Today I’m welcoming Julie from Happy Frugal Mama to share some tips with you! She lives in Maine where groceries are anything but cheap and has some great ideas for all of you who live in a more expensive area and still want to stick to a reasonable grocery budget.
Tell me if this sounds familiar. You see a post for how to feed a family on $50/week. You get all excited and click on it only to discover that they live in a low cost of living area. Or they have access to free meat/produce that the average person does not.
If you’re like me, you do still find some helpful information in the post but you leave a little discouraged because you know there’s no way you can feed your family for so little a week. Where I live, a gallon of milk is around $4.50. The cost of groceries is just so high here!
It can be a struggle to feed a family in a high cost of living area when on a tight budget. I have learned some tricks and tips to keep my grocery budget around $125/week most weeks. That cost does include household supplies as well (paper towels, diapers, cat food, etc.).
Here are some ideas to help you keep your costs low but manageable as well!
Stock up on sale prices
Yes, I’m sure you’ve already heard this but it is especially true when you live in a high cost of living area. A large part of this is knowing your prices. For me, when I can find boneless, skinless chickens breasts for $1.99/lb, I buy 2-3 family packs. Same when I can find 85% ground beef for $2.99/lb. Those are my stock up prices. Your prices might be different. If it is a really, really good sale, you might spend more than $125 on groceries that week but you’ll likely spend less the following week.
Stocking up on sale items goes beyond meat. Keep an eye on your family’s staples. Baking supplies, certain drinks/snacks, etc. Make sure you buy enough to get you through until the next sale. Most things go on sale every six weeks or so. Some things have longer sale cycles, some things have shorter ones. I always make sure I stock up on baking supplies during the holidays. Flour and butter freeze quite nicely.
Eat seasonally
Plan your meals around what is in season or on sale. This means you won’t likely have strawberries, watermelon, or raspberries in winter. Occasionally our store does have imported strawberries on sale in winter but I only buy one package as they still aren’t an excellent price. It’s just enough to have a treat and a break from our typical winter fruit. Winter our fruit is usually things like apples, oranges, pears, and bananas.
Frozen produce is a great way to have summer produce in the winter and vice versa. Frozen berries may not be all that great to snack on but they do make excellent smoothies.
Shop outside your traditional stores
You will likely still get the majority of your items at the grocery store and Walmart/Target but keep dollar/discount stores in mind. We get all of our paper products at Dollar General. I can’t beat the prices there anywhere else, especially when I have a coupon. Discount stores like Big Lots are another great opinion. They may not always have the same brands all the time but you can usually find alternatives.
Whenever you are in a discount store, scan the food and baby sections (if applicable). A friend once found organic quinoa baby puffs for $1. That product is usually $2.99. Just be careful that you aren’t spending extra money at these stores because of the deals you can find. Shop with a list, even if that list is just in your head of things that you family usually buys.
Use coupons
Coupons will be your friend if you live in a high cost of living area. (If you’re new to coupons or want a refresher course, I created a coupon guide just for you). You will want to keep an eye out both on coupons for the things you use regularly and things you want to try/special treats. Often a coupon is the reason we will get a treat of special cookies or a new beauty product. Be sure to also pay attention to sales. Whether your stores double coupons or not, pairing a sale with a coupon is one of the easiest ways to save money.
Don’t forget to also incorporate couponing smartphone apps into your couponing. You can often pair a paper coupon with an app, making the savings that much greater. Certain stores also have their own app where they will offer deals. Check if your stores have any apps.
Use leftovers
This one isn’t so much a shopping tip but does help stretch the money. Be careful to not waste food. Plan for a leftover night once a week if you have more than can be eaten for lunch the next day. If you have leftover rice, you can freeze it for another time or you can make something like rice pudding. Leftover mashed potatoes can be turned into potato pancakes. Leftover vegetables can be frozen for a later soup or stew. Just get creative with what you have for leftovers to be sure not to throw any away. Yes, you will still have some waste, but put effort into having as little waste as possible.
Living in a high cost of living area doesn’t mean you can’t still keep your grocery bill lower. It does mean it will be higher than some sample grocery budgets you see online but you can still make it work for your family. You will need to be focused and diligent but feeding a family of four on $125/week is possible!
How about you?
- Do you live in an expensive area? What tips do you have for lowering your grocery budget?
Julie is a mom and wife who lives in Maine. She blogs about frugal living and motherhood at Happy Frugal Mama, where her main goal is to help you love life on a tight budget. She loves coffee, Netflix, and a good milkshake. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
I hadn’t thought about stocking up on baking items on sale and freezing them. Great tip! Oh, and one word for buying in bulk: Costco!
We have a BJ’s 40 minutes away and a Sam’s about an hour. I haven’t found either of them worth it personally. But know lots of people that do! 🙂
Great tips. But I still can’t figure out HOW to get my grocery bill below $50 a week for ONE person. I couldn’t imagine a whole family. I’m averaging anywhere between $50-$65.
A lot of it depends on what you eat, how often you cook, how you cook, how expensive things are where you live, etc. I live in a high cost of living area but other places are way higher than us. We’re doing between $30-45/person a week, including household and personal care items. But it’s a lot of intentional thinking and planning.
My late mom, from the lower Midwest/upper South, used to be horrified at the prices when she shopped for groceries with me here in Florida. She paid less for Florida oranges in season than I did, and always paid less for milk and beef year round, even though Florida has some large dairies and a lot of cattle ranches. Still I know some areas have higher food prices than mine.
We bulk shop for some items, when available. For example, I can buy spices in bulk at a fraction per ounce of what I pay for those tiny jars, and I buy bulk oatmeal for about 1/3 of the per ounce price of the round boxes of oatmeal in the grocery stores. If bulk is available, know your per ounce/pound prices and check them out. If the store runs a bulk item sale, stock up!
Keep a price book so you will know when you have a best price.
When our kids were still at home, we did one meatless dinner each week. Sometimes, we had meatless meals more than one day a week, but always we had at least one.
I don’t find coupons helpful, myself, overall, because they are so often for processed foods that I don’t buy, or the store brand is still cheaper even after the coupon. No stores around here have doubled coupons in over a decade, and never tripled them, so I stopped using them, with rare exceptions. Some folks get good use from them, though.
Food is a big part of our budget, so it really pays to shop carefully, I agree!
Meatless meals don’t work well for my family so I put a lot of effort into buying meat on sale or markdown. Or doing things like casseroles where I can stretch the meat or buritto haystacks where I can mix beans in with the ground beef.
Yes, price books are very, very helpful!
We used to deal with this when we lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. I would read bloggers from Kansas who shopped at Aldi and wished we had one. We eventually moved to Kansas ourselves and guess where I went first! I was so excited to finally have access to less expensive food. We do have to pay sales tax on groceries here in Kansas, but I think our food budget is still lower than it would be in California.
A tip I think I would add is that you can change what you eat too. Even here in Kansas, there are certain cuts of meat that are just off our list because they are too expensive, and we try to incorporate more vegetarian dishes. Azure Standard offers great deals on bulk beans and oatmeal among other things.
Does California not have sales tax on groceries? We have certain items that are tax exempt but not all. Yes, changing what you eat is a great tip! We only eat certain cuts of meat when I can find them marked down.
I don’t recall them taxing food when I lived there. Here in Kansas food is taxed, and at a pretty high rate. 🙁
I especially like the tip about eating seasonally. It not only saves money but is environmentally responsible. Plus I feel more at one with the earth’s cycles. Furthermore, it allows me to view healthy foods as something to look forward to, rather than something I should eat because it is good for me. For example, now I am looking forward to oranges in late October or November since I haven’t eaten one for months.
It definitely makes that first strawberry of the summer taste that much sweeter. 🙂
Oh my goodness! I freeze many things, but I’ve never frozen butter. Thanks for the tip! Also, reusing leftovers to create a new meal the next night saves so much time and money. Last night we grilled Italian chicken for dinner. Tonight I will use the leftovers to make a pasta dish with the chicken. Planning meals with leftovers in mind has definitely helped my family save big bucks!
I may have a slight panic if I have less than 4 pounds of butter in the freezer. You just need to plan extra thawing time if you have to take it straight from the freezer.
I like your plan for the chicken!