Feed Your Family on $300 a Month – The Healthy Way can be done!
I know what you’re thinking: We eat crap and are super unhealthy because of our restricted grocery budget – but you’re wrong! For $300 (ok, sometimes $400) we buy everything you would buy at Walmart or Target: Groceries, Toiletries, and Cleaning Supplies – and we eat healthy food!
I’ve been asked many times by my friends, family, and blog readers how I do it. So today, I’m going to let you in on a secret! My strategy is threefold:
- Meal Planning – Part 1
- Homemade Cleaners – Part 2
- Couponing – Part 3
Meal Planning – We use eMeals for our meal planning. I seriously love the simplicity of the plan itself, the shopping list, and how delicious the meals are. They also have Over 50 Meal Plans Available
which is more than we could ever use, and it helps us keep our meals interesting. I highly recommend using eMeals
if you are having trouble keeping your grocery budget in check, are tight on time, or are just plain out of meal ideas! If you’re interested, you can get 15% Off Your Order at eMeals.com with Bonus Comfort Foods Brochure! Use code Dinner15
Just to show you how much money it saves, we shop for the entire month at once – breakfasts, lunches, and dinners! On our last trip, we spent $150 and had food left over! You can learn more about eMeals in a post I did earlier.
Why Meal Plan?
- Save Time: No more “What’s for Dinner?” every night – and the time that goes along with it. No more last minute trips to the grocery store because you finally decided what’s for dinner and you don’t have that last ingredient. There is a small initial time investment, but the time saved during the week makes it completely worth it!
- Save Money: Meal planning allows you to take into consideration what ingredients you already have on hand, what ingredients are on sale at your store during the week, and what your family likes. When you meal plan you can take full advantage of sales and coupons, and you will be less tempted to eat out because you have already shopped and prepped for your meals!
- Eat Healthier: Eating out less naturally leads to healthier eating, but there are other ways that meal planning keeps your meals on track. There is less temptation to eat processed foods, and it is very easy to add an additional serving of fruits of veggies to your family’s plate.
However, if you’re not interested in a meal planning service, you do your meal planning yourself. Gather together a week’s worth of recipes, make a list of all of the ingredients in each recipe you don’t already have on hand, and shop! There are even tons of cute meal planning printables on the internet that you can use!
How to Meal Plan:
- Check Your Calendar: Find a day every single week when you can block of 30 minutes to meal plan. Make it a priority every single week or you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed.
- Check your leftovers: Have sirloin leftover from dinner Wednesday? Pasta still in the fridge from Friday night? Take stock of your leftovers so you can plan how to use them in the coming week.
- Side Dishes: It is easy plan main dishes and forget about the sides! Use simple sides like rice and vegetables – and don’t forget to add them to your grocery list!
- Make your grocery list: Put your grocery list together at the same time you plan. This ensure that you don’t leave anything off your list!
Bonus Tips!
- Try new things! I usually try a new recipe once a week. That way, if it doesn’t turn out or my family doesn’t like it, there are leftovers in the fridge we can eat!
- Get the Family Involved: Letting the kids especially pick the recipes means they are more likely to eat it. I have seen my cousins hate a recipe, but when they picked the same recipe themselves, their whole tune changed!
- Don’t forget:15% Off Your Order at eMeals.com with Bonus Comfort Foods Brochure! Use code Dinner15
Do you meal plan? Have you ever used eMeals? Does your meal planning save you money?
