy a one-pound package of it, I can put the other ½ pound in a quart-size freezer zip-top bag and stick it in the freezer to use later in the month. But I add 1 lb of Italian sausage to the list and estimate how much it will cost - provided I don't have some already in the freezer. But if I DO, then it's one grocery item I don't have to buy this month!
Looking at your dinners and your building grocery list, try and make it a game to come up with other recipes that are both frugal in nature and will use the same ingredients. I live in an area that doesn't tax groceries, but if you do, be sure to add your estimated tax when all is said and done.
I Limited Trips to the Grocery Store
Since I was meal planning a month at a time, it was much easier for me to do the bulk of my shopping on one day, and then plan for smaller weekly trips to get perishable items that we would need to either replenish or have on hand for dinner later in the month. This limited the possibility that we would pick up any unplanned, and thus unbudgeted, items at the store.
Here's an example of how I limited grocery trips - At the start of the month (or a couple of days ahead of it), I would go to my planned grocery stores and get all of the shelf-stable items we needed, as well as anything that would "keep" until we needed that ingredient. If I was making Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry in week three of the month and ground beef was on sale when I did the "big shopping day," I would pick it up on sale and portion it out into the amounts I would need for different meals throughout the month. Then I'd put that beef in the freezer. But since we weren't making the dish until week three and it wouldn't keep until then, I didn't pick up the bag of cole slaw mix that the recipe called for until the start of week three.
I Compared Prices at Different Stores & Made Multiple Stops
I made a price book and used it every time I planned our meals. A "price book" isn't something you have to buy. It's just a way for you to track prices across different grocery stores and see who tends to have the lowest prices. It can be as simple as a $1 spiral notebook or "composition book" you pick up at Walmart or at the dollar store. (Ok, $1.25 these days if you go to the "dollar" store.)
Want an easy way to get started? Keep your recent grocery receipts for a month or so. At the very least, you'll have an idea of how much apples are at one of your area stores. This was the way I figured out that Winco, one of the more affordable stores we have on the West Coast, had the best prices on produce out of my four available grocery stores, even compared to Walmart. I prefer Winco to Walmart for produce quality, too.
One thing I have to consider though, is that Winco is a good 20 minutes away, versus 5 minutes for the other three. So I tried to bundle a Winco trip with other errands in that area if I wanted to go... otherwise I had to consider the cost of gas to get there against what I would save on the trip. Winco also has a bulk food section where they also have spices. At Winco's bulk spice area, you can refill a jar of spices that originally cost you $4 or more for pennies on the dollar. Yes, pennies. Like for $0.40.
For stores where you can order ahead for pickup, you have an easier way to see who has the best prices. I sometimes pull Fred Meyer, our local Kroger-branded store, up in one browser window and Walmart in another and do a side-by-side comparison. Fred Meyer also sends coupons and special offers to its loyalty members.
I'm not kidding when I tell you that I budgeted down to the penny this way, and I was able to get pretty dang close to that amount each month when I really needed to - as in within $5 for the month.
I Picked Simple Recipes and Meals that Have Ingredient Crossover
No one's saying you have to give up flavor here. When I suggest you pick simple recipes, all I am saying is that you can make recipes with fewer ingredients, and then rely on spices and seasonings to help boost the flavor. When you need to watch your grocery budget closely, you'll have an easier time controlling it if your meals don't include out-of-season ingredients or a one-off ingredient that you're probably only going to need for one recipe that you make once every three months.
Look for cheaper recipes online. A few of my favorite recipe blogs are $5 Dinners (Erin Chase's site - I found her book way back during "the Great Recession" and I've followed her since), Frugal Family Home, and Budget Bytes. Check out "Frugal Fit Mom," "See Mindy Mom" and Julia Pacheco on YouTube, too.
We Ate Less Meat and Chose Cheaper Cuts
When money's tight, you don't need to eat meat at every single dinner. One of our favorite cooler weather dinners is crockpot cheesy potato soup. One of our garnishes is bacon bits. We have protein from the other ingredients, but it's not a "meat and potatoes" kind of a dinner where you've got a serving of meat next to a baked potato. (Side note, that soup was one my kids started asking for in the regular rotation!)
