[Jessica]

I meal plan. What makes it easier on my family and me is to meal plan a month ahead. Food budget is $500/ month for a family of 3 (two adults and an 8 year old).

How else can I keep my grocery budget down?

With rising prices we’ve been over. We don’t buy extra stuff like snacks etc.

[Tiffany]

If you don’t eat leftovers, make a meal where you won’t have them.

So we don’t usually eat leftovers (they end up forgotten or whatever) and it goes to waste. We cut back by making smaller portions for dinner so we don’t have the waste and can use the money eh towards other items.

[Marissa]

If you’re consistently going over, I would try to adjust the budget to accommodate.

[Katherine]

I think that is great. My family of 4 is 1,000 a month. You can use fetch rewards, receipt hog, Shop kicks and Ibotta for possible additional savings.

[Dani]

$500 for a months worth, I think is excellent in todays times! That’s about $125 a week!

[Sharon]

Like Miko says – you don’t create one budget. You create new budgets as your needs and life change. If you’re finding you’re consistently over your grocery budget it is time to increase it.

[Beth]

What helps me is having Walmart shop for me. I don’t have to go inside so I’m not tempted by things.

We instituted meatless Mondays for a while. Usually did spaghetti and a salad but it was nice having a meal not centered around meat.

I’m also down to cooking 4 days a week which helps. We just eat smaller portions (good for the check book and the love handles!!) Which has allowed us to plan our menu better.

[Johanna]

$500 a month is mighty impressive if the three of you are eating 3 meals a day for most days of the month. To be honest… if you go much lower, you’ll likely wind up spending more to fill in gaps.

If you do the math… that’s about $5.46 per meal for all 3 of you to eat over the course of a month.

[Jen]

I’ve done these things that have helped:

• Meal prep every Sunday while home. That way I know what items I already have on hand, so I’m not buying extra items
• Cook several meals using the same items so you can buy in bulk. Example bacon – blts, crack chicken, added to greens. Chicken – baked chicken with bbq sauce, chicken with ranch packets.
• Cook meals that you can also use for lunch the next day. Tacos on Tuesday, taco salad for lunch Wednesday

[Jolene]

Avoid Costco and Sam’s Club. They really won’t save you $$. I say this as a mama to 8! Check into discount food stores (google search: discount food stores near me). Even Aldi hasn’t saved us money. Walmart and the discount food stores.

I am looking forward to seeing what others share.

[Ana]

Honestly you are doing great. Do you ever watch Frugal Fit Mom on YouTube? She has a lot of videos about how she feeds a family of six (and 3 of her kids are teens) on a budget of $400 a month. She has some “emergency” low cost meal plans for $20 a week (you could maybe incorporate a few of those options to lower costs more?) and cheap meal ideas.

[Author]

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