By Ainsley Heimall as told to Rachel Morgan Cautero
I’m an Army wife and mom of a 4-year-old in Clarksville, Tenn. A few years ago, my husband and I had our rent check bounce (twice!) and realized we needed to get control of our finances. A good chunk of our spending went toward groceries, so I budgeted our spending, without compromising our food quality, to save around $300 a month. Here’s how we did it.
The wake-up call
A few years ago, my family barely thought about our budget. Sure, we checked the balance of our bank accounts to make sure our paychecks were deposited as expected, but we didn’t keep a budget spreadsheet, actively save, or pre-plan our expenses. This system of not having a system had always worked for us in the past.
Then, in September of 2021, we received a notification from our property managers that our rent was late and the automatic withdrawal that we normally pay with had bounced. We transferred some money from our savings account and submitted the rent payment again. But because of some miscalculations on our part, our digital rent “check” bounced again.
This was a first for us, and the shock of it really opened our eyes to just how oblivious we had been with our finances. That was the day that my husband and I decided it was time to change our ways.
I began by analyzing a year’s worth of bank statements.
Unsurprisingly, we spent too much on random subscriptions we didn’t even use anymore. We also realized that the majority of our bills came out in the first half of the month. As we reorganized due dates, we started looking at other areas of the budget that could be adjusted.
That’s when we turned our attention to our grocery spending. It tallied up to about $200 a week for the two of us plus our then 1-year-old daughter, who barely contributed to food consumption. I used to think it made sense since we worked out regularly and ate cleanly — a healthy lifestyle can be expensive.
But our monthly grocery spending was almost equivalent to what we paid in rent. I knew this could be a huge area to save in, if we could cut back without compromising the quality of our food. So began my exploration and experimentation with how to save money on groceries.
Then, I started meal planning.
Prior to this point, I can’t tell you how many times we went back to the store mid-week to buy the missing ingredients we needed for dinner. Extra money was constantly being spent because we just shopped for foods we liked on the fly. And we ordered in far more than we wanted to because we didn’t have a real plan.
Now, I only go to the grocery every other week. This has been a hugely positive change for our budget – not to mention our schedules. I’m less likely to impulse shop — that bag of chips can’t magically find its way into my cart if I’m not in the store — and I’m more likely to use up all the food I purchased and produce less waste. Most people toss the last 20 grapes when they get a new bag, for example, but when you only shop every two weeks, you force yourself to use up everything you have.
Now I shop around — including in my own pantry
Being intentional about what I am shopping for has helped me take advantage of store discounts. I’ve seen prices differ by more than $2 between different stores, so I would plan my trips to the stores that had the best deals on what I needed. For us, that’s typically Walmart. As long as you’re not wasting what you’re saving on gas, you can save anywhere from $5 to $50 a month by comparison shopping.
I also realized how poorly I was using my pantry. It would be fully stocked and I’d forget to check there before heading to the store. Suddenly I’d have three bags of rice and it would take me months to use them up. Shopping your own pantry is definitely underutilized. Oftentimes, we forget about the second half of a pasta box, the can of soup that got lost in the back, or the box of crackers.
Since we began budgeting for groceries, we’ve been able to grow our savings and afford more activities for our daughter.
In the first year that we changed our grocery shopping habits, we saved about $500 a month. Our monthly grocery savings have since evened out at around $300/month. That was partially due to inflation, but I think it also had to do with my daughter being older and eating more with each meal.
We’ve also been able to put more money toward student loans and are more comfortably able to afford extracurricular activities, like gymnastics, for our daughter. It feels good to make the most of our grocery budget while still feeding my family well.
What we buy:
Whole chickens: We break them down into two breasts, two tenderloins, and either two thighs or two drums, which means it can last up to three meals for our family of three. A whole chicken at our local Walmart is $7.42, which means the price per person is just $0.82/meal. We even save the bones and the carcasses to make broth. One chicken will usually yield about 4-5 cups of broth, which saves us the $2.18 a carton of chicken broth costs.
What we skip:
Bread: We all eat toast or a bagel with breakfast each morning and on the weekends we have sourdough pancakes. I bake the majority of our bread products to save around $10 at the store.
Pre-chopped vegetables: Whole bell peppers at our local grocery store cost $0.86, while a container of diced peppers is $4.88. Even if you buy three whole peppers, dicing them yourself saves $2.50.
Prepackaged snacks: If you look at the cost of a 10-ounce bag of Pirate's Booty versus a bag of twelve 1-ounce bags, you’re paying more for the individual sizes — the bigger bag is $0.69/ounce, while the individual bags are $1.32/ounce, even though the bags are comparable in price. Dividing it up yourself saves money.
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