How to Stay on Budget When Grocery Shopping

Let’s face it, with the recent world events the grocery bill has definitely increased and there is no sign of it going back down anytime soon. It can be really difficult to stay on budget these days during your weekly grocery shop, especially if you want to make healthy food choices for your family. Here are three ways our family stays on budget while still maintaining our healthy eating habits.
 
1. PLAN – I find when I fly by the seat of my pants on my grocery store trips I always end up spending at least $50 more than I would if I went with a list. Typically when I am making my grocery list I will sit down on Sunday and I will plan my meals for the week. This takes approximately 30-40 minutes but it is so worth it!!The ingredients I need for my dinners end up making the majority of my list and then I will also add a bit of extra fruit and some school snacks for my daughter. Doing your list this way can help eliminate throwing away food that has not been eaten at the end of the week. By the following Sunday in our home it is pretty slim pickins’ in our fridge and I prefer it that way. When planning your meals if there is a perishable ingredient that you can only buy a a larger amount of such as Bok Choy consider looking for another meal you could make that uses that same ingredient so it doesn’t go to waste. Two of my go to cookbooks lately are: Half Baked Harvest Super Simple And Jamie Oliver Ultimate Veg.
 
2. MAKE IT YOURSELF – There are a lot of cost savings when you make certain things yourself. For example a 600gram bag of granola at the grocery store can run your anywhere from $6-12 but you could make the same amount at home for about $3 and in my opinion homemade granola tastes WAY better!! Check out my favorite Granola Recipe HERE. We also started making our own nut milk as opposed to buying it. The cost to make a liter of nut milk is about $1 compared to $3-5 when you purchase it in the store. I’ll make sure to get that recipe up on the blog for you guys soon as well!! It is incredibly easy and tastes delicious.
 
3. GO MEAT FREE – We are not vegetarian but about half of our meals are meatless for a combination of health and environmental reasons not to mention the added bonus of cost savings on our grocery bill. If you are used to eating meat with every meal you may want to start with just one meal a week without meat and then work your way up. There are a ton of great meatless recipes online so challenge yourself to try a new one every week!!
 
I hope these tips help you to stay on budget on your next trip to the grocery store!!