Four easy tips to save thousands of dollars on your grocery bill

Prices on food were 51% higher in 2018 versus 2000, due to inflation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. What does this mean for your family?

It means food costing $500 in the year 2000 would cost $755 in 2018 for an equivalent purchase. (Credit: In2013Dollars).

Do you want to learn how to eat healthily and save money at the same time? This post will provide Four Easy Tips to Save $9,000 on Your Food while eating healthy.

Tip #1: Cook at home

We all heard about health benefits of cooking at home versus dining out. We can choose healthier ingredients, control portion sizes, use less salt and sugar and create a long-lasting family tradition of gathering at the dinner table. Additionally, cooking at home from scratch saves a bundle of money.

A recent Wellio`s Study discovered that on average, it is almost five times more expensive to order delivery from a restaurant than it is to cook at home.

What does it mean for your family? For example, let`s bring an example a family of two adults and two kids, who eat out once per week. Most likely you spend around $70 on that one dinner, which cost you $280 per month. If you prepare the same four dinners at home, it will cost you roughly $56 per month.

In the scenario above, making home meals will reduce your food bill by 2,688 dollars annually.

Quick Tips:

Check out Gotovim Doma for easy step-by-step recipes to get inspired
Use free Recipe Apps to find easy to make, quick recipes for your next meal

Tip #2: Shop once a week

How often do you shop for groceries? Reports indicate, the more frequently you shop, the more money you will spend on your overall food budget. It happens due to “impulse purchases” we all tend to do.

Here is how it happens. You might think:” I need to stop by the grocery store and buy sugar and flour after work today. Not a big deal, right?” Just the contrary. Companies spend millions of dollars on marketing budgets and dedicate entire departments to study consumer behavior and cash out on what is called “impulse purchases.”

As a result of our extra trips and retail industry marketing efforts, on average, a family spends $3,780 annually on unplanned food purchases at the grocery stores. (Credit: CNBC News).

Quick Tips:

Get into the habit of writing down all necessary food items during the week
Keep well-stocked pantry to avoid running out of certain foods
Avoid 1-2 item grocery trips last minute
At the check-out, ask yourself- do you need the item
Use foods you have on hand to create a new meal, get creative

Tips #3: Buy healthy staples in bulk

According to a Consumers’ Checkbook report, bulk purchases can reduce your food bill by as much as 30-33 percent at Costco and Sam’s Club, comparing to the supermarket chain prices (Credit: Today).

Every family staple foods. For example, our family staples are grains, potatoes, beans, spices, oils, and teas. We buy the type of food in bulk and save handsomely!

What does it mean for your family’s budget? If your family spends $600 on groceries every month, 30% savings at Costco will amount to $2,160 annually.

Quick Tips:

Make a list of staple foods you can buy in bulk
Not all bulk items cost cheaper, compare per-unit prices before you buy
Study food prices at membership-based stores as a guest (BJ, Costco, Sam`s Club)
Read an article to learn more about Bulk Buying Tips

Tip #4: Purchase only on sale produce

One of the radical ways to cook healthy and slash your food cost is to build your weekly meal menu around what is on sale at the grocery store that week. Meal planning may take some getting used to, but it does pay off nicely!

Let`s say you spend $600 on food monthly and you purchase only produce and staple food items when they go on sale. Let`s assume one sale food prices are only 10% lower than usual food cost. What does this mean?

It means you will save $720 annually on your grocery bill.

Quick Tips:

Use FREE phone apps: Surecook, Allrecipes, BigOven, Epicurious, or Cookpad
Match ingredients you have on hand and on-sale produce to find recipes
Make a Weekly Meal Plan, make a Shopping List from the Meal Plan
Go Grocery Shopping – And Stick to Your List (Credit: The Simple Dollar)

Conclusion:

You can continue feeding your family healthy meals and save as much as 9,000 dollars for a family of four on a $600 monthly food budget. Of course, if your monthly spending is higher, your savings also will be higher. Take action and check out these easy tips to save a bundle.

Let`s summarize how much money can you save by implementing these tips:

Cooking at home = $2,688
Shopping once per week = $3,780
Buying in bulk = $ 2,160
Purchasing only on sale produce = $720
You Total Annual Savings = $ 9,348

Imagine, what would you do with an extra $9,000 in your pocket? Maybe take that family vacation you keep dreaming about 😊

My Story:

I am a frugality queen and a health-nut. I love to save money while eating healthy.

Cook at home. Here is the truth- we love to eat, and we do it a lot. There is always someone lurking in our kitchen, looking for a snack or a quick meal. To sustain this small army, I cook at home almost exclusively. We have a very small “eat out budget” of $100 per month, and that amounts to three Qdoba lunches for five of us. The rest of the time we eat at home. Period.

Shop once per week. Most of the time I do follow the strategy and shop weekly. We are lucky to have three freezers and huge stocked up the pantry at my disposal, so I rarely “run out” of things.

Buying in bulk. Again, most of the time when we buy anything it is in larger quantities. For example, we usually buy a 50lbs bag of potatoes, for $20. You might think- she is nuts, who needs that many potatoes? The bag will only last 1-2 months at most. My bulk potatoes cost us only $.40/lb, or it is $1.0/lb at Sprouts. What does it mean? It means I pay 2.5 times less for bulk, versus retail. It is worth it, especially if you love potatoes as much as our family.

Buying only on sale produce. I have a confession to make; I love Sprouts “double-coupon” Wednesdays. I do not bring a list, I simply get a store flyer and buy ONLY the produce that is on sale this week. For example, last week they had $.60 cucumbers and $.77 blackberries. Yes, you guessed it, I bought a bunch. Made tones of cucumber-onion salad and we had some awesome blackberry deserts.

All the strategies described above do not work out perfectly 100% of the time, but they do keep our budget under control, save us a lot of money over the years and allow us to take a week-long vacation in Florida, every year!

Questions to Readers: