Saving $100/month by meal planning and shopping smarter – mid month update

I posted 2 weeks ago photos of my fridge, pantry, produce box and meal planning. That was my first grocery shop of the month. This is my mid month update.

I try to spend per week at the USDA Low Budget Food Plan level. Link to July 2025 USDA Food Plans at the end. For a female ages 19-50, that's $61.60. Per the chart, if you are single add 20%. For me that, $73.92/week which I round to $74/week or $320/month. I grocery shop on a Saturdays. So I tend to budget my months as 4 Saturday months ($296) or 5 Saturday months ($370).

It's also worth noting that I live in a middle cost of living city so my groceries run pretty close to average. We also don't have state sales tax on groceries. So if this seems high or low to you, it's likely due to your location.

The Menu for the first 2 weeks of the month was:
Stuffed peppers
Spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce and salad
Ham and Cheese Sandwiches with Carrots
Chili and Corn Bread
Chicken, potatos, and broccoli
Banana Bread
Peach crisp
Eggs, bacon, and Hashbrowns
Oatmeal

For the first two weeks of September, I actually spent:

Bountiful baskets (produce box) – $22.50
Natural Grocers (cornmeal, tea, oregano) – $17.44
My Fresh Basket (bullion) – $4.91
Trader Joe's (everything else) – $104.13
Grocery's in Yellowstone (lettuce, cornbread mix, cream)~ $15.00
Total: 163.98 or $81.99

The additional groceries are because I went to Yellowstone and added enough ingredients to make salad, chili, cornbread, and peaches and cream for the group. I froze the chicken and broccoli to eat this week instead.

As mentioned in my previous post, I make my meal plan after I pick up my produce box to make sure to use everything up. I got zucchini, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, green onions, lettuce, peaches, apples, cantaloupe, pears and nectarines this week. I have potatoes, onions left from last week's box and a few mushrooms to use up. I picked up a bag or carrots, cherry tomatoes and avocados at the store for this menu.

For the next two weeks, the menu is:
Chicken, potatoes, and broccoli
Roasted Zucchini and smoked salmon pasta salad
Potato soup (making extra to freeze) with sour dough bread
Rice bowels with zucchini (sage sausage)meatballs and roasted carrots and sweet potatoes
Beef lettuce wraps with a side of cucumber salad
Optional – Pepperoni Pizza (I might invite friends over for a pizza night)
Splurge – peanut udon noodle salad and edamame

Breakfast options:
Green onion and mushrooms omelettes with hash browns
Avocado Toast and Melon
Oatmeal

Before I started shopping and meal planning this way, I was spending $100/week on average.

Five changes have made the biggest difference in cutting my grocery spending:
1. Ordering a produce box. 2. Meal planning around the produce box. 3. Switching to shopping biweekly, based on a meal plan for 5 meals of 4 servings plus breakfast and snacks/sweets. 4. Making Trader Joe's my primary grocery store. 5. Cooking everything from scratch including my sweets and snacks.

The only thing that I didn't make from scratch this month was the bread and corn bread because I didn't want to pack baking supples while traveling.

I focus on eating clean in addition to the budget. I could probably save a little more at WinCo or Walmart or Supper 1 but there foods have a lot of high fructose corn syrup, chemical preservatives, dyes, etc. which I don't mind paying a little more to avoid, especially if the price difference is small. A few TJ's products do contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), but most do not and the store does not use artificial dyes or GMOs in their products. They also primarily uses natural preservatives like sugar, salt, vinegar, etc instead of artificial preservatives. That means that I can buy almost anything at TJ without having to pay extra for HFCS, preserve free, etc. ( My one complaint about TJs is how much plastic packaging they use. )

I also choose to buy organic pastured eggs, milk, and meat when available. I can usually get chicken and beef organic and often pastured but pork is not usually available. My produce box is only availble non organic but there's rarely plastic. If I need to buy additional produce, I buy organic if it's on the dirty dozen or the price difference is small. This probably adds $20+/month to my grocery bill.

However, I balance this cost by being careful about my protein choices. I make at least 1 of the 5 meals in my meal plan vegiterian and at least 1 with legumes (beans or lentils). This meal plan that's the potato soup and the beef lentil wraps. I also generally plan my meals around 3 affordable proteins – whole chicken or chicken thighs, ground beef and italian sausage. I slo buy 1-2 breakfast meats/month like a pack of bacon and a pice of ham. I sometimes check the circulars for my nearby grocery stores on shopping day if I'm in the mood for something different. If there's something on sale that looks good, I will swap it for one of the 3 affordable meat options that I usually buy. Or if I have extra from the previous week, I will splurge on something else. For example, this week I had bacon left in the fridge so I bought some smoked salmon instead of breakfast meat.

Finally, I have also reduced my eating out spending by making sure that at least 1 of my 5 meals is portable and can be eaten without heating. Examples are the ham and cheese sandwiches and the pasta salad. That way if I can pack a lunch won't be home or near a microwave like at work. The sandwiches made for a nice picnic in Yellowstone. (I did indulge in an ice cream cone but that's a lot less expensive than buying lunch in the park.)

(I also picked up a produce box for my mom, so there is twice as much lettuce, cucumbers, and zucchini in the fridge than in my produce box. You might also notice that I splurged on a pre prepared peanut udon noodle salad and edamame. My mom is coming by to help me with work in the garden. She likes asian salads so I got this as a treat for our lunch. I think that the cashier missed scanning the salad since it's not on the receipt).