I’m not as into sustainable eating as I am into healthy eating, but lately the amount of waste I’ve seen has been getting to me. If I am buying a fruit with skins (orange, avocado, banana), I generally skip the plastic produce bags, however, I see so many people grabbing them for one or two items and we know many of those bags will not be recycled.
When I go shopping, I bring my own jars, and my own bags. That’s the start. I don’t need much for food, so, just the other day, I opted to grab singles of carrots and celery, I only needed a few sticks of both anyway, this also meant I was avoiding plastic. Then whatever I needed like the split peas, went into a jar. So did the honey. I needed hand soap, so I made sure it look for one without any packaging. When I wanted smaller veggies, I had a loosely woven bag, meant for them. :) The milk I bought was in a glass container, with a $2 bottle deposit. You use the milk, return the bottle and apply the $2 to the next new bottle. I don’t get make my own yogurt, so, that’s a waste, but I’ll reuse the container. Then I needed peanut butter. I had my own jar, so, I just filled that up. This was long and wordy, my apologies, I should be sleeping, you get my point. Hope that helps till you find a video on it. :)
As someone working towards becoming a motion designer, the formatting and design of these videos just make me so happy and inspired. And the transition sounds are total ASMR for me.
There's only one rule that applies to clothes as well: don't enter a grocery store unless you need something specific and planned. That way you avoid impulse purchases and save money. I know for a fact that if I get into a store, I'll leave with something I didn't plan to buy. So it's more about self-control.
Yes, I'm a HUGE advocate of planning and meal prep. I spent a small fortune year or so ago on about 60 meal prep containors with lids-that are reusable AND freezable. Depending on how low we are on our frozen meals-we'll take a day or two where family and I will make massive amounts of meals, label them and freeze them. When I do cook meals at home, I always make up an extra portion and put in the containor to freeze. I take one with me when I go to work, heat it up and eat. The extra work pays off when we have those nights where it's been a crazy day and/or we just...don't feel like cooking and would rather order out-we have a stock pile of meals to choose from where we just heat it up and eat. The meal prep containors have more than payed for themselves.
@@isntsheabeaut7456 not really. It gets ate pretty fast. When i make up all 60 containers it lasts us about 3 weeks of breakfast s and lunches and somtimes dinner
@@isntsheabeaut7456 doesn't go bad that easily, in fact a lot of restaurants use this method to cook. She makes containers of food, if you don't trust your capabilities of organization and feel you will end up wasting food, you can try on cutting veggies or fruits and freeze it, that way when you need to cook for later is already cut so you just need to mix up, also with the fruits you can make juices, mermelade, smoothies, etc. Since I study cooking I don't like frozen food, but with this method I can eat fresh and leave a room to create new dishes and improvise. P.s: also want to remember that food made or with milk or eggs is better to consume in 24h so you don't get food poisoning. For the rest you can keep it in the freezer or fridge for a long time. (1week up to 1 month)
It really sucks that so many of these money-saving tricks boil down to "have more time." Planning meals, cooking meals, having a dang *garden*... If I had the time to do these things, I wouldn't need these tips!
Mine is quite simple, just make some shop list with only basics (rice, chicken, pasta, etc). Then you save it for every month and buy that. Cook according to the ingredients you have in the fridge (like if you have rice and a bit of meat, roast the meat Boult and put the rice, you will something like a risotto but more cheap and easy). Don't shop in the same markets, look around you live, sometimes some markets have special days with offers, like Friday of fruits and so on. When you have found the stores, write in your list where to buy everything sorted out by the place. Example: xx supermarket (fruits and eggs), xx supermarkets (veggies and meat). Hard in the beginning but once you have it, your life is made. 7(0_0)
@@candydemon41 some day in your life you will to make it. Like I said, once you make the groceries shop list, everything is about prepare and store. Maybe can a bit of lot of work to do, but sure you will be glad when you are tired but have food at home ready. XD
@@yogurLAPIZ I cook all the time for myself it's something I had to do at a very young age. I took 3 years of home economics and I am more then qualified to cook. I don't eat a lot of rice it is not the best for you. I stick to whole grains, vegtables, fruits, and good quality meats and cheese. I am 23 years old by the way.
Like every new habit, it does take time in the beginning to plan out your shopping and your meals. You will need to carve out some time in your day or week to do these things. What are you doing with your time- is everything you do each day absolutely necessary - can you not drop some things or shift them around? Are your weekends to activity filled that you can't shop or prep food for an hour or two?
