How to Make A Grocery Budget: Tips to Survive Inflation.

With six kids at home, our grocery budget takes up the largest portion of our monthly bills. I have worked hard throughout the years to create tricks and tips that helped us learn how to make a grocery budget and keep our shopping trip as low as possible while still making nutritious meals that my family would actually enjoy sitting down to eat.

Let me tell you, it hasn’t been easy. I felt a pull a few years ago to clean up our diets as much as possible. When Lucas was diagnosed with cancer, it just solidified that we needed to do something different. His cancer is not caused by environmental factors, but I needed to feel in control again after so much fear during that time in our lives. Did you know that 1 in 2 adults will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime? And that only 3.8% of the national budget is allocated to childhood cancer research. It’s heartbreaking that children who are diagnosed get such a small portion of the research budget. Our children deserve so much better than this.

I have come up with 6 tips and tricks to help keep our food budget under control and I am sharing them all with you today. Some may seem too simple to make a difference, but by implementing these tips into my life, we have been able to cut our grocery budget back by hundreds of dollars each month and work on our debt-free journey! Our current schedule includes grocery shopping every 2 weeks. This lines up with when Drew is paid. It helps up stay out of the store as much as possible while still having fresh options on hand.

Our monthly budget

I hadn’t originally planned on sharing our exact monthly food budget when I first wrote this post, but I want to be as transparent as possible when I share things like this to help other moms feel like they can be successful at controlling their budget and finances in their own families. Our monthly grocery budget for seven people is $800. Even that seems steep to me. I know I can’t compare, but I remember when our grocery bill was $500 a month!

This is why making my own bread and becoming as self-sufficient as possible is so important to us. It not only feels empowering, but it will help keep our food budget under control as much as possible. Baking has become more important to me than ever before, plus I love seeing the end result. I hope these tips encourage you to take a look at your budget and help you find ways to cut back.

Need help learning how to make a grocery budget? Keep reading for my simple tips!

Tip number 1

Create a master meal list.

I have a document on my computer called ‘Master Meal List’ that has about 30 meal options listed. Any time we try out a new meal that we love, we add it to our master list. It has options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I include where the recipe is from.

Tip number 2

Choose your meals before going grocery shopping.

I cannot stress this tip enough. I feel like this is probably the tip that has helped us make the biggest change in our budget. Get that master meal list and choose your meals. We sit down as a family and choose our meals together for the next 2 weeks before creating the shopping list. We do 14 breakfasts, 14 lunches, and usually 11-12 dinners. This leaves wiggle room for leftovers, nights when the kids aren’t as hungry, and helps us waste less food.

Tip number 3

Repeat meals! You do not need to make 14 different dinners over 2 weeks. That can become daunting, expensive, and frustrating. I enjoy cooking, but just like anyone else, I have days where I just don’t want to be in the kitchen. When we sit down and choose our meals, we usually choose around 5-8 different choices for each meal. This helps cut back on how much I have to buy, and how many different recipes I have to cook every next 2 weeks.

Tip number 4

Check your pantry for items that you may already have on hand. This seems like an obvious step, but there have been so many times when I just purchased every ingredient on my list not stopping to think that I probably already had at least a few of them on hand. Take a few minutes to scan your on-hand inventory before making your shopping list.

Tip number 5

No snacks. If having an afternoon snack is part of your daily schedule, this might seem difficult. For years when 3:30 rolls around, my kids would run to the pantry and look for a snack and either eat a serving and tell me they were still hungry or eat so much that when it was time for dinner, they wouldn’t eat what I just cooked. Give it a try. The first week is rough, my kids were frustrated and even I felt weird not grabbing a snack because I am so used to that being part of my daily routine. Turns out, I don’t miss it now. It’s been about 8 weeks since we started this and not only has it made a difference in our budget, but the kids come to the table hungry and ready to eat at dinner time. We still have a snack every now and then, especially if one of the kids wants to bake something, but overall, it has made such a difference.

Tip number 6

Utilize grocery pick-up! This has been a lifesaver for me. Going grocery shopping with six kids can be difficult, to say the least. I would rather plan an outing than use my energy to take them all to the grocery store. It ends up being too stressful and we are more likely to buy items off the list when we go into the store. Grocery pick-up helps me stay on budget because I’m not seeing extra things in the store. I choose the items on my list and that’s it!

Recently I’ve gone one step further and compared items at Target and Walmart and usually end up doing a pick-up at both. Both stores are pretty close to our house as well as each other which means I’m not wasting gas in the process. I’ve tried out delivery before, but between the fee and a tip, it’s just not worth it to me.

These tips have helped us stick to our grocery budget every month even with the rise in food costs. We try to keep our meals simple, clean, and free of as many processed foods as possible. When we can afford it, we choose organic for dairy, meat, and certain fruits and veggies, but that isn’t always possible while staying within our budget. At the end of the day, we just try to do our best with the knowledge we have while also being mindful of our spending.

Conclusion

Need help creating a meal plan and shopping list? Check out my Etsy shop for beautiful, affordable printables that can help! I hope you’ve found these tips helpful. If you have, I would be so grateful if you left a comment and pinned my post to your favorite Pinterest board. Thank you for being here!