Another way to cut back on your meat expense is to buy cheaper cuts. Can you make meals that use ground beef or pork, rather than steak or a roast? How about bone-in chicken thighs or drumsticks instead of boneless, skinless chicken breasts? Take a look at what your prices are per pound at your local store.
It's also important to watch for sales! While Fred Meyer can have more expensive "everyday" prices on meats, when they have a sale, it's well worth putting some in the freezer for later. Sometimes you can get a great "buy one, get one free" offer that makes each meal cheaper when you spread that total cost out over multiple meals.

I Cooked and Baked from Scratch
I cooked nearly all our meals from scratch. Yes, cooking from scratch takes a bit of planning and a bit of time. But any time you're not paying for someone else to do the work, you'll be saving money! I priced out a loaf of sandwich bread from the grocery store versus a batch of my favorite homemade sandwich bread with all the measured ingredients. My bread came out cheaper, and since I have a stand mixer that my mom gifted me when we got married, it's largely a hands-off process. I even found an AMAZING French bread recipe that is cheaper and better than what I can buy at the store, and again... pretty hands-off and easy to make. (I'll drop the link for those bread recipes down at the bottom of this post.)
Does that mean I always cook EVERYTHING from scratch? No, of course not. Sometimes a jar of spaghetti sauce that you pick up on sale is cheaper, faster and easier than making it from a can of crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and the other seasonings.
I Bought Store Brands and Tried Cheaper Options
In my experience, store brand canned foods mostly taste just as good as their name brand counterparts. I need to dress up canned green beans with a little garlic and onion powder, salt, pepper, and butter no matter if it's the Great Value brand from Walmart or the national brand with the big green guy on the label. But that GV one is CONSIDERABLY LESS per can than the green guy.
One thing where I found a happy medium though was coffee. I found I did not care for the cheaper packaged coffee on the shelf, so I watched for the sale rotation on Seattle's Best and stocked up on those packs when they were on sale. I went with the cheaper creamer for a time, too. I do not miss it now that we're in a place where we don't have to watch our expenses so tightly. Do what you can.

We Avoided Fast Food & Drive-Thru
During this time period, my husband exclusively took a lunch that either he or I packed at home. The kids predominantly took lunches to school, though we did give them a monthly "hot lunch" budget and told them that if they wanted to, they could choose to buy lunch at school for a certain number of days each month. But I knew that I could pack lunches for less than the cost of the school lunch, or in my husband's case less than a pre-made sandwich or a burger, so we put the emphasis on taking it from home.
A one-time investment in a drink thermos makes it easy to take milk, water or juice with you, and we even have a few thermoses that are made for soups or other hot dishes. I avoided coffee stands and the big chain cafes, and made my coffee at home.
If practice or a game was around dinner time, I'd plan such that we could eat before we had to leave or in the car on the way. Those $1 reusable plastic plates from Walmart and Target that have a high lip make it easier for my teenagers to eat what you'd typically think of as a "sit down dinner" in the car. I made beef and chicken burgers and wrapped them in foil to keep them warm. We packed a light cooler of snacks and sandwiches when we headed to swim meets. (If you've ever been to a swim meet, you know they can be long!)
I learned how to make some really good homemade pizza during this time, but I did also keep a pack of those $11-ish Costco 4-pack frozen pizzas on hand. On the nights when it gets crazy, knowing you've got something that will be on the table in about 20 minutes is a much cheaper option than picking up fast food, in about the same amount of time it would take to drive to the restaurant and back.
Here you go - my top tips for cutting your grocery budget, based on things that I did for my own family in 2023 and 2024. I hope some of these things help you as you look to tame your own food bills. Even when things were tight, I was confident in my ability to keep my family fed with healthy foods and not break our budget.
Resources mentioned above-
- King Arthur Baking - Classic Sandwich Bread recipe
- That Bread Lady - French Bread recipe
- Frugal Family Home - great source for budget-friendly recipes
- $5 Dinners - another great budget recipe resource
- Frugal Fit Mom - YouTube channel with tons of meal ideas
- See Mindy Mom - YouTube channel with lots of recipes
- Julia Pacheco - YouTube channel featuring affordable meals