5 Very Doable Tips And Strategies For Keeping Your Grocery Budget As Low As Possible (Now That The Cost Of Food Is At An All-Time High)
Hi, friends! Ross here. I'm a food writer and recipe developer who's incredibly passionate about helping home cooks feel as comfortable as possible in their own kitchens. Welcome back to Cooking Conundrums, where I take super-specific food questions from BuzzFeed readers and answer them in ways that'll apply to basically anyone who's ever cooked.
Ross Yoder
BTW, if you have a cooking conundrum you need help solving, you can write to me at any time via Instagram DM (start your message with "cooking conundrum") or through this anonymous form.
This time around, I heard from someone struggling to keep their food costs down amidst rising grocery costs. Here's what they asked me:
"I was laid off from my job in tech in March 2020 — I know I won't have to explain why — and although I had some money coming in through unemployment and stimulus checks, I knew I'd have to make major lifestyle changes in order to afford my expensive Chicago mortgage. I crunched some numbers and realized that my biggest monthly expenses almost always pertained to restaurants and takeout. Before the pandemic, I regularly dined out 4–5 times a week and usually ordered in on the nights I wasn't eating at a restaurant."
"Like most laid-off people during the first wave of COVID, I used my free time to finally learn how to cook. I'm still not a chef by any means, but ever since 2020, I've been cooking and meal-prepping almost every night of the week, and I grew to really love it. Up until recently, I was saving a ton of money, too! Like, I'd easily slash $1,000 in dining expenses every single month, which opened up my budget to other areas I was totally missing out on. I even did a DIY renovation of my kitchen with those extra savings!"
"But now I need help. Inflation is killing me with these grocery prices. I realized the other day that I'm no longer saving that much money by buying and preparing my own food. Like, I could order takeout every night of the week and probably break even with what I'm paying for groceries these days, and I'd save time and effort by doing so. I tried out some budget cooking blogs to find new cheap recipes, but that didn't work at all; I don't live near a Trader Joe's or Walmart, so all of their 'estimated' grocery costs and meal totals were probably a quarter of what I ended up paying. I'm so disheartened by how much I'm spending at the grocery store that I'm in a total cooking rut. Spending my valuable time cooking when everything is this expensive makes no sense to me!"
"My question for you is: What can I do as an OK-ish cook in a big city, who doesn't live near a budget-friendly grocery store, to continue cooking for myself amidst these horrible grocery prices and actually save money? Do you have any strategies for shopping on a budget that ACTUALLY works in this economy? Is there any hope for me and my wallet?"
NBC / Via giphy.com
First of all, I want to be abundantly clear that you are far from alone in this struggle to keep your grocery costs down these days. Amidst all this talk of inflation cooling down, food and groceries are outliers; as of this past May, grocery prices alone jumped nearly 6% compared to last year, and the food companies responsible for setting prices definitely aren't struggling to stay afloat. To put things in perspective: Cal-Maine Foods, which owns popular brands like Egg-Land's and Land O' Lakes, reported a 718% net income increase over the past year — from $40 million to $323 million. Fun!
Until these profits cool down, it feels likely that we'll continue to see our grocery costs increase. That's why we could all use a shift in our food-shopping strategy. I can't tell you exactly what you're doing "right" or "wrong" here since I don't have those specific details, but I can definitely recommend some helpful tips based on the methods that have saved me the most money in recent months and years since I A.) also live in a big, expensive city, B.) stores like TJ's and Walmart aren't the easiest to get to, and C.) I love to save money — and cook!
TIP #1: Start ordering your groceries online. Even if you'll pay delivery fees and tips, there are so many reasons why it'll save you more money in the long run.
• Getting to look at the total cost of my online grocery cart before checking out and having a reality check with myself before clicking "order" saves me every single time. When my total inevitably clocks in at about $50 more than I was hoping to spend, I can easily sift through my cart and remove unnecessary items without dealing with that awkward IRL moment of having to ask a cashier to delete groceries they've already scanned in.
• Being in front of your computer makes it ridiculously simple to find budget-friendly swaps for pricier ingredients. If you're sweating over that $7 jar of dried herbs you "had to buy" for that pasta dish you're making this week, use good ol' Google (or, sorry to say it, ChatGPT) to research lower-cost alternatives. Even better, check to see if any herbs you already have in your spice drawer will work as a substitute and you'll save yourself $7.
• The ease of online grocery shopping, especially with delivery, means that I'm far more likely to actually stick to my meal plans. When I'm relying on in-person shopping, I often find myself in trouble; a super pricey local grocery store makes shopping in my neighborhood nearly impossible, but my hour-long roundtrip commute to Trader Joe's isn't exactly fun, either. When I make the plan to grocery shop in person, I often find that I just...don't do it, and end up unnecessarily blowing money on takeout and restaurant outings. Even with $9.99 delivery fees and driver tips, I always find that I save tons of money when I make it a point to spend 15 minutes ordering groceries online for the week.