I love this type of video content! My husband and I did a total rehaul of our grocery budget about 6 months ago. We’ve failed and learned much along the way. Some of my favorite tips including knowing where to shop for what. I get my bulk, dry goods from a local grocery store chain. We’ve saved a small fortune alone just from buying spices for the bulk section rather than in glass containers in the baking aisles. I go to Trader Joe’s for my olive oil and certain produce items that cost less than my local grocery chain. I shop at Costco for rice, eggs, and nuts. I get most of my “staple” produce delivered through Imperfect Produce (avocados, broccoli, potatoes, beets, etc) and the prices are very reasonable. It may feel daunting to coordinate what to buy where, but I only grocery shop once a week at most, but I bulk buy from each store. So one Saturday I’ll stock up on meats from the butcher and freeze them. The next Saturday, I’ll refill my pantry with canned goods. And so on. Then we meal prep. Oh, and I make food from scratch when I can. Home made almond milk not only is cheaper, but much tastier. Greek yogurt (a breakfast staple in our house) takes a couple hours in the instant pot and is super easy. Even homemade bagels take half an hour, if you don’t include rising time. It’s not nearly as big of a commitment as it might seem if we just plan accordingly. Making a hobby out of cooking and being creative with your food makes it way more interesting, too! I plan each week by taking a picture of what’s in the fridge, freezer, and cabinets. If I can’t see everything in there, I probably have too much food to begin thinking about grocery shopping. But if I’m in need, I open Pinterest and start looking for recipes to use up what I already have and I adapt them to best fit what I currently have. So if a salad calls for mandarins but I only have oranges, I’ll just cut those into smaller bits hahaha. If a recipe asks for quinoa, I just swap it for rice. If the dish requires roasted butternut squash, I add whatever winter squash I have available. Once I have the recipe idea in my head, I pin it on my “Meals for the Week” board and add any missing ingredients to my personal shopping list in Wunderlist. I then repeat until I’ve planned a week’s worth of food for two. I shop on Saturday, prep most on Sunday (make rice, boil eggs, chop onions and then assemble some of the meals), then do another mini prep on Wednesday night using up the remaining stuff from Sunday that I prepared in bulk. I’ve seriously cut our grocery bill in half and our eating-out bill by like 70%!
You are my favorite person on the internet! These are so helpful! For example, I had no idea Trader Joe's olive oil was cheaper. And as I just got into cooking healthy meals, I was lamenting how expensive spices can be. It never occured to me to buy them in bulk. I do the same thing with Pinterest, lol - look up recipes based on what I've got that needs to get made soon, and then make it work. I appreciate you taking the time to make this comment.
Same, my partner and I spend 50-75$ per month. But we also get some of our produce from our schools food pantry and thankfully our school pantry also has gluten free pasta which saves me around $10. I think my budget would be slightly lower if I could eat gluten.
@@yeseniacl5885 My brother and I room together but I usually do the shopping. Indeed, $150 is what I spend a month when I can get a good haul. Two grocery stores near me have Pick 5 sales all the time, where I can pick 5 meats for $20. Little bro clued me in to a store I'd never even paid attention to a few months back that sells more meat in their packs and has better selection, for the same price. It's also a store with the most diverse amount of foods I've ever seen so if I'd stop being a chicken, I could get some interesting and diverse fruits and veggies from around the world. I need to make a list of what I'd like to try and how I'd prepare them so that I don't waste. I also added that last part because while I cook for us, we probably could be eating better. I cook dinner for us for the week which usually is a baked meat, rice or pasta, and a vegetable. But when we first moved out...we probably ate taco salad every other week, haha! Had to get it out our system, the foods mom only cooked every now and then but now we could cook whenever! Anyone else experience this when they moved out from home? :)
I have been a vegetarian for 25 years now and I talk from experience when i say that it costs more to have a diet based solely on fruits and vegetables than on a diet which includes meat
I disagree completely. If you shop at farmers markets. I’ve been vegan for 3 years vegetarian for two before that and my friends and I spend way less than people our age who eat animal products. Depends what you’re eating I think.
Nuts are one of just 2 food groups to have been scientifically proven to make you live longer. The other is leafy green veg. I try to buy frugally but I'm more interested in eating healthily.
I’m still struggling to kind of make an ends, so, I have to penny pinch. This means my grocery bill, is super low, I don’t always have food, but it’s made me a super smart buyer. I cut out much of what’s not essential. But two things I do, I make one meal, and stretch it through the week. If it’s a soup, I’ll make rice to stretch it more and fill my belly. I do make smoothies, but I get frozen $1 bags. Not the best, but not the worst. To be honest, I could cut that out and just eat cereal or something. But this is also part of a trick I use to make sure I eat. I have depression, and some times, it’s hard to eat. Having a smoothie that I can sip through the day, till I come home and eat my soup or whatever, helps me eat. I make it before I leave in the morning and have it all day. To be fair, I really don’t spend much at the store, my average bill is maybe $30/week. Or more if I’m out of some staples.
