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1. How Often Do You Go To The Grocery Store?
Click Here to take our 1-Question Grocery Shopping Poll. Are you Average?
2. How Often Do You Eat Dinner As A Family?
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And see what experts say happens when you eat together as a family.
Grocery Tools – Best Selling Book
Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half!
#2 Amazon Best Seller
Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half is chocked full of practical, achievable, time and money-saving strategies.
You’ll eat better and spend less time & money doing it. And we share loads of family favorite recipes.
Cut Your Grocery Bill
Video Seminar
Watch and learn as Steve & Annette share their proven 3-step shopping strategy.
What to do:
1. Before shopping;
2. In the store;
3. Once you get home
Grocery tips to maximize your time and money!
Stretching Grocery $$ Audio Seminar
Listen as Annette & Steve walk through how they plan shopping, cooking & storage of the food they buy.
Without extreme couponing, they spend less than 50 percent of the national average on groceries. Just apply one or two of the tips they share and you can too!
Free Stuff – Stretch Your Grocery Budget
Free Grocery
Shopping List
Money-Saving Shopping List
Our official check-off shopping list. Available as .pdf or modifiable .doc
Free
Price Tracker
Know your prices and know when to stock up and save a ton!
Available as .pdf, .xls & .doc.
Free Freezer
Inventory Sheet
A freezer is a great money-saving tool. Keep track of what you have with this sheet.
Available as .pdf & .doc.
How To Save on Groceries
Saving money on groceries is one of the fastest ways to generate a budget excess. In this article, we share many of the tips and tricks we’ve used for years to cut our grocery bill in half (and more). Walk with us as we share the ins and outs of frugal and fun grocery shopping.
How we shop to save time and money
”I’m running to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things for dinner— be back in 20 minutes.” This is the mantra of the typical shopper, home from work or rushed at the end of a day of non-stop transporting kids to and from home school activities.
For some families, a trip to go grocery shopping is a “daily necessity.” For others, it’s a 2 or 3 times per week chore.
Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half with Smart Shopping:
The average family of four is spending about $1000 per month on groceries ($250 per person). Our Grocery Bill with 5 kids at home was only $350 ($50 per person / per month).
When we had 5 kids at home, we had to save time and save money on groceries. We found a way to cut our shopping for groceries to once a month and spent only $350, which included all of the food, paper goods and cleaning supplies.
We know shopping once a month isn’t for everyone, but we’ll share tips for how you can save time and money shopping.
Okay, don’t give up on this article yet, we weren’t always this way—here’s how we started.
Our Shopping History
When we were first married, we lived in an apartment that had a very small refrigerator freezer. Annette did what her mom did and went grocery shopping once a week.
A Freezer Helps Us Start Saving Money
A year later, a neighbor offered to share one shelf in her huge upright freezer —we accepted. That choice allowed us to stretch our shopping for groceries to two-week intervals. Amazingly, it took about the same amount of time as buying groceries for one week.
Read How Much Money our Freezer Saves Us Each Year
With one change, Annette earned back a couple of hours each week!
The next year, we bought a used 9-cubic-foot chest freezer and that freed us to grocery shop just once a month for our family of three. Wow, more time saved!
For the next 20 years, we went hunting at the grocery store twelve times a year. Doing it together became an exercise in efficiency, but it also rewarded us with the dividend of being able to feed our kids for about 75% less than other families.
Here’s how we Cut our Grocery Shopping.
Shopping Together?
Grocery Shopping for a large family is a huge undertaking – especially if you’re trying to limit the number of trips each month. Annette asked Steve to help and together we created a system to get the job done . . . and have some fun too.
We divided the store into two areas:
- The Aisles – Annette’s realm;
- The Outer Loop (produce, meat, dairy, and deli)—Steve’s domain.
We know that many men would never think of helping their wife grocery shop. As a matter of fact, many would elect to have a root canal just to avoid it.
Honestly, there are times when neither of us feels like starting this 5-hour marathon, but we figure it’s only once a month and we can get through it . . . together!
Steve’s advice to men is “If you want to eat it, you ought to help hunt it down. Besides, it’s a great way to truly love your wife.”