TIP #2: Eat less meat. Before the carnivores click out of this post, let me explain as a person who once ate meat every night of the week (and now only has it once or twice, max).
I'm not saying you have to stop eating meat entirely, but even just swapping out two meals a week with vegetarian recipes will allow you to save some pretty serious cash. Sure, not every vegetarian dish is inherently budget-friendly, but many are! And while meat substitutes (like Impossible Meat) are delicious but usually more expensive than their actual-meat counterparts, I can pretty much promise you that you'll be able to find a method of cooking cheaper non-meat proteins — like tofu, beans, and eggs — that you'll actually enjoy eating.
As someone who used to go through a family pack of chicken breasts every single week before they became a splurge item, I've found so many ways to swap in cheap plant-based proteins into the chicken dishes I've always loved; chicken curries became tofu curries, chicken salad sandwiches became chickpea salad sandwiches, and these dishes cost far less overall with these doable swaps. As a result, I've also been able to build a pretty sizable roster of satiating vegetarian recipes that I turn to on a near-weekly basis.
What I'm trying to say is: If you're averse to vegetarian recipes but love the idea of saving money, starting with tiny ingredient swaps before graduating into the new and delicious world of vegetarian recipes is likely a more attainable way to make some pretty significant changes to your meat consumption. Your wallet will thank you for it.
TIP #3: Plan meals around ingredients you already have on hand — or "free ingredients," as I call them — instead of starting from square one every week.
As much fun as it is to dream up a new slate of recipes to cook every week — well, for me at least — building your grocery list from the ground up can be as expensive as it is time-consuming. Instead, do a casual inventory of any extra ingredients you have lying around your kitchen and find recipes that'll use them up first. I refer to these items as "free ingredients" (even if they're anything but), because finding useful food in your own kitchen low-key feels like winning the lottery. Ultimately, doing this will help you cut down on food waste and reduce your food expenses.
Here's how this works in real-time: I've had my eyes on this meatball recipe for a few weeks now, but after poking around my pantry, fridge, and freezer, I've realized this week is not the best time to try it out, financially speaking. Instead, I'm looking at the pound of "manager's special" Italian sausage I bought for $1.99 sitting sadly in my freezer, the tube of tomato paste I haven't touched in months, and the wilting container of rosemary I used for last week's roast, and realizing that a sausage-y meat sauce would offer similar vibes at a much more reasonable cost. While the ingredients I'd need to buy for the first recipe could easily set me back $35–40, the latter would only cost $12 or so. Even though I'll end up with basically the same volume of cooked food, I'll save nearly $30 by starting with the "free ingredients" I already have.
TIP #4: Always include at least one recipe in your weekly plan that can be bulked up with the starch of your choice (and stretched until the very last bite).
If most meals you cook consist of proteins and veggies, you've probably already realized that those ingredients won't get you very far in terms of leftovers or future meals. That's why I always make it a point to cook at least one meal a week that involves a cheap starch for bulking things up, like a veggie-heavy pasta salad, or can easily be stretched by implementing a carb or two when it's time to eat the leftovers and make good use of the entire leftover lifecycle.
Basically, my strategy is: Lean on meals that'll taste great the next day over rice or in a sandwich (or wrapped in a tortilla!) for maximum cost-efficiency. A roast chicken with veggies is a great dinner the night of, but once the veggies are long gone, you can stretch the leftover chicken into chicken sandwiches for days. Similarly, your leftover grilled shrimp skewers might not get you very far on your own, but chopped up and tossed into a hot bowl of fried rice, or added to toasty tortillas for shrimp tacos, they'll last for multiple meals.
TIP #5: Cooking from recipes is always more expensive than just cooking with a few ingredients that sound good to you.
As a recipe- and budget-obsessed food writer this is one that I have to remind myself of weekly. So many of the recipes that I gravitate toward call for lots of ingredients that I have to buy fresh every time, and while I derive lots of joy from cooking and trying these new dishes, there's never any shame in cobbling together whatever budget ingredients I can grab and turning them into a makeshift dinner.
While grocery shopping this past week (online, remember?), I saw that a two-pound bag of frozen salmon was half-off for only $13. Instead of skimming through the archives for a fun and flavorful salmon recipe, I decided to go simple instead and only added a couple of broccoli crowns to my cart. That night, dinner was soy sauce baked salmon over steamed rice with a side of roasted broccoli, and it rocked. And it was very, VERY cheap.
That's all the cooking knowledge I've got for today! I hope this helps you escape your cooking rut and get back into the kitchen as cheaply as humanly possible.
If reading this post made you think of your own kitchen dilemma you need help solving, write to me through this anonymous form and your question might just end up in the next edition of Cooking Conundrums.
