Saving$ on Food

For just about everyone there are three big expenses impacting our monthly fixed costs more than the rest: housing, transportation, and food. For those who haven’t already, it’s worth filling out the MFC! to the best of your ability to see how the big 3 are impacting your monthly budget. This post is intended to give tips on how the Savvy Solo can save in the food category.

Keep in mind, the MFC! is designed to lay out all of your expenses on a spreadsheet so you can see the real numbers and make a plan moving forward. It is not intended to have you cutting back on the things that truly bring you value. The point here is to bring in more things you love and do away with those costly decisions that are done mindlessly out of habit. Creating a spending goal on food can drastically increase the amount of freedom $ you have at the end of the month.

When I started coming up with a plan, this one took me quite a while to nail down. At the time I had figured out I was spending almost $500 per month between groceries and take-out. The immediate goal was to get this number below $400 per month. It took me several months to figure out all the little things I was subconsciously spending on, but nowadays I spend under $200 monthly.

Start small and work your way up to the bigger cuts. Just by limiting the number of times you get take-out per month, you’ll see an immediate increase in freedom $. Each month you might want to set a new goal depending on how the last one went or try something new. If you’re like me, there’s a ton of room in this area to cut back on, don’t try to do it all at once.

On their Thrifty Food Plan, the USDA shows the national average for men between 20-50 to be at $306.40, and for women in the same age range $244.60. This might be a bit eye popping for some solos out there. I’m here to tell you that I used to spend much more than this and now spend quite a bit less. It’s a difficult feat while living in one of the highest cost-of-living areas in the country, but achievable. If you are currently on the higher side, it might be a good starting point to set your goal $50-$100 less than your previous 3-month average.

The USDA estimates that between 30-40% of the food supply in the US goes to waste each year! This corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of perfectly edible food in 2010! This means that there was 218.9 pounds of food waste per person, essentially the equivalent of an individual buying 835 bananas and throwing them right in the garbage.

Chances are unlikely that I’ll find garbage cans on your curb filled with bananas each week, but these stats alone should make us think about how much food we actually are throwing away. Sure, we all have the right to do whatever we want with something after we buy it, but is this bringing any real value to your life?

Instead of force feeding yourself 2.29 bananas per day to justify the purchase (enough with the bananas already? 🤪), let’s look at what we have right now. Before your next grocery run, take a quick inventory of what you currently have in the kitchen. What items are about to expire? What items have been sitting in your freezer for 6 months that you don’t even think about anymore? Try to figure out a way to incorporate any/all of these items into meals for the next week or two.

When I first got intentional about my spending, I took this to the extreme. I decided to eat everything in my place before the next grocery run. I wouldn’t recommend this for everyone, but it was actually kind of fun. I made creative meals, like a peanut butter and cracker appetizer, tuna sandwich main, and pancakes for dessert! I kept doing this with random things I forgot I had and ended up going almost a month without spending a dime on food.

This one may sound counterintuitive. Traditional advice would have someone grocery shopping once a month, to avoid those impulse purchases. Instead, in my personal experience, I found that I was spending far more than necessary when attempting this. Since I knew that I wasn’t going to grocery shop for the next 4+ weeks, I was grabbing things I normally wouldn’t.

It might be due to a scarcity mentality, but I found that going once a week actually lowered my overall spending on groceries. While shopping once a week, it makes it easier to seek out those deals, leave the temporarily price hiked items alone, and have more overall comfort since anything not purchased (forgotten or otherwise) can be bought the next week. It also makes it much easier to plan future meals and stick to the monthly budget, which brings us to our next tip.

Since we are going grocery shopping once a week, it becomes a lot simpler to decide what we will be eating throughout the upcoming week. It doesn’t have to be an exact science, more of a general idea on what each day might look like. Create a list of grocery items needed, either on a notes app or old school pen & paper. Feel free to make a pivot while shopping if something similar is on sale and will save you money. Do not make a pivot to purchase something extra you weren’t thinking about till you saw it on the shelf.

