With the rising cost of groceries due to inflation, and food shortages, grocery shopping on a budget can be stressful. It can be even more stressful to make sure the meals you prepare for your family are healthy. Over the years, I learned many grocery shopping tips to save you money on heathy groceries for your family.
After reading this article you will learn how to make a grocery budget, how to grocery shop for the week, AND you will get a FREE Meal Planner and grocery shopping list to help you save time and money while reducing stress.
How To Create A Grocery Shopping Budget
Before you go to the grocery store you should set a grocery budget. My budget for my family of 3 is $150 a week. It wasn’t always that way. To you that may seem like A LOT or maybe even a little. Every family has a different grocery budget depending on their finances, food preferences, health issues, and cost of food where they live.
To make a grocery budget for your family you can start with $100 per person per month. If that is too much, slowly add a little more to your budget each week. You can try increasing the budget by $25 per person per month for 3 months. If it’s still unreasonable, increase a little more.
After deciding what your family grocery budget is you can use the rest of these tips to help you stick to your budget.
Shelf Shopping
Did you know Americans throw out an estimated 80 billion pounds of food every year? Go through your refrigerator and pantry and take inventory on what you already have. Pay attention to expiration dates to see what you can use first. Then, head over to my recipes page or Pinterest and find recipes that you can make with the food you already have.
Meal Plan
Plan your meals based on what you have on hand along with what’s in season and on sale. Download my FREE printable Weekly Meal Planner
Order Groceries Online
Shopping for groceries with your child can be overwhelming, especially with younger children. When you use Instacart you will save time and money ordering your groceries online which can reduce the stress and anxiety of shopping with your child. You can order and pick up or schedule a delivery from so many grocery retailers including Costco!
With Instacart you can find deals and easily reorder things you eat on a weekly basis which saves you so much time. Another perk of ordering online is that you save money on gas and won’t be tempted to grab that bag of chips as you walk through the aisles. Use code: GB77DE7148 to save $20 off on your first Instacart order!
Buy In bulk
Order the items your family eats large amounts of in bulk. Taking my toddler to Costco in NOT fun so I use Instacart for my Costco delivery once a month. This way we have all our staples like flour, oats, and eggs on hand.
Meal Prep
You can save loads of time by planning one day of the week or month where you can chop, marinate, and prep your produce and meat. I like to prep everything on Monday so we always have clean fresh fruit and veggies ready to snack on.
Thrive Market
To save more time and money on healthy pantry staples you can use Thrive Market. My daughter and husband are snackers. They would eat snacks all day if they could, so I place a monthly order from Thrive Market and they deliver healthy organic snacks and pantry staples at great deals right to my door. They even guarantee that you will make your membership fee back in savings! Save 40% off your first Thrive Market order!
Homechef Meal Kit Service
Don’t have time to shop or prep? Try Home Chef! I have tried several different meal kit subscriptions but Home Chef was my favorite! Home Chef is a weekly subscription meal kit service. You choose your meals and they deliver pre-portioned ingredients and step-by-step recipe cards right to your door. Enjoy the experience of cooking tasty meals with ease, all week long.
Shop Seasonal Produce
Find out what produce is in season in your region before shopping to save even more money. Head over to your local famers market to find fresh quality seasonal produce.
Instant Cash Back!
Are you grocery shopping online? Use Rakuten to get instant cash back from most retailers. You can download the app or browser extension to help you save money every time you shop.
Weekly Ad Deals
Check out your grocery store’s weekly ad to help you save money and plan out meals based on their current grocery deals. Sign up for their emails or free membership to use digital coupons.
But first, EAT!
Make sure you shop after you eat. If you shop when you are hangry chances are you will spend more money and order junk that you don’t actually need.
Whether your grocery shopping for 2 or grocery shopping for 4, grocery shopping on a budget shouldn’t be stressful. Use these grocery shopping tips and download my FREE meal planner and grocery shopping list to save time and money on healthy groceries for your whole family!
Did you find these grocery shopping tips helpful? Comment below and save this post for later!
If you need temporary government assistance for food you can check if you are eligible for SNAP benefits.
Sources:
https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp/usda-food-plans-cost-food-reports-monthly-reports
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/11/03/heres-how-much-the-average-american-wastes-on-food.aspx
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