I recently was asked about my grocery budgeting tips and how I feed my family of 4 for $250 a month.  I knew nothing about the person asking me except she also had a family of 4 and she was regularly spending $1,000 a month and could not figure out how to spend less.

I immediately launched into what I did and started to give her some tips.  What I got back was actually a kind of defensive response about how she is “health-conscious” and doesn’t eat bread, milk, cheese, hamburger or hashbrowns.  She couldn’t believe the advice I was giving her. It was like I had offended her by offering tips from my own life.

I was kind of taken aback, to be honest.  

So now that I have had some time to digest that conversation, I want you to know, it is totally okay if you don’t like what I feed my family.  You definitely don’t have to feed your family the same things as me.

BUT, if you want to know how to save money on groceries and feed a family of 4 for $250 a month, you can absolutely do what I do!

Let me tell you some things I do:

• I feed white bread instead of wheat bread because it is cheaper (yes, like 7 cents cheaper).
• I don’t drink pop because it’s expensive (not because it isn’t good for you).
• We cut out cheese occasionally to save money (not because it’s fatty).
• I refuse to buy bags of lettuce because I can chop my own lettuce, and I can buy 4 heads of lettuce for the price of 1 bag of chopped.
• I cook with canned chicken way more than I would like to admit.

If none of this sounds appealing, you can take a detour from here to some of our awesome budgeting or debt payoff resources!

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What is a Zero-Based Budget & Why Does It Work?

Still sticking around??  Awesome!

Ready to save money on groceries?

Grocery Budgeting Tip #1:  Shop where it’s cheap.

Trader Joes, Whole Paycheck…whoops!  I mean Whole Foods, your local small town grocery store….not the place to save money.  Unless you feel like bouncing from store to store to use coupons and shop specific deals, stay clear of these places.

I for one do not have time to be shopping around from store to store.  I have butts to wipe and crumbs to clean up off my floors……like all the time.

If you want a cheap grocery budget, you need to shop at a cheap store.  My best recommendation is to shop at Aldi.

Now, lots of people say, they can’t do all of their shopping at Aldi because they don’t have everything they need for their meals.

Want to know the solution to that?  Make your meals fit with what Aldi does have.

If you are trying to save time and money, then you need to make Aldi work for your meals and save time by only shopping at one store.  You will thank yourself, I promise.

I used to go to Aldi, then Target, then Walmart….good Lord!  Then I came to my senses and started making meals that only used things Aldi could supply.  Then I started ordering my toiletry stuff online (and my coffee….I do not like Aldi’s coffee)  and having it shipped from Target to my door.

If you really want to tighten up your food budget, you need to be shopping at Aldi (or an Aldi equivalent) and only Aldi.  No extra store trips where you will spend more and you will buy more on impulse because you are in the store. None of that.

Grocery Budget Tip #2:  Plan to save money.

If you aren’t already meal planning, you are going to be saving so much money once you start!

Before meal planning, I was spending $250/month on groceries and then another $300-$400 just eating out because I felt like we had “nothing to eat.”  Isn’t that always the case?  We would seriously have a pantry full of food, but no idea what to do with it so we felt like we had nothing.

When you meal plan, your ingredients have a purpose and you know you have what you need on hand to make your meal for the day.  No more wasted ingredients and no more impromptu drive-thru adventures.

Okay, meal plan, meal plan, got it.  But how do you actually start to meal plan?

When I first started, I just kept it stupid simple.  I’m talking about spaghetti, frozen pizza, scrambled eggs, Mac ‘n Cheese, chicken nuggets, frozen dinners.  

For the first couple of months of meal planning, I made the meals require like zero effort to accomplish.

Designing the meal plan, making the grocery list and doing the shopping took enough of my energy, I couldn’t imagine doing any serious cooking on top of that.

My first victory was just accomplishing the meal plan for the month, the grocery shopping and telling my husband what was for dinner.  For the first couple of months, we would alternate cooking days (or I’ll be honest, he did most of the cooking/putting stuff in the oven) in the beginning.

Simple was our friend.  Soup and sandwiches? Absolutely!  Frozen chicken pot pie? Sure thing!

Once I actually got comfortable designing a meal plan, then I started to put more effort into the actual meal preparation and cooking.  We have since gotten a little bit more adventurous, but nothing too crazy.

Meal planning is actually really easy.  Now that I have been doing it, it is super simple.  

When you are first getting started, it seems super overwhelming and exhausting.  To help with that, you can design your menu by theme nights (ex. Monday = Mexican, Tuesday = Chicken, Wednesday = Italian, etc.).

USE OUR WEEKLY MEAL PLAN BY THEME AND MONTHLY MEAL PLAN CALENDAR TO GET STARTED TODAY.  SIGN UP BELOW TO GAIN INSTANT ACCESS!

Related Posts:

6 Reasons to Start Meal Planning Today

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How to Meal Plan for $100/Month for a Family of 4 for Dinner

Grocery Budget Tip #3:  Stay out of the store.

This tip is actually becoming much more possible thanks to the convenience efforts being made by grocery stores across the nation.  Gone are the days of people wanting to spend time in stores.

Nowadays we are all about convenience.  That includes purchasing groceries online and picking them up without having to step foot in the store.  

This option does not yet exist for the Aldi in my town, but it is very likely coming.  If you have the option to shop online and go pick it up….absolutely do this! If you can avoid going into a store and avoid impulse shopping, you should always take that option.

If you do not have that option, the next best thing is only grocery shopping once a month.  The goal here is to give you back time in your life. You do not need to be spending your life in a grocery store.  The lighting isn’t great and they don’t even have Dunkaroos anymore, so really, what’s the point?

When you stay out of grocery stores, you also aren’t as tempted to spend money.  I don’t know about you, but pretty much every time I go into a store, I am buying something that was not on my list.  It’s just how it goes.

Stay out of the store and you will save money.  It is a very simple concept.

In order to make this happen in your life, you first have to meal plan for the month.  Then get your grocery list together and actually do the shopping. This whole venture typically takes me two hours to accomplish.  The other piece to this puzzle leads me into tip #4.

USE OUR FREE GROCERY LIST SHEET TO SHOP ONCE A MONTH!  GET IT WHEN YOU SIGN UP BELOW!

Related Posts:

How Grocery Shopping Once a Month Saves You Time & Money

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Grocery Budget Tip #4:  You need to chill.

For the grocery shopping, once a month to work, you are going to need some freezer space.  If you are buying bread, meat, cheese, juice, etc. for an entire month, it isn’t going to stay fresh for that whole time.

That is why you need freezer space to keep your food until you are ready to use it for the month.  In my home, we have two refrigerators each with small freezers and a separate upright freezer. This is one of my favorite freezers.

If you don’t make any freezer meals, you may be able to accomplish the once a month shopping just with a fridge/freezer combo (as long as there is nothing else in the freezer).

I freeze pretty much everything and it really allows us to have more flexibility with our meals and food.  You can definitely start small with this and get comfortable freezing different items. It really is amazing what you can freeze.

Related Post:

A List of Foods You Can Freeze To Save Money

Once you start doing this you seriously won’t know how you lived your life without freezing half of your food.  If you are trying to save money and wonder if purchasing a freezer will be worth it, I am telling you, it is a GAME-CHANGER.  

It is well worth the investment a million times over.

Budgeting Tip #5:  Be a basic b*tch.

Embrace your basic b*tchness and keep it simple!  Don’t be afraid of boring. Most extremely cheap meals are a bit boring.  If you want to keep your grocery budget super low, you need to keep it basic!  Hot dogs on the grill for dinner with potato chips?

Uhhh….can someone say dinner for $2????

This is where you need to be living.  Keep your meals extremely simple.

• Spaghetti
• Tacos
• Pancakes
• Burgers
• Hot dogs
• Eggs
• Sandwiches
• Pizza
• Mac ‘n cheese
• Ravioli
• Tater tot casserole
• Etc.

You may not need to do this every single month, but if you are really trying to cut costs, you are going to need to keep your meals very simple using cheap ingredients.  

Dave Ramsey talks a lot of going on a diet of rice and beans during debt payoff.  We fully embrace that and we do eat a lot of rice and beans and other “fillers” like them.  

Your food budget can be your biggest money saving area or it can be your biggest budget buster.

Work these tips to start getting your food budget under control, start saving your money and using it to bring you closer to your financial goals.

DON’T FORGET TO USE THE FREE MONTHLY MEAL PLAN CALENDAR TO GET STARTED MEAL PLANNING TODAY!  GET IT NOW WHEN YOU SIGN UP BELOW!

It is totally possible to feed your family of 4 for $250 a month.  If you can keep everything simple, shop once a month at a cheap store, meal plan and use a freezer, you are well on your way.

Start implementing these tips today and watch your food budget savings grow!

Do you have any other grocery budget tips to lower your budget?

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