Good suggestions. The next step now is to cut back on food waste so that 1 month of food may last a week or two more. As part of a young family of 4 it is tricky but using a blackboard of sorts to layout what we have eat, need to buy, and could make from scratch really helped. I mounted it to the pantry door next to the fridge and actively update it. I also took advantage of some cheap freezer safe food prep storage boxes to portion and save food in the freezer instead of letting it go to waste or allowing to be so big and cumbersome you never open it back up. Net result: Wife is finally taking lunches to work and not starving herself (side benefit is she no longer eats out on the way home), no more spoiled food found hidden in the back of the fridge, no more wondering what there is too eat, and lastly i know exactly what i need when i walk into a supermarket.
Quarantine has changed my mindset to “use what you have, as often as you can.” It helps me find new recipes and come up with my own fun creative recipes!
I'm annoyed that the budget included things that were already in the house and fresh veggies from a garden. That's not an accurate count then. I feel guilty about spending the amount of money that I do and I think people are kinda lying
$430 per month would be a goal for me. For my husband and I, we spend 200- 250 per week depending on the season and for most months it's a 1000 for the whole month. And we do not eat meat, cheese etc, but we do buy a lot of nuts and greens which are pricy. Even though I try to stay conscious about how much we spend on food, eating healthy for us is an investment and it's worth it.
We spend about $400 a month for 3 adults and 2 kids, and that includes cleaning supplies, shower stuff, food. $35 every other month for the pooch's bag of kibble. Our food costs could very well be lower if we didn't live in a county with one major grocery store (safeway) and ONE, yes, ONE walmart and then the rest of the county is nothing but small time mom and pop type grocery stores, gas stations and mini marts. Our county is only about 77,000 people, not a lot of options to choose from but we do pretty good all things considered. It's hard to eat vegetarian out here only because of the lack of options to choose from.
35 every other month on dog food?!? What is it, kibbles and bits? :/ I buy Origin Tundra for $121/bag for my poodle. The extra protein and nutrition up front saves vet bills in the long run for sure. Dogs deserve diets that replicate what they would do for themselves in the wild (i.e. 85% meat ingredients), not your $35 bag where the first ingredient is corn :(
My boyfriend and I did something similar in Sep 2018 we made the rules ourselves but it was essentially what was outlined in the video. We did so well that we did it a second month. Then a third month. Now it’s just our budget. We went from $400 or more to $260 or less for a family of THREE( including household products). We still a deep freezer stuffed with meat, full shelves and eat a ton of veggies. When you start too looking at what you are purchasing and why, and how much of it you are actually using up vs throwing away it becomes super easy to make permanent reductions in your food budget. One of our biggest helps in this is writing out our meals before shopping, using what we already have as a base and buying only the extra ingredients with a few things that we buy in bulk when on sale. (Also note: BF and I both work from home so we eat every meal here)
3:51 buying only cheap meat is a _terrible_ idea. Meat should be the most expensive thing you buy. Why? Well, meat isn't good for you (in large quantities), nor the environment, nor the animals, which are often treated in a terrible way. So you should only buy high quality organic meat so that meat becomes something special - something you don't eat everyday.
Cheaper=poor quality=gross=might as well just cut it out completely rather than choke it down. I pretty much ended up going vegetarian simply because I was so broke.
@@supernova622 My rule is to only buy good quality meat (that's met high animal welfare standards), but it's really expensive... So every few weeks I try to hit up the grocery stores around the time they do the deep/"last day" discount and see what's going cheap. This week I scored a free-range chicken marked down from £9 to £1.67, which was four servings (plus stock from the bones). I eat less meat overall and am more attuned to using every last scrap of it.
Top tip for fancy cheese buying: the closer a soft cheese is to its “best before” date, the better it is flavour and texture-wise, so those cheeses on sale are actually the best ones to buy for every reason.
I don't really get how you could replace bread with quinoa or pasta in some dishes but ok :D I personally would never limit myself to a certain price of meat, because I feel like meat is one of those things where you can totally tell if you spend more money on it. It just taste so much better. We don't eat meat during the work week most of the time and try and buy organic or local meats, always have shopping list and try to plan out the meals you will eat and love.
Can you tell the price of meat or which is more expensive than the other in a blind trial, or is it just like that psychological thing with expensive wines, which connoisseurs can't really even tell apart?
