How to Save Money on Groceries (and Still Eat Well)

I’m always looking for ways to save money on groceries. Groceries are expensive – especially when feeding a family wholesome, clean foods! 

Every first quarter of the new year we take on a grocery no-spend challenge. The dates vary, depending on our annual vacation, but inevitably, I’ll try to squeeze out at least thirty days of drastically cutting our grocery bill.

This year, we are doing the challenge in February.

It’s such a nice boost to our savings right after the holidays and to kick-start our year!

Even if you don’t want to do a grocery no-spend challenge, it’s always nice to learn ways to save on groceries.

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Here are my favorite ways to save on groceries every month:

1 – Meal Plan 

If you are new to meal planning, check out my best tips on meal planning for beginners. It’s not rocket science. You can do it, I promise!

No time to flip through recipes? That’s OK.  There are other options.

I’m obsessed with all the different ways to meal plan because I know without a doubt it saves us money (and calories).  I’ve used different tools over the years.  

Emeals is still one of my favorite meal planning options, especially if you follow a specific diet.  For only $5 per month, they will send a meal plan directly to you with a shopping list! The $5/month easily pays for itself in saved impulse buys and saved meals out. 

You can check out my review of eMeals for more info. 

2 – Use technology to help you meal plan and save on groceries

With the advent of AI, I’ve learned to embrace the tool to make my life easier.  One of the things I’ve used it for is to help me meal plan.  

The trick to AI is in your prompts. That’s where all the power lies.  The more detailed your prompt, the better your results. Imagine you are giving directions to a teenager who is clueless about meal planning.  Give the tool all the directions and requirements you have and let it know exactly what you want. 

Here’s an example of a prompt I used this week to help me come up with a meal plan with a reduced grocery budget and with a vegetarian in the household.

“Create a meal plan and grocery list for 2 adults and 2 teenagers for 1 week with a budget of $150 from Aldi. It should include breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Leftovers can be included in the plan. Provide recipes or links to recipes as well. Vegetarian options are acceptable. If the meal includes meat, there needs to also be a vegetarian protein alternative for one of the teenagers.” 

Pro tip: If the tool only spits out half your results, type the word “continue”, and it will continue giving you data.  

3 – Make NOT eating out easier. 

If you are bouncing between work, school, activities, and driving all over creation, then eating out may seem like the only answer.  You have to make eating at “home” (or in the car or while out and about) easier. 

Invest in a warm food storage container.  We paid $28 for each of our Thermos warm food containers.  It seemed like a huge expense when we did it, but those warm food containers have saved us THOUSANDS of eating-out dollars over the years.  

Thousands may seem like an overstatement, but I promise you we have saved that much.  Every time we went skiing as a family, these containers were packed. We would sit in the car and eat a warm, delicious, and wholesome lunch while those around us easily dropped over $100 on sub-par food for one meal. 

We’ve also invested in a travel veggie tray that I pack up with cut veggies at the beginning of each week.  

We also have a family cooler bag I use for keeping food cold when we are out and about.  

Use your crockpot. (You need a crockpot.)

Being prepared is easy…if you have the right tools to make it easy. 

4 – Plan at least one meatless meal a week 

Meat is expensive.  If all you do is incorporate one meatless meal a week into your meal plan, you will save money on groceries. 

5 – Learn how to cook dried beans.

Dried beans are so easy.  Learn how to cook them!

You can throw them into a crockpot with water before bed, let them soak, and then simply cook them up the next day.  Add some seasonings and whatever else you like, and you can have a hearty meal waiting for you when you get home from a busy day.  The best part, they are very, very cheap! 

6 – Embrace leftovers 

No more, “My family won’t eat leftovers.” Leftovers are delicious. Sometimes, flavors meld together even better the next day! 

Invest in some food storage containers for packed lunches, and then, eat your leftovers.  

Throwing out food is wasteful.  

One way to avoid leftover burnout is to reinvent your leftover items.  Use leftover grilled chicken to make enchiladas the next day. 

Use leftover veggies in the next morning’s omelet. 

You can get creative if you have family members fighting you on leftovers. 

7 – Batch cook 

One way we slowed our eating out expenses was to batch cook.  Making chili? Make a double batch and freeze the second pot. 

It’s no extra trouble to make a double recipe, and now we have an easy, already-cooked meal for another night.  Even if we forget to lay it out to thaw, it’s usually just as fast as going to get something out. 

8 – Create your own convenience items 

One way to save on groceries is to create your own convenience items.  My kids like hummus.  I don’t buy single-use hummus.  I buy a large container, and then we put a couple of tablespoons into their small food containers when they pack their lunch.  You can even pre-make these containers at the beginning of the week! 

You can do the same thing with veggies and reusable bags.  Making your own convenience items takes only a tiny amount of prep time at the beginning of the week and will save you tons of grocery money in the long run. 

9 – Eat seasonally to save money on groceries

OK, I’ve heard my entire adult life that eating seasonally saves on groceries, but implementing it has always been an issue.  Our grocery stores have fresh tomatoes in the winter,  so why wouldn’t we buy them? Well, because they are expensive and not very good. 

The same goes for other summer veggies in the winter. 

Learn what vegetables are in season, and make a meal plan around those. (Need ideas? See above about using technology to help you out!) 

You can also check out cookbooks like Six Seasons.  I recently stumbled on this cookbook, and I love it! It’s full of ideas on how to embrace produce and foods for your current season. 

10 – Only shop for groceries weekly (or even bi-weekly) 

I’m always looking for ways to save on groceries, and this simple practice of only shopping for groceries weekly helps me a ton. 

I can stay on budget at the grocery store, but it’s those side trips for “1 or 2 things” that quickly adds $60 to my grocery bill. 

If you don’t have something at home, find an alternative.  There’s almost always an alternative. This is something I learned quickly when we lived more than half an hour from a grocery store. 

11 – Shop for groceries online 

I get it.  If you are in a grocery store, you can often find mark-downs and clearance items that can save you a lot of money.  

However, if you are in a grocery store, you can also be subject to impulse buys. 

If you want to get serious about saving money on groceries but have little willpower to stay on budget, then try shopping online and picking up your groceries curbside. 

You can easily see your cart total, and what’s on sale, and you can clip store coupons! It also prevents you from grabbing extra food items if you are hungry. 

Save money on groceries

There are countless ways to save money on groceries, but these tips are the ones that have saved me the most money (and that’s without any extreme couponing!).