How Can You Start Saving on Groceries?
Remember we didn’t start off shopping for groceries once-a-month, we eased into it, and that’s what we’re encouraging you to do also.
Consider how much time you’re spending grocery shopping and see if you can reduce it through planning, teamwork, and efficiency.
Could you reduce your trips to the grocery store to once a week or twice a month?
Could you get your husband or one of your older kids to help you?
Could you plan ahead enough so that grocery shopping becomes an anticipated and well-choreographed event?
All of these questions, if answered could put dollars back into your bank account and hours back into your day.
Working together and utilizing the aisle and loop system, we would visit two stores in one evening—one for sale items and the other for the balance of the food shopping.
Technology in the Grocery Store
Before cell phones were so common, we used a set of FRS Walkie-Talkies to communicate with each other in the store. It was fun for Steve to “Beam Up” Annette, and it helped us get through the grocery store faster whenever questions about sales and quantities would arise.
Annette always encourages women that if they’re going to ask their husbands to help, try to make the grocery shopping experience a little bit of fun. Now we just use cell phones to communicate, but it sure has been a great memory for us.
The Basics of our Grocery Shopping Plan
How We Save Money with The Ads
The week we go food shopping, we purchase—or borrow—Wednesday’s newspaper and review the grocery store ads. We do things opposite of most grocery shoppers who plan a meal and then hope to find a deal.
Annette’s Grocery Strategy Is To:
Find the Deals .. Then Plan the Meals
Annette Economides
Whether you plan a week or a month’s worth of meals—planning meals based on the grocery store sales cycles can cut your grocery bill 30% to 50%.
Practice makes Perfect with Grocery Savings
The first time Annette did a menu month-long menu plan; she spent almost the whole day and just planned the dinners! With practice, she eventually was able to do it in about 30 minutes.
To help in the process, she made a list of more than 100 meals she can cook, divided up by the main ingredient. Now she basically plans a rotation of meals based on what bargain-priced meats we have in our freezer.
As a result, our grocery shopping trips have become simply a time to get fresh produce, staples, and stock up on marked down deals for the future. And our grocery bill has been slashed.
Baby-Sitters Help you Save on Groceries
When the kids were young, we would pay a babysitter while we went to the grocery store. It was well worth the money to be able to concentrate and calculate the best grocery savings.
Besides, it’s unrealistic to expect children to be well-behaved for several hours of intense grocery shopping.
As our kids grew, they’d occasionally accompany us and were awesome helpers. It truly prepared them for living on their own and establishing their own grocery savings habits.
Putting Away the Groceries
Once we got home it was pretty late, so we only put away the perishable grocery items. Plus the kids love to forage through the bags looking for “surprises.”
The next morning we put away the dry goods. We label cereal boxes with the month and year so we don’t end up with 2-year-old cereal sitting on our shelves.
Buying Fruit Just Once a Month?
Limiting trips to the grocer means that the more perishable fruits and veggies were eaten first. Bananas, grapes, and strawberries usually last a week.
Pears, tomatoes, and cucumbers can last two weeks. Apples, oranges, lettuce, potatoes, carrots and, cabbage, carefully stored, can last a month.
What About Milk & Bread for a Month
We are often asked about storing milk, cheese, and bread; we carefully freeze all three (and many other items).
How to Freeze Milk
Pour off a little to allow for expansion. Read more about freezing and thawing milk here.
How to Freeze Cheese
We mainly buy shredded cheese in 5-pound bags and store it in smaller plastic containers. We also free chunk cheese and have learned how to reconstitute it so it doesn’t crumble when sliced. Here’s the secret to slicing frozen cheese.
How to Freeze Bread
We place loaves in tied plastic bags and carefully set in the freezer, avoiding crushing them.
Read more about freezing store-bought bread here.
Properly used and inventoried, an extra freezer can be a money-saving machine—we’ve calculated that it saves us about $2000 each year.
We spend less than half of what average families spend and eat a well-balanced, healthy and delicious diet. We also spend much less time shopping than other families. Learning better planning, smarter shopping and more clever cooking are some of the fastest ways to find extra money for your family budget and cut your grocery bill in half.