For instance, I might have a plan as follows:

• Monday: Chicken breast & Asparagus
• Tuesday: Taco Tuesday
• Wednesday: Stir Fry
• Thursday: Chicken breast & sweet potatoes
• Friday: Chicken & Spinach quesadillas
• Saturday: Date night
• Sunday: Football Sunday/Pizza with the guys

For this example, let’s say I already have enough lunch meat and bread to last for the week so I can brown bag it to work. I might have on my list:

• 2 pounds of chicken breast
• Peppers & onions
• Sweet potatoes
• Spinach
• Yogurt (for breakfast)

Now let’s say I get to the grocery store and find that turkey breast is on a crazy sale. I could then consider if I want to substitute turkey for all these meals for chicken. Mind you, I’m NOT buying both. It would lead to me eating more than what was planned, or more likely lead to waste. Having the flexibility to make substitutes while shopping (not additions) will lead to more savings.

Alright, so we have planned on grocery shopping once per week and meal planning around those weeks. I challenge every Savvy Solo to expand the horizons on where they grocery shop. I’d recommend finding at least one lower priced, one mid-priced, and one higher priced grocery store or supermarket within a realistic travel distance. This way you have more exposure to different things throughout the month.

There is one higher priced grocery store near me that I avoided like the plague for many years. I was in there for an unrelated reason once and found that their produce was actually priced a little better and had a higher quality than what I was paying. Since then, it’s become part of my 4-store rotation and adds to the creativity of my meal plan. I’ll never buy name brand anything at this store since it’s the same food for a higher price, but it allows for diversification in my meal plans without pointlessly spending more.

On the other side of the spectrum, I used to steer clear of Aldi. For some reason, it always felt like the Kmart of grocery stores whenever I walked in. When getting on board with the FI journey I started going, and Aldi quickly became my absolute favorite grocery store of all time! Aldi and Lidl are both high bargain nationwide grocery stores that everyone should check out. You might find your favorite name brand substantially cheaper than normal, or more importantly you might find another brand that serves you just as well!

Just about every grocery store or supermarket has their own generic brand that is usually priced better than the name brands you may be used to. It’s really worth expanding your horizons and trying a few of these out from time to time. Don’t forget, you’ll be going to a different grocery store next week, so it’s not all boom or bust on trying something new out.

I’m not going to lie, there was some serious trial and error made on my end here. I once bought a generic ice cream that broke my ice cream scooper 🤪. I also once bought a package of lunch meat that I’m still not entirely sure was actually meat 😂. I didn’t force myself to eat things I didn’t enjoy just because they were cheap. Instead, I threw these things out and made a mental note to avoid them the next time around.

By doing this I found a plethora of foods (ranging from cereals, to veggie dips, to olive oil, to yogurt) that I enjoy just as much, if not more, than their expensive name brand counterparts. The benefits to finding the generic brands that I like far outweigh the negatives from finding the ones I don’t. I might have lost a few bucks on trying some lunch meat, but I’ve saved substantially more over the long run by finding the brands that work for me.

Side note: Don’t rule out an entire brand just because one particular item wasn’t to your liking. At my mid-priced grocery store there was a generic ranch salad dressing that I didn’t care for, but a tomato sauce under the same brand name was phenomenal. The generics are going to source different things from different places, some of them are winners and some of them aren’t. You might like the generic salad dressing from Store A, the generic coffee beans from Store B, and the generic cereal from Store C. No way to know till you try it out!

This one mainly goes out to my Savvy Solo friends without dependents. Those living with kids or parents might benefit from purchasing the giant 12-pound container of ham to achieve the lower the unit cost since it’s going to be consumed anyway. For the rest of us mainly looking to purchase for ourselves, buying in bulk can lead to excessive waste.

