5 Steps to Get Your Food Budget Under Control

Yes, I see you and your food budget being blown EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH! You are frustrated with yourself and you are ready to stick to the plan once and for all! Don’t worry, I’ve got you, a few small tweaks will have you laughing all the way to the bank.

When I say ‘food budget’ I am talking about groceries AND restaurant spending. You may group them together in your budget, or you may separate them, whatever you do, these tips will help you get back on track.

Step 1 is to HAVE a food budget. If you are winging it with your spending and don’t have a clear target, you are missing a huge opportunity to put more money towards the items that you love in your budget (vacation savings anyone??). If you are new to budgeting, click HERE to get access to my free budget tool so you can see exactly where you stand.

Step 2, have a plan for your grocery shopping frequency, I recommend a maximum of once/week. This is important because grocery stores are built to get you to add a few more things to your cart when you ‘pop in’ for a few things you need for dinner. It’s easily $40 + each time you go for a few items. If you can extend your shopping to every 10 days, and you get paid bi-weekly, you’ll have pay periods where you are shopping once instead of twice, and this can really stretch your grocery dollar. Investing in storage containers for the fridge that help to keep fruits and veggies fresh has really helped us with this.

Step 3, which really helps to support step 2, is to make a plan for your meals. You can use a whiteboard calendar for this, or a planner. Do what works for you. I personally use my planner. It helps me to plan meals around our schedules. On the busy days, I plan quick meals or put our slow cooker to work. Planning based on our schedules helps us to not get lazy and pick something up for dinner, which is always more costly than cooking at home. It also helps to decrease on food waste. Throwing out food that has gone bad sucks on so many levels. I really only plan for dinners because we are pretty consistent with breakfast and we usually have leftovers for lunch.

Step 4, shop with a list! You’ve got a plan for your meals, now it is time to check what you have on hand and see what you need to complete your meal plan. Going into the store without a plan, and without a list, will leave you buying things you don’t need and forgetting items you do need, which will mean extra trips later! Combining steps 3 and 4 will save you time. I like to make my plan in the kitchen to see what we have on hand that needs to get used up first.

Step 5, add it all up. An easy way to do this is to try online grocery ordering. This can help you save on time but can also be huge to help you stay on budget. This can be especially helpful if you are new to having a grocery budget. Ordering online lets you see what your total is and make adjustments as you go. While there is typically a fee to do this, I believe it is worth it to save you some time. By not going into the store and putting unplanned items into your cart, you’re more than covering the cost. If you’re not using online ordering, you need to do a little math when you’re shopping to help you stay on track. Yes, it sucks, but the only way to know if you are on budget when you’re shopping is to add it up as you go. You don’t want to get to the checkout and end up $20 over budget, otherwise it makes your budget pretty pointless. Avoid embarrassment by keeping track as you go. 

BONUS TIPS:

·      Make meals that build on one another. In our house a chicken in the slow cooker one night is a guarantee that chicken soup or stew will be dinner the following night.

 ·      Make larger meals so that you can plan a night of leftovers.

 ·      Use price matching to save money without hitting up several grocery stores (Flipp app makes this easy).

 ·      Pay attention to the prices at different grocery stores, this can have a significant impact on how much you’re spending.

 ·      If it is appropriate for your family, buy larger portions and divide up and freeze smaller portions for later. This works well for us as we are a two-person household so often the single portions of meats are too much for us. I hit up Costco once every other month or so and buy in bulk so I can freeze in portion sizes that work for us.

 ·      Try a pantry challenge week. If your budget is really tight one week, or you have no room in your pantry and freezer, get creative and see how many meals you can make with what you already have on hand.

For me, grocery shopping is a not so fun chore. Using the tips above have helped to make it easier, and also make it a fun challenge for me to try and get under budget each week so we can put the money towards other things!

 Happy grocery shopping!

-Sherry