*This Post Was Featured at: Thrifty Thursday and The Mommy Club
*This post may contain affiliate links
Linked up at: DIY Sunday Showcase, Think Pink Sunday, SuburbsMama Link Party, Sunday Showcase, Happiness Is Handmad,Nifty Thrifty Sunday,That DIY Party, It’s Party Time, Sunday Showcase, Mommy Monday Blog Hop, Around Tuit, Mix It Up Monday, Creative Mondays, Sweet and Savory, Show Me Your Plaid Monday,Bloggers Brag ,Made By You Monday ,Monday Pin It Party ,Motivate Me Monday ,Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop ,Monday Funday ,Busy Monday ,Marvelous Monday ,Titus Tuesday ,Tuesdays at our home ,Tell Me About It Tuesday ,Tip Me Tuesday ,Tuesdays With A Twist ,The Inspiration Board ,Tutorial Tuesday ,Create Link Inspire ,Making a Home ,Something Fabulous Wednesday ,The Mommy Club ,Wow Me Wednesday ,Wake Up Wednesday, Adorned From Above Wednesday, Cast Party Wednesday ,Your Whims Wednesday ,The Project Stash ,Whimsy Wednesday ,We Did It Wednesday ,Wednesday Round Up ,Wine’d Down Wednesday ,Inspire Me Wednesday ,Whatever Goes Wednesday ,Something Fabulous Wednesday ,Wow Me Wednesday ,The Pin Junkie ,What To Do Weekends, Inspiration Gallery, Artsy Corner, Inspire Us Thursday, Thrifty Thursday, Weekend Reads, That’s Fresh Friday, KitchenFun and Crafty, Friday Frenzy, Inspire Me Please, Craft Frenzy Friday, Anything Goes, Pin Me Linky Party, Pin Worthy Projects, Friday Favorites, Best of The Weekend, Link Party Palooza, Friday Flash, Flaunt It Friday, Family Fun Friday, Frugal Friday, Weekend Bloggy Reading, Saturday Show and TellS, aturday Spotlight, Strut Your Stuff Saturday, Saturday Sparks, Saturday Sharefest, Serenity Saturday, Show and Tell Saturday, Get Schooled Saturday, Dare to Share Saturday, Skip The Housework Saturday, Silver Penny Saturday, A Little Bird Told Me
You May Also Like:
Feed Your Family on $300 a Month – The Healthy Way! Part 2
Feed Your Family on $300 a Month – Part 3
Going Back to Your Roots – in Finances and Health
Money Talk: What Do You Do When A Family Member Wants You To Take Over Their Finances?
The Importance of Budgeting for Fun Money
July and August Budget Update!
Giraffe Manor Costs WHAT?
What To Do When Family Asks for Help: Your Answers
5 Things I Won’t Sacrifice to Get Out of Debt
Frugal Vacation – Is It Possible?
Good job! We usually spend $150-200, but that is for food only (no cleaners, toiletries, or household supplies), so when I read about people who spend $800-1,000 on food every month, I’m just mind-boggled. Even $400 is huge to me.
If you are planning a menu, you can buy staple ingredients (flour, sugar, oil, eggs, vegetables, dried pasta, etc.) which are considerably cheaper than box mixes or pre-prepared dishes. For example, I can get raw potatoes for $0.30/lb, but a 1.5 lb container of store-brand pre-made mashed potatoes is at least $2.50 (if not $3-5); making my own mashed potatoes from scratch is an 85% savings over buying pre-made.
If you have a plan for what you’re going to eat and when, you can also cut down (or eliminate) snack foods, which are generally much more expensive than meal ingredients.
$150-$200 for food is great! And, I totally with $800 to $1,000 being crazy. On our budget we have STEAK for pete’s sake, and at the end of the month if there is money left, we go splurge on alcohol (froo froo alcohol is my weakness). We don’t feel deprived at all!
Well if I could get potatoes for .30 a lb. maybe we could lower our grocery budget. Our budget is $1100 per month, and yet we hardly buy any processed foods. We do not have an Aldi’s or anything remotely like that in our area. We do have local farms that will offer fruit and veggies at a $1 per lb but that is only for a few months out of the year. We do not have space to grow a garden. Our cheapest price for ground beef is $4 per lb. So as you can see, people spending over a thousand a month on groceries is not ridiculous if you had to pay the prices we do.
Also I am trying to find a blogger that will accept the challenge of only shopping at a big chain store, not a discount store, for a month and see how they can get their spending down without going hungry.
Also, Biota is not all that its cracked up to be. Even with the free $10 bonus, I am only at $12. With rebates such as 25 cents off of milk that only come now and then, it would be very hard to reach the $20 minimum cash out.