@@petitio_principii I have seen a video on UA-cam about that, and the chef said is was all about how you prepare the meat. Meat is something you need to understand for cooking it, if you know the tricks to test better you can make cheap meat taste as expensive. Of course the expensive gonna be more enjoyable, but cheap meat doesn't mean tough to eat or dry. I'm a pastry student so I make superb stuff in school (professional and expensive ingredients) and at home I use the supermarket quality, still for me it taste the same and texture too, the thing is about what I do to have the same results, sometimes I have to take a way around or add more of something, more time, etc. But the results is the same. 7(0_0)
Buy good healthy bulk bread at costco and divide each package into two freezer bags. Take out a new bag from freezer to fridge when needed. Keeps fresh in freezer for couple of months. No more throwing away leftover bread and you buy a lot less often. Saves a ton. Same goes for nuts, buy big bulk cheaper bag, divide and keep in freezer, keeps fresh for over a year. The large bag goes a long way this way.
Starting with a full pantry and a garden with salad veg in it - yup, that’ll help! This video was so basic it hurt. No discussion of brands versus generic, brand loyalty, cheap ways to cook and so on.
Excellent video. Very helpful. Before you go grocery shopping for say the next two weeks, check your fridge and pantry (cupboards) for what you do have. With that in mind figure out a meal plan and go from there. You don’t need to buy meat every time you go shopping but I love the wiggle room idea because when you see a deal on meat, grab it. That is what a freezer is for.
I need an updated version of this because I feel like food costs are so high right now! This is about what I spend with my family, and I want to cut it in half as well... But many of the tips and getting creative still stand.
I'm just starting to get the hang of meal-prepping, but it has helped me at least to make sure that the things I buy don't go to waste, don't spoil before I finally decide to use them. But these are some really good tips, and I think I'll take on that challenge. It will probably somehow simplify my meal-prepping and planning.
Question- do you guys eat out/have lunch at work that is NOT home prepped? In other words, are there other sources of food that you have besides your groceries?
I don't know if you're asking the OP or the commenters as 'you guys' but assuming the latter... yes, I budget for eating out 3x a week (though I don't always eat out that much). One of those is most often my Chick-fil-a breakfast burrito on Saturday. The other two times are usually a food truck at a brewery and/or a more formal sit-down restaurant. I used to eat out a ton, and as a single person with no kids and a fair amount of disposable income, it's really not that big of a deal for me, but over the years I've a) gotten sick of eating out all the time and b) realized that I'd much rather put that money towards investments and retirement so I can live big when I'm older. lol. Anyway, breakfast and lunch during the week are always prepared at home and when I'm being frugal, my monthly grocery costs usually come to $150. I should mention that food costs where I live are super high. I was talking to a family member and we compared grocery costs, my total is sometimes as much as twice her's for the same kinds of things.
Yes so we don’t have a grocery vs eating out budget. We just have a food budget. So my boyfriend and I spend $140 a week and that is a combination of any food/drink item we buy.
I am bad about eating out -expensive and unhealthy, consumes time and gas- so I have started keeping filling foods and snacks at the office in my desk(and fridge) to "shop" for lunch: whole boxes of triscuits, almonds, fiber whatever, apples, oatmeal, fancy ramens, cheese, olives, roma tomatoes, soups, salami and lunchmeats. I get the pleasure of making a lunch without having to meal prep, since I am BADDDDD at meal prep and even at remembering my lunch tote. My car has an emergency can of almonds and bottled water to stave off fast food cravings during travel.
We spend about $300 for a family of 4. Biggest thing is having left overs. Most all the meats I buy we can have 4-10 plates. Eating smaller portions helps a ton. My house also gets free lunch from work/ school.
Really really enjoyed this video, so interesting to see. I wish nuts were cheaper than they are. Also love looking at what's for sale in our store every week. I wanna try this soon :)
I JUST discovered this year the hidden gem of the bakery sale rack. At my local store, anything on the rack is .89/per!! I've gotten kaiser rolls, sesame seed hamburger buns, cranberry bread, wheat berry bread, etc. I've been getting more into vegetarian/vegan cooking because I need to get back to more veggies. However, I went vegan in college for fiscal reasons - animal products are expensive! However, I still love bacon and cheese, but a little more veggies never hurt. Though, I hate frozen veggies. Not because of the taste but the texture. Fresh is where its at. Plus it challenges me to use them within the week and to shop seasonally. Plus I'm weird and really enjoy grocery shopping, haha.
