6 ways to keep food costs down

Last week, I was featured on Your California Life on ABC10 Sacramento to discuss keeping food costs down ahead of the school year. It was a short segment, and I didn’t get to half the things I wanted to say, so I thought it’d be useful to discuss here.

It’s no wonder why this is such a hot topic for The Purse: Food costs have been sky-rocketing, and Americans across income levels say grocery prices are a top affordability concern—even over other expenses like housing and health care.

We get a lot of great advice on cutting food costs and managing pantries on Meal Plan, our series for paid subscribers that delves into how women around the country feed their families. And there are a few other tips I’ve pulled out of my own research and talking to some budgeting experts.

1. Start meal planning

This is by far the most common suggestion Purse meal planners have to keep costs down (and make it easier to cook at home day after day). Know what you have in your fridge and pantry, start collecting your go-to recipes, and then sit down when it is convenient and try to draw out a rough sketch of your meals for the week. The more you do it, the easier it becomes—don’t expect perfection at first.

“The key for me, after kids, has been to keep things very, very simple. When I was getting back into meal planning, I went through a few rounds of plans where I didn’t have the time or energy to execute, and that was a low point,” writes a 43-year-old mom of three in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “However, a few months later, my kids were in different stages. I tried again and started by just planning two to three meals per week, filling in the rest with prepackaged frozen dinners or leftovers, and I found my stride.”

Some tips on how to make this work:

Start with a “cook once, serve twice” mentality, which basically means cooking enough for two meals at one time. Then you can level it up as you find your stride.
Eat roughly the same breakfasts, lunches, and snacks throughout the week while changing up dinner.
Prepare ingredients, not whole meals. One of the troubles with meal planning is that if you prep a bunch of the same food to eat throughout the week, chances are you will get sick of it. I loved this tip from a 41-year-old mom of two in San Diego: “Instead of prepping for a whole week of dinners, we tend to prep day-of so we can adjust for illnesses, whims, and exhaustion (on the part of the parents).”
Track the food you already have. The Milwaukee mom keeps a list on the outside of her freezer with what’s inside, and she will check things off as her family eats them. “I think it’s a lot easier to go from eating prepackaged meals from your freezer to homemade meals from your freezer than it is to cut a takeout habit,” she says.
Keep a family calendar that everyone has access to so you know when everyone is doing what, and what meals you will need for each day.

2. Create a convenient stash of go-to recipes

Having easy go-to meals can make things simple when life starts getting busy.

“I’ve found creating a shared recipe folder on Google Drive, complete with a screenshot of the recipe, to be incredibly helpful for our planning,” writes the San Diego mom. “My spouse can read the same recipe I can on a different device so we can both make the meal while juggling kids, we can save recipes we love, and it creates a foundation for our kids to learn from in the future.”

A 34-year-old in Tampa, Florida, keeps a shared Google Sheet of recipes with her husband, and a 42-year-old mother of four boys in the Twin Cities keeps an “old-school binder” with laminated recipes.

“These are often modified versions of recipes I found in magazines in my 20s that I’ve revamped to make more kid friendly or that incorporate more convenience foods,” she writes.

Relatedly, the meal planners we feature often create weekly schedules that help keep things simple and to cut back on the mental load of planning new meals every single day. One example from the mom of four:

Two nights per week: super simple options. My husband and I have full-time jobs, and I’m in the office 50% of the time with a long (one hour) commute, so I always choose the quickest, simplest dinner options for the days I’m in office. Those are usually our spaghetti/garlic bread or taco nights! We try to mix up the sauces, toppings, etc., so everyone can customize.
One night: crockpot meal. I try to do at least one crockpot meal per week. This can be a soup, a chicken dish, or pot roast. My rule is that the prep needs to be easy. In the summer I crockpot a lot less and rely more on staples from our recipe binder.
Two to three nights: staples from our recipe binder. These are often things like spicy penne pasta with goat cheese or another pasta variation, a sheet pan meal (chicken/sausage with various spices) with roasted potatoes and veggies.
One night: something new
Sunday night: carryout pizza picnic. This is our Sunday tradition. It’s nice to not have a lot of cleanup at the end of the weekend, and the boys get excited because we put down blankets in the living room, eat on the floor, and all watch a movie together.

3. Keep it simple

For most of our meal planners, simplicity is key. You don’t want to have to make bread from scratch or get out five different pans on a busy Tuesday night after a long day at work. As the mother of four stated, “We try to keep our meals on the simple side and pick a couple of splurge items/snacks. This makes it easier to resist eating out, which can be a major budget buster for a family of six.”

Some ways to do this:

Have the same weekly rotation of simple meals, and spend extra on snacks to add variety.
Rely on sheet pan meals that don’t require major clean up. “My favorite cooking hack lately is an extra large sheet pan (21x15). You can actually fit a whole sheet pan meal on it without crowding the food, so it cooks faster and browns better,” writes the 52-year-old mom of three in Illinois.
Use convenience items like microwaveable rice. “I’m obsessed with Trader Joe’s farro. It’s basically the only thing I buy there, and I buy like 10 bags at a time—the cashiers always ask questions. You can use it for quick grain bowls,” writes a 33-year-old in Portland.

4. Portion your own food

Pre-portioned food, whether snacks or veggies, is often more expensive than the non-portioned version, and the portions might not be right for your family, meaning you could be wasting some of the food.

Budget experts like Phil Lempert, of Supermarket Guru, recommend buying bulk versions of your favorite snacks, veggies, meats, and so on, and portioning them yourselves. You can do this with Ziploc bags or even paper bags. (Lempert says more grocery stores are carrying different sizes of paper bags to make this easier and more eco-friendly.)

5. Look for cost-effective substitutes

Certain meats, like beef, are extremely expensive right now. If your family likes to eat beef, you don’t necessarily need to cut it out of your budget completely, but you can learn to stretch it farther by adding something like beans to the dish, as well.

Additionally, having a vegetarian night—say, a Meatless Monday—once a week can help you reduce how much you are spending on meat.

Purse meal planners have also mentioned two other cost-saving measures that won’t be available to everyone: Having a second freezer where you can store meat or meals when you buy in bulk, and buying a whole animal—like a cow—that you process yourself and then store in the freezer.

6. Use apps

No, not appetizers. But mobile apps like TooGoodToGo are a great way to potentially save money on groceries and snacks. TooGoodToGo partners with local grocers and restaurants, and lets you pick up food that would be potentially discarded—like a coffee shop’s unsold croissants or Whole Foods produce close to its sell-by date—at a steep discount. It’s a great way to reduce food waste while also getting reduced-price food.

Purse meal planners have also suggested inKind for cash back at restaurants, FlashFood for $5 bags of mixed produce with a one to two day expiration window, and your local grocery store’s app for special deals. One of my favorite grocery influencers (is that a thing?) swears by Fetch.

Relatedly, if you belong to a store like Costco, you might be able to buy gift cards for your favorite restaurants at a discount (for example, you might be able to buy $100 worth of gift cards for $80). That way, you can save a little money when you do go out to dinner.

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