I just started using eMeals. I signed up for a 3 month subscription (paid for by work- its “research”). So far I LOVE the easy PDF grocery list, but so far it has been costing me around $90 a week to feed my husband and I. We use to spend around $70. Even though I put in my retailer, I don’t think it links up with the weekly sales. I think I am going to use the 3 months save my favorite most affordable meals from that time- and then just start creating my own meal plans based on the weekly circulars.
Love that plan! Plus, it’s awesome that it was paid for by work! We got our for $29 for the year from an amazon local special, and we are super happy with it. I’m not sure where you shop at, but we shop mostly at ALDI’s, which is super cheap. I think if we shopped anywhere else, our cost would be double what it is now. We print off 3 weeks of meals and grocery lists but for a family of 4 rather than 2. Then, we eat the leftovers as lunches and the 4th week’s worth of dinners. That way, it’s even less cooking, and I think it helps lower our cost too! I’m really glad to hear that you’re liking eMeals!
I wish I had a Aldi near me. I typically shop at Publix which is a bit expensive but I can walk to it. I am thinking of doing weekly Wal-mart runs and see if I save money that way…
Sad :-( Aldi sometimes gets a bad rap – my friends say all of their food as fillers. Yes, some of their food does have fillers, but they have an organic line now, which I buy as often as I can, and as far as the rest, well, you’re going to get fillers at any other grocery store, just disguised a bit better, and for more money :-). I have heard of people working the sales at Publix and getting some really good deals. Do you do that?
We usually spend around $500 per month, but that includes diapers, toilet paper, etc. This summer we bumped it up to $600 per month because of cookouts and social events. I’m happy with what we spend on the four of us, but there is always room for improvement. Our garden will hopefully produce a lot of food and cut down on our spending later this summer.
$500 is still a HUGE improvement over the $800-$1,000 that the average family spends. We get off easy on the diapers, because I couponed for them while I was pregnant, and haven’t had to buy any since she was 2 months old. But, if you’re not into couponing, diapers and stuff like that can really cost a lot!
I’d be really interested to check out e-meals because we seem to get stuck in a rut and eat the same things all the time. We only have Kroger, Safeway, and Walmart, so I’m not sure if the savings would be there, but it would be cool to check out.
If you don’t have an Aldi in your area, I think the savings depends on how locked down your grocery spending is already. If you already have a pretty streamlined meal planning and shopping system in place, eMeals will probably only take the thinking about of the process – not really save you any money. But, if you tend to buy groceries you don’t need, or end up not using, it could definitely save you money!
Good job at keeping your food cost down :)
We usually spend $160/wk for my family of 7, which includes our weekly food, gas for the week, and anything extra for the week. I usually spend $100/wk on food and use the rest for everything else. The problem I run into, is that where I live (in New Hampshire) we don’t have any great grocery store options, so a lot of times I have to get creative. But over the years, I have come up with some great ideas, to keep our costs way down. And the best part, most of our food is healthy, but not always organic since it costs a lot more.
Wow! I’m guessing from the mention of Aldi that you live in the mid west. I do miss prices of groceries in the middle of the country sometimes and the fresh veggies and fruits that do not go bad almost as soon as you get home. I live in Alaska and those numbers are not possible for some of us, but your ideas are helpful for everyone even if we have to spend a lot more. Thanks for sharing.
I do meal plan and it saves my family a lot of money. I can feed my family of 4 for about $300 a month also. I have friends that are baffled and spend about that much for one week for a family of 4.
Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!
Great post and excellent information! I’m featuring at GardenUp green tomorrow on Tuesdays with a twist – Hope you stop by and link up with us! -Carole
Our budget for our family of 7 and growing is about 250 a month.
We do grow and can a lot of our food, and have worked out a trade with a local farmer for things we do not grow ourselves, to keep the maintenance down.
We have several bushes and trees of various fruits and veggies and the kids snack from the trees all summer. We make our own condiments, and nut/seed butters, bread, and food without peanuts, chicken eggs, gluten, or cow dairy. (Which means we are basically obligated to cook from scratch, use goat milk, duck or quail eggs, and grind our own flours). We use a lot of dried beans, rice, potatoes, and nut flours, milks, and products. We buy in bulk, store in bulk, make our own detergents, (it costs about 15-30$ a year for laundry detergent, close to the same for dish detergent). we use a spray wash and family cloth, cloth diapers, non-paper reusable towels in the kitchen, and we each use a towel for the week. Each person has a color assigned to them and they are in charge of putting their towel up to dry. If it is sunny and warm, the following morning they get hung up outside a couple times during the week to help keep them fresh, and each person has one cup, spoon, fork, bowl, and plate. If they do not wash them, they end up having to just before dinner.
If clothes are worn once, for a brief amount of time, and not soiled- they are not considered dirty, and may be worn again.
My point to including this is simply, that equates to having to use much less water, do less dishes, less laundry, and everyone other than the baby has
A small amount of responsibility.
That means more time in the kitchen, with the kids, in the garden- and we are able to live very cheap.
I use about 45 min a week or so to look up recipies that can be up cycled.
I have 2-4 crock pots going most of the time, ESP in the summer when turning on the oven is incredibly costly and hot.
By up cycling: meat, potatoes and green beans mon, next night mashed potatoes, diff meat, corn. next night, veggie/meat soup, next night potato soup.
And I always buy the unwanted scrap bacon bc the kids don’t care what shape it is, it’s much cheaper, and I have plenty of fat to render to cook with.
That is impressive! Your family seems like you have a sustainable grocery system, and $250 for a family of 7+ is astounding! Keep up the good work!
Great post with effective tips! We are a family of six and our grocery bill use to be an easy $1000 to $1200 per month! Wow! How did that happen?? Once we saw the numbers, I did everything I could do cut down on that number. I started making our own dishwasher soap, all purpose cleaner, baby wipes, laundry soap, and fabric dryer sheets. I also started meal planning, couponing, and freezer cooking. I got our budget down to $800 a month. It may be less than that now because I found an Aldi store to get my fruits and vegetables at super low prices. It’s easy to lose perspective on your budget when eating at on the spur of the moment and not being aware of the dollar amounts spent. Thanks for sharing at #BloggersBragsPinterestParty !
What’s crazy is that your former $1200 grocery budget is actually average for an american family. Isn’t that crazy! That’s pretty awesome feeding 6 people on $800 a month, though. Our family is only 3, so it’s a bit easier for us.
Back in 2007, we spent $300 a month on food. We ate organic, free range good food. The $300 included eating out (at McDonalds) once a week.
Since then, the food prices have gone WAY up!
As much as I try, we still spend on average *gulp* a lot of money each month on food!
2010 – $892 a month
2011 – $803 a month
2012 – $972 a month
2013 – $886 a month
2014 – $748 a month
I think, for us, the lowered food costs the last two years is due, in part, to a garden and eating from the freezer/cabinets. We have never been the typical family with food falling out of cabinets/fridge/freezer. We are still working to reduce the food costs. Still choose organic/free range food when possible.
Being the major allergen free household (gluten, soy, etc) we make a LOT from scratch, including our flours!
Family of 6, we spend about $250 a week!! so around $1,000 a month. I’m doing it all wrong!! We tried Emeals but in each category we tried, there were about 3 meals we just wouldn’t eat that week so seemed like a waste to pay for the service.
To be fair, Melissa, we are a family of 2 adults and a toddler, so I don’t think there’s any way you could do it for $300 a month. But for $600, probably! We had the same struggles with the meal planning service, but we came to two conclusions: 1) We need to lose weight, so we really should just suck it up and eat the meals we’re not super excited about (not sure if you’re in the same boat) and 2) If we REALLY wouldn’t eat one of two of the meals, there are either leftovers already in the fridge and we would have a leftover night, or we would make a double batch of one of the previous meals that sounded good and have that a night or two later. It’s certainly not a perfect system, but it works for us :-)
Love this post! My mom always planned meals when I was growing up. I see now why she was able to do so much with such a small budget. Our society has gotten away from the practical common sense that our parents had. I’ll be checking out eMeals today!
This is amazing! It’s only my boyfriend and me right now, but we’re so bad at meal planning and saving money when it comes to food!