Highly Effective Food Cost-Cutting Strategies for Every Lifestyle

Ever wonder why you never have enough money to save some of it for emergencies consistently? I’m talking about consistent, regular deposits from every paycheck that go straight into a savings account. Maybe it’s time to consider that you’re handing your savings to restaurants, drive-thrus, diners, and coffee shops. Think about it.

What if you were strategic in buying basic ingredients and then cooking great meals at home? What if you had all of that money tucked away in a savings account rather than the coffers of local eating joints?

No matter your lifestyle, I am confident that with the right strategies, you really can reduce the amount of money you’re spending on food.

More Time Than Money

If yours is a single-income household struggling to survive in a two-income world, keeping food on the table and paying bills can be quite challenging. The good news is that time is on your side. The one not working outside the home has the time—it takes time to carry out the best strategies—to keep the cost at rock bottom without sacrificing quality.

Multiple stores

All grocery stores and supermarkets have tremendous weekly sales. And they announce these details in their weekly flyers—in print and online. These sales include “loss leaders,”—items priced so low, the store loses money, and for the sole purpose of getting you through the door with hopes that you’ll also grab lots of full-priced items.

Eat the sales

Buy only loss leaders and items that are on sale. You won’t starve and you’ll have a huge variety of food items to choose from and in every department. When your budget is really, really tight don’t give in to the temptation to buy more just because it is on sale.

Detailed plans

Create specific shopping lists and budgets and stick to them like glue.

Coupon like crazy

Matching coupons to sale is your best weapon against rising food costs. There are free websites like TheKrazyCouponLady.com that will hook you up with the best coupons out there—and teach you how to use them to your best advantage.

Little Time, Tight Budget

For dual-income families with kids, time becomes an especially valuable commodity. It’s scarce. Both of you work full-time jobs. Kids are in school plus all of their extra-curricular activities. Then there’s church and weekends filled with sports and just playing catchup to get ready for the next week. You don’t have time to visit every store; to take advantage of a variety of sales. But money is still really tight, which makes the challenge even greater.

Pick a store

Your best bet is to identify the grocery store or supermarket in your area that is known for having the lowest everyday prices, then stick with it. Download that store’s app. Get on its mailing and email lists. Use coupons as they are available.

Get creative

See what’s on sale this week before you even think about a menu plan. Cautiously add full-priced items but only as absolutely necessary. Learn the store’s sales cycle. Typically every area of the store will be on sale at least once every 12 weeks. Even in these times of soaring food prices, availability issues in many supermarkets, I am still finding stores maintain have weekly sales. Follow them closely. When items you use often are on sale, buy one or two extra—or as your budget will allow—to tide you over until the next time it comes on sale.

Get a makeover

If you can eke out the time, consider taking The Grocery Budget Makeover course (see above). You will not regret it because you will learn so many cost- and time-saving strategies.

Picky Eaters, Dietary Restrictions

You have the time and the skills to cook at home. The problem is making meals that actually taste good given the long list of ingredients your picky eaters will not touch. Or you need to produce menus and dishes that match someone’s dietary restrictions otherwise known as “doctor’s orders.”

Often, you just give up and go out because it’s not worth the effort and hassle involved in trying to meet all dietary and personal taste restrictions.

eMeals

This meal-planning site offers variety and flexibility allowing you to pick the recipes that best fit your needs that week. eMeals can’t cook dinner for you but can plan and send your grocery list to your favorite store for pickup or delivery.

You can start with a free 14-day trial, choosing the meal plan that fits your family best: Gluten-free, diabetic, classic, heart-healthy, slow-cooker—and many more—30-minute meals and so many more. eMeals offers a great service. Emeals offers a free 14-day trial. Membership offers a 3-month subscription for $10 a month.

More Money Than Time

Young professional DINKS (dual income no kids) often and for whatever reason—insane work schedule, enrolled in grad school and working full-time, crazy commute, you name it—do not have time much less the desire to shop for groceries beyond running in to pick up a six-pack of Red Bull and chips. And they’re the first to admit they lack the basic skills to prepare it if they had the time to shop for it.

Because they see themselves as having more money than time, DINKS routinely default to the most expensive eating style of all—restaurant, fast food, diners, and drive-thru and not because going out again for the twelfth time this week is particularly enjoyable. It’s a necessary burden to avoid starvation.

Home Chef

Wait. Before you skip past the idea of meal delivery services, you have to learn about Home Chef. It is neither expensive nor unreasonable and that is saying a lot coming from your humble columnist who loves to cook, has time to cook, and lives within one mile of Costco.

I cannot figure out how Home Chef does it for the life of me, but they do. Week after week and with a level of perfection and at a final cost that is so low, it leaves me wondering why I bother planning, shopping, and cooking so much.

• MORE: How We Use Meal Kits to Cut Food Costs

Home Chef is not for every lifestyle. If you feed more than four adults, you will likely do better cost-wise by following one of the other strategies above. But for a family of two adults with two kids, this is the only meal delivery service I would consider. And consider I would (and I do).

Here’s how it works: You join (cancel anytime if you want). You sign up for the number of meals and servings you want in the week. Then, choose your meals from 13 different options (they change weekly). You can tailor meals to your dietary needs, including low-calorie, low-carb, and more. And you can pause service anytime and for as long as you want.

The base cost for Home Chef is an astounding $9.95 per serving. Here’s what you get delivered to your doorstep even if you are not there to accept it: Everything. Seriously, everything you need to assemble, heat, and eat.

The packaging is beyond belief it is so precise. Just follow the simple well-written instructions that even a fifth-grader could follow. Meals turn out exactly as presented and pictured. The ingredients are remarkably fresh and beautiful.

I am impressed with Home Chef. You can check it out HERE. And when you get to that page, you’ll see that I’ve arranged for you to get a $35 coupon you can use on your first order (a better offer than the “16 free meals” you may see elsewhere, which is spread out over a period of time and not nearly as valuable, in my opinion!) should you wish to try Home Chef, too. You can cancel anytime.

Resource links

• TheKrazyCouponLady.com
• Erin Chase’s Grocery Budget Makeover!
• PlateJoy
• eMeals
• Home Chef

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