Punctuated and corrected transcript for teachers and learners of English: Everyone has strategies to make their groceries cheaper. If you're a coupon clipper, a person who shops in bulk, or a person who chooses vegetarian meals to avoid expensive meat, you know some of the biggest tricks for grocery shopping well, but it seems that while some people benefit from these suggestions, others don't. Coupons just aren't their style or there's no wholesale club nearby or they simply don't want to give up meat. My challenge to myself was a bit « cart before the horse » I told myself that I wanted to cut my grocery budget in half without providing a single way to do so. I also wanted to continue the healthy eating habits we'd set for ourselves after completing the whole food diet earlier this year. I don't know if this “goal first, methods later” approach would work for others, but this is how it ended up looking in my life by the numbers. My husband I spent an average of $430 a month on groceries, before the challenge we needed to get the grocery budget down to $215. I succeeded; it came in a few bucks under even, but not without really examining the way I shop for food. Looking at the list of suggested foods in my grocery store shopping plan application on my phone I was able to identify some specific things we no longer bought including alcohol, a reduction from a bottle of wine or a six-pack every week to every other week for the month. Buying less alcohol at home saved us $34. Meat, we still bought this, but I didn't add it to every meal, and I tried to stretch meat more than I had in the past. I tried to use eggs more often since the serving of them was cheaper than a serving of meat in most recipes. This was a reduction of about $25 but I did use frozen meat from before this month a couple of times. Bread and snacks: I loved eating bread, but I realized that we had plenty of rice quinoa and lentils and the pantry gathering dust that we could use instead of bread almost everywhere in our meals. I also find that if I don't have snacks in the house I just don't eat as much between meals, so that was a more zero-sum game, no more pretzel crisps sadly for this month, a total reduction of $17 as you can see this didn't add up we didn't get enough savings from simply cutting things to make the $215 happen instead I tried a bunch of mental tricks on myself. Number 1, I used an online shopping cart. I really hate picking something up in a store only to end up putting it back on the shelf, however I have no problem adding something to my online cart and then deleting it, so my shopping planning app was essential before any trip to the store. The prices of things were right there so I could dither about whether I wanted something or not, look back at recipes I wanted to use that week and invariably put some things back on the shelf before even entering the store. Number 2 I had caveats, once I was able to plan most of my purchases, I planned the things I wasn't sure about in a different way. I knew that I ate too much cheese and my grocery often has half priced fancier cheeses available, so I ended up listing check for half-price fancy cheese. If there is one on half-price sale, I can get it but if not I will get no cheese at all. Number 3: I left some wiggle room in my list instead of specific ingredients I would write ‘salad veggies’ or to ‘stir-fry veggies’ or pick up a starch if potatoes, sweet potatoes, pasta or quinoa is on sale I can choose that. Or if there are some bell peppers in the less pretty veggie tray on sale, I have the flexibility to choose those. I always have a plan but there's wiggle room in it. Number 4: I made a few rules that helped me avoid some of the biggest temptations toward higher spending. For instance I'm not allowed to purchase nuts given their astronomical cost, lately I can't purchase meat that costs more than a dollar fifty per portion etc These rules don't work for everyone, but you may note that you often repeat the same impulse purchases. I often buy premade frozen foods that are just a little bit on sale as just in case options, so having a rule against them for the month helped me to avoid things that normally pull me in. Number 5: I 100% cheated! I still advocate for just using things you already have which is technically cheating. For the past month I raided the pantry for cans of soup and packages of pasta and anything else that could make a meal. It meant I didn't get quite as many fresh veggies as was ideal, we still did okay though since we've got a bonkers (crazy) quantity of salad greens in our garden. Another excellent grocery spending cheat however, canned goods and other staples go bad eventually so I turned the extreme frugality into a time to rotate out some of those items before they went bad. This obviously isn't a cheat you can use. If you're eating through your cupboards every month that might be a sign that you aren't buying too much food but instead buying food that is too expensive or you're already as frugal as possible. I think our problem is that when we see something that we might use on sale we get it and then save it forever. We needed to stop that for a while and I'm betting some of you could stand to do so too. All in all I'm glad I survived the grocery bill challenge. I want to both keep our spending lower than our previous four hundred thirty dollars in the future as well as do this more extreme challenge again at some point just to get creative again.
Basìcally: stopped eating things she loves a lot, used all the stuff she had in the house. To conclude, she saved like 100 bucks and not 215 bc she had so much food at home...
Planning recipes absolutely helps, but if you have a way to acquire bulk rice, you can cut additional amounts. In a year, it's extremely plausible for someone to eat their entire body weight in rice/pasta over a year, and using jasmine rice as an example, it's almost $2/lb in sub-5lb quantities here, but it's at or under $1/lb if you buy in quantities of at least 25lbs(I've seen as low as $.70). No need to buy it all at once, the bulk discount has diminishing returns before you buy restaurant quantitