How We Cut Monthly Food Costs in HALF!

Strategies to lower meal expenses in the budget that worked, and how to reduce grocery bills

I am so happy to share this news with you today! We’ve been working diligently to get our exorbitant food costs down and we’ve really started to see some results. Keep reading and I’ll show you how we got our monthly food expenses down from an astronomical $1400 to just $700 and then to $500 from there!

How to Cut Monthly Food Costs in Half?

Ok, it helped tremendously that our starting point of spending $1400 a month on food was just so outrageously high. I mean, we could have done almost anything and gotten it lower I think!

But that is the power in first just seeing how much you are spending. Once you begin to track it and you become aware of just how much is flying away each month, you can then become intentional about working towards a goal.

Start Lowering Food Expenses by Tracking Them

Taking a look at our data it was easy to see where we were starting and what areas could be impacted the most.

As a surprise to what is I’m sure no one, our biggest expense was eating out. Like the average Americans mentioned in this article from USA Today, our monthly budget was tipping way over 10% of our income.

But what was interesting was it was actually coming from multiple sources, not just restaurants. Those coffee shops, gas station snack trips, and fast food stops were really adding up.

So once we started monitoring our habits and becoming aware of them, it was time to form a plan of attack and figure out how much we were willing to change our lifestyle.

Articles Related to Saving Money You Might Also Like:

• 8 Delicious Meals That Are Super Inexpensive
• Travel for Almost Free with Credit Card Rewards
• How to Make A Budget From the Beginning

Limit All Food Eaten Outside the House

So, obviously, this is the kicker. Every time you eat food out, it’s more expensive than if you had made it at home. That’s for a variety of reasons – time, labor, markup, etc. And sometimes that’s just necessary and/or unavoidable.

Duh, sage advice I know, but it really makes all the difference, I swear. The markup on restaurant meals is absolutely INSANE. I get it, they need to make money too, and the servers deserve to be paid appropriately. But jeez, it’s practically highway robbery out there.

And another unexpected realization I had once I started making my own meals at home: I can make it just as tasty if not EVEN BETTER than restaurant food. And I am no chef, to be sure!

But there are simple meals that you can do easily and cheaply at home that leave us completely satisfied. And they are most likely way healthier than what you find out there in the wilderness of fast food chains.

Now, we still went out sometimes, don’t get me wrong. After all, we just can’t go completely cold turkey on our favorite place, Chick-fil-a. We still had lunch there together about once a week, usually on the weekend when we’re off as kind of a little mini-date.

And there were the occasional dinners out with friends. But this was a HUGE improvement over the “every night out dinner and most times lunch too” routine.

Switch to Home Brewed Coffee

So I had this habit, as I’m sure millions of us do, of going to the coffee shop 3, 4, even 5 times a week for my morning cup. I want to point out here that this wasn’t just any cup of coffee.

No, my friends, this was the absolute BEST coffee drink I have ever had in my life, no exaggeration. It’s Caribou Coffee’s “Crafted Press” with vanilla.

If you haven’t heard of this before, it’s made from Caribou’s cold brew and according to their description it’s “sweetened with just the right amount cream and sugar” and they ain’t lyin’! Excellent hot or cold, this drink has truly changed me. I now accept that no other coffee drink is or ever will be as good as this one.

Even so, a $4 cup of coffee five times a week is STILL OUTRAGEOUS!! So, I’ve done my best and cut it back to just a once a week treat. I do still like other coffee that I brew at home, so I have that during the week and I enjoy it as well.

I’ve tried recreating this perfect coffee drink at home by scouring the reddit threads and online copycat recipes. It’s not exactly right, but it’s close, and I’ll share that story in an upcoming blog post.

Less Grocery Trips, More Planning

I started only going to the grocery store twice a week, and a few months later with practice, I’ve been able to get that down to just once a week. The less I go, the less opportunity there is for me to make impulse purchases.

I usually go on Friday. This means I’m getting food for about 6ish days, since we will still eat out a total of about one day. That’s a manageable amount of time for me to come up with a plan of what we’re going to have.

Also fresh foods usually only last about that long so if I need those ingredients that’s my timeframe. Which that leads into the next area I utilized in how we cut our monthly food costs in half.

Make Good Use of the Freezer

I see a lot of budget bloggers explaining the benefits of freezer meals and I’m learning how essential it is to put your freezer to good use. I’m still new at this part, so I’m planning to do more in this area going forward.

However, the little I’ve been able to freeze meats and leftovers has been so helpful in saving us what would have otherwise just gone bad and been thrown away. That’s where I was losing the most money from groceries in the past.

Whenever I used to try to eat at home, I’d get tired of the leftovers, they’d go bad, and be lost. Or I’d buy meat with a plan, that plan would be put on hold (usually because I wanted to go out to eat), and then the meat would go bad.

But if you can just think ahead by a little bit (we’re talking like a day here) you can use the freezer to help you pause your food plans. Not everything freezes well, so you need to consider that when you are planning what to make, but there are tons of possibilities that do so get to looking!

Use Ibotta and Other Cashback Rewards

*This article contains affiliate an link, which means I may receive compensation from Ibotta at no cost to you if you click it and sign up.*

The Ibotta app is such a cool way to get cash back for things I’m already buying. Even for stuff I wouldn’t normally buy, it gives me inspiration to find ways to use the items that are on sale.

It’s really easy to use with a smartphone, mainly you are just taking pictures of your receipts. Once you’ve reached $20 back in your account you can request a payout to Paypal – freaking amazing!

There aren’t any membership fees or hidden costs, you just go about buying your stuff and they give you cash back. If you’d like to start up a free account you can find it here: Ibotta.

Final Thoughts On Lowering Food Expenses

That’s all pretty much the whole plan right there to how we cut our food costs in half. Room for improvement absolutely but this is still a really big step for us. We are working towards saving even more, and I know as we get more practice and learn new methods we will make it happen.

As with everything in life there is a balance. It’s always a trade off between time and money, saving and spending. You have to decide on goals for yourself and figure out what you want to make a priority.

The best first step is to track where your money is going every month. If you’d like to start doing that, sign up below and I’ll send you the link to my bill tracker.

It’s a free google sheets file that is already formatted so you can just plug in your bills every month and see where your money is going. Or leave me a comment and let me know if you have any other tips on how you cut food costs!

Other Posts Related to Budgeting:

• Cooking At Home Kitchen Essentials
• Free or Cheap Hobbies You Can Start Today
• Save Money and the Planet Too

How We Cut Monthly Food Costs in HALF!