Last year I scored a Costco membership for free. I’m not going to lie, walking in there the first time felt like Christmas morning. Every name brand you could imagine was being sold at a lower unit price than anywhere else. Even the Kirkland Signature generic brand was pretty high quality (from what I experienced), at a fraction of the price of what I was paying for certain things. The problem? I bought enough food to feed a family of 4 without even trying 🤪. Naturally, that first run had more items hit my garbage can than hit my stomach.

After that I decided to utilize Costco on brand name items that didn’t have an expiration date. I might have enough toilet paper, body wash, and floor cleaner to last me the next two years (among other things); but there’s no rush from an expiration date and I know they’ll be needed eventually. Because of this, I don’t plan on renewing the membership when it runs out. The wholesale membership clubs can be very beneficial for families with a high burn rate. I’m not sure it’s best for the average Savvy Solo without mouths to feed, but that will depend on the value structure at hand.

For those that are currently in credit card debt, please skip over this section. Sometimes I forget that almost half of Americans carried a credit card balance in the past year, which is a mind-blowing number. Any interest or late fee you are paying severely outweighs the benefits of these cards, don’t let the bonus tail wag the dog!

For those that have high interest debts under control and are looking to optimize our spending, a rewards credit card is a great option. All of us have to eat, and certain cards have rewards ranging from 3% – 6% on grocery purchases. Depending on your annual spend, this could result in $100s in cash back. Of the 2-4 cards you may be utilizing, I’d highly recommend one of those be a grocery/food bonus credit card.

Also, it’s worth noting here that most grocery stores you go to will have some type of free membership card. It might be the way to get discounted items, or a way to build points for future free purchases, either way it’s usually worth signing up. Most of them just need a name and phone number, possibly an email address. By utilizing the store membership along with a rewards credit card, you are winning the game on both ends!

While it’s a great feeling to come up with a plan and have it come to fruition, many times life will get in the way. Perhaps you had a steak marinating in the fridge, when sudden dinner plans came up. Maybe you had a long day at work and don’t feel like cooking the chicken enchiladas you had originally planned. Plans change, it’s important to not get overly worked up over it.

In the case of a meal prep that won’t go eaten that night, most of the time it’s perfectly fine to push each meal plan out a day. Perhaps you can get creative on this marinated steak and cook it differently if it otherwise would get nasty. When it comes to being too tired to cook, I hear ya! I generally like to keep a few easy meals in my freezer (like lean cuisines) for when these days inevitably come. This way, I don’t feel like getting take-out is the only option.

Let me be among many to tell you, your first monthly food spending goal will fail. One way or another, there will be something you didn’t think of or some unplanned event that throws all the budgetary numbers for a loop. Give yourself the leeway to make mistakes in the beginning and try to learn from them. There may be a lot of changes you want to make at once; instead try to make small changes every few weeks to create the lasting habits. Making a full overhaul in a week is all for naught if you go back to the old ways in a few months.

Of the big three expenses, food is the most recurring and most customizable for the Savvy Solo. Your diet could change week to week, and you can make quick adjustments to the plan as you go. When it comes to fixed costs, this area can have a pretty large immediate impact on just a few changes.

My personal goal of keeping food costs under $200 per month did not happen overnight. After several trial and errors, I eat a relatively healthy diet while freeing up a lot of room for more freedom $. Keep in mind, I live in a high cost of living area; I’m confident this number could get even lower for me in other parts of the country.

For some, there might be a lot to take in here. Don’t try to do it all at once, instead make a few changes a little at a time and you’ll become an expert in no time! By going grocery shopping once a week, you’ll start to know what really qualifies as a deal (by unit price) without even having to write it down!

I need to give a personal shout out to the app Too Good To Go. No matter how tight the budget, or strict the diet, eventually we all want a little take-out. This app allows you to pick up food at your local favorite restaurants for 1/3rd the price! You usually don’t get to pick exactly what you are getting, but it’s absolutely worth trying out.

Gamify your grocery shopping plan, and this process can be a lot of fun. Message me with any big wins with food savings! I always love to hear a plan come to fruition!

Stay classy Solos! ✌️