Meal planning your way to a healthy budget. Practical tips to reduce your grocery budget.
I have found this to be true with every single person and family I work with: the food budget is often as big, or bigger, than the mortgage or rent. When I say “food budget”, I mean your expenditures which include dining out and groceries. I think that eating good food is paramount to maintaining health and energy. I also know that it can be really easy to spend a lot of money on groceries and dining out.
We wanted to see if we could eat well while cutting down our food budget. We are a family of three – two adults and one baby. The baby is experimenting with food, but I don’t really buy anything out of the ordinary for him to experiment with. So, mainly, the groceries are to feed two adults, and occasionally, some company. For the last several months our food budget has been set at $750. I was okay with this because I try to buy local and organic and felt like we were doing pretty good if we spent $750. And, honestly, looking back at the last year, there were months we spent $1000-$1200. For the two of us (although, I was eating for two, myself!). I think it’s safe to say there wasn’t a lot of mindfulness those months.
We did a little compound interest calculating and knew if we could cut our food budget and invested it in our future, we would have more money later on, and that would be worth the little bit of extra work now. We were surprised by how much more we could have later on. Here are the numbers we ran:
$100 per month, invested for 30 years at an estimated 10% rate of return = $199,000
$200 per month, invested for 30 years at an estimated 10% rate of return = $398,000
$250 per month, invested for 30 years at an estimated 10% rate of return = $497,000
$500 per month, invested for 30 years at an estimated 10% rate of return = $995,000
Now, cutting our food budget by $500 per month didn’t seem realistic (even though it would be great to have a cool million in 30 years!) but we figured we could cut it by 10-20% ($75-$150). We set out to try it in April, and we managed to cut our budget by nearly 30%. We spent $566. If we invest those savings, we can increase our later net worth by nearly $400,000. I’d say it was worth the tiny bit of extra mindfulness.
Here are the strategies we used to reduce spending in our food budget and that I recommend:
1. Take an inventory of your refrigerator and pantry. What do you have that needs to be used up? What do you have that you haven’t had in a while? What do you have that spoiled or didn’t get used? Knowing what you have helps with meal planning.
2. Meal plan for a week at a time. Take thirty minutes to an hour to map out what you are going to eat for the week. We plan our meals for 6 days at a time. We do our grocery shopping every Saturday morning and our meal plan provides dinners for Saturday through Thursday night. Grab a copy of our meal planning template here on the resources page. Friday nights we eat whatever is left in the fridge or our “convenience meal” (see 9 below). By having food in your fridge and your meals planned out, you’ll be less likely to dine out for convenience.
3. Incorporate vegetarian meals. Veggies are typically less expensive than meat. Plan vegetarian dinners for at least two to four dinners.
4. Stick to simple breakfasts. Why is it that we don’t get sick of breakfasts like we do dinners? I rotate through a few breakfasts, but typically eat the same thing for a week at a time. I like homemade granola with yogurt and frozen blueberries, breakfast tacos, and homemade bread with avocado and kimchi. Occasionally I’ll have something else, but these are my three staples.
5. Stick to simple lunches. Just like breakfast, having a repetitive lunch doesn’t feel tedious. A big salad can be made on Sunday to pack for the week. Or maybe you like sandwiches? We like to have carrots, hummus, and apples and crackers on hand to make a quick lunch.
6. Have a repertoire of dinners. Growing up, my mom always made the same ten (or so) dishes. I’m sure she sprinkled in some other stuff, too, but we weren’t always eating new and exciting recipes. By sticking to the same recipes, she wasn’t buying a ton of obscure ingredients. And, one of the hardest parts of meal planning is coming up with ideas of meals to eat. Stick to a repertoire and occasionally add in something new to try. I keep a list of meals we enjoy. I sort the list by protein (i.e. chicken, fish, beef, pork) and vegetarian. I rotate through these every week.
7. When shopping, resist the temptation to buy items that are not on your list. It’s easy to pick up extra things or grab something new and exciting. If you stick to your list, you’ll ensure less waste and have only the things you need for what you planned.
8. Only shop one time per week. Have you ever found that you go to the store for one thing and you leave with a bunch of stuff and having spent a lot of money? If you only go one time per week, stick to your meal plan, and only buy the things on your list, you’ll eliminate this chance.
9. Keep some meals on hand that are “convenience” meals. There are always those times when you just don’t want to cook. You are tired. You are not in the mood. You’d rather be doing anything else but you need to eat. Those are the times we tend to get takeout. It’s not even that we enjoy the takeout, we just enjoy someone else cooking for us. The problem is, it can be really expensive (and sometimes not even that good!). We like to keep corn tortillas, shredded cheese, black beans, and pickled jalapenos. We love easy quesadillas and can almost always jazz them up with other leftovers in our fridge. My mother-in-law, one of the most successful women I know, and a woman who raised amazing men, freezes leftover soups for just this reason. When you’re tired of a meal, freeze the leftovers and you can enjoy it again later on.
10. Finally, if you want to eat out, eat out as a treat, not for convenience. Eat out because it’s a restaurant you want to support. Eat out because you want to go on a date with your partner. Eat out because it is something you will truly enjoy and you budgeted for it, in both time and money.
So, here’s the bottom line: take a little time this week to be mindful about your food budget, both for your physical health and also for the health of your budget.