What if you Spent $4800 Less On Groceries?
What could you do with that money?
Would you pay off debt, take a nicer vacation or build savings for college or retirement?
Perhaps saving money on groceries could reduce the need for extra income or overtime hours.
Any way you slice it Cutting your Shopping will give you more time with family and more money in the bank.
That should make everyone happy (except the grocery store manager).
The ideas in this article are just a few of the tips, tricks, and hacks we share in our book, “Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half.”
If You Budget You’ll Love It
Any way you look at a budget if you make a commitment to regularly manage your money with a system that helps you save money in advance of expenses you’re going to LOVE the freedom and confidence you experience.
(How often have you seen the word Budget and Love in the same sentence?)
I’m wondering if you can post a link for the Breakfast Egg Strata? There doesn’t seem to be one.
Hello from Canada!
I look at all your beautiful recipes, but where is your recipe book?
I love what you do and followed you years ago. Now that hubby and I are retired (sort of) and before Covid-19, lived in our motor home, exploring the southern States, visiting friends and family and poking our curious noses into amazing places, we were living the life. We had sold our house and de-cluttered/sold/donated about 80% of our household, so went to Australia. My sister and hubby wanted us to live with them, building onto their house with our bedroom, bathroom/shower and laundry. Came back to Canada 3 years later in 2018 and decided to buy a motor home, a Fleet Wood Bounder. So now in an airbnb that a friend owns and settling down with WiFi! Have been watching your videos and love how you live! Being frugal and saving money is what allowed us to travel, like when our son & fiance` decided to get married in Scotland with little notice!
I have done much of what you have…cooking from scratch, batch cooking, etc. I also dehydrate fruit and vegetables when buying in bulk and have many jars of dehydrated veggies to choose from when making soups and stews in the slow cooker.
Thank you for all of your wise advice and I will see you in your next video! Sheila
OK, i have a question (after watching your “Nightline” video for like the umpteenth time… 😀 ) – how do you keep track of all the inventory you have in your pantry (refrigerator, cabinets, etc.)? I am basically a vegan who does a LOT of things from scratch – and conventional lists have not worked for me (right now, i got my inventory on a Word doc)….
Andrea, the best way to keep track of your inventory is to check it and list it once a month. We do this with our freezer, and occasionally our pantry items.
Would you consider sharing your meal plans? Please?
Going over the tips and things on here – i know i am still spending more than i should be
Hello, I hears of your family a few years ago and always remembered that I someday wanted to try out your tips/tricks. Now that I am a homemaker and a first-time mommy, I can’t wait to go for it! We want to get out of debt ($45k), and we started taking Dave Ramsey ‘s advice. However, your family’s frugal lifestyle is another great piece of the puzzle to our financial independence. I can’t wait to take in your books, advice, tips/tricks, and really build a better future for our growing family!
Naveh, welcome to the fun and frugal life. If you focus on a few of our grocery money saving strategies, the money you save will certainly help you pay off your debt faster. Go for it and let us know how you progress.
Absolutely love this family! Truly an inspiration. Although menu planning isn’t new to us we got off that bandwagon when life got busy but it was costing us a fortune. We have started our monthly menus back up again as well as a recipe binder for our favorite family recipes. This has allowed us to plan out our meals much easier and has started to save our family money. Now that we are back on track I have started searching for meat that is close to code, discounted, and meets our price per pound that we are willing to spend. It takes a little time but is well worth it. Our goal over the next few months is to get our grocery bill down from $800 – $1,000 a month to well under $400.
Mandy – way to go! Sounds like you’re doing a great job getting organized with your recipe binder and a monthly menu plan. Using those two tools you’re sure to reach your goal of cutting your grocery bill in half (or more). We’re cheering for you! Thanks for sharing your story – it’s a real encouragement!
thanks so much for your tips and all! I’m going to be an off-the-grid homesteader soon . . . every penny counts .
Mary – good luck with our goal to live off the grid – what a great opportunity to exercise resourceful living. Planning your grocery purchases will definitely save you money. You probably already know how to can foods, but having a system for storing your food – canning, freezing, drying etc – is a great way to save money, and still eat relatively healthy. Let us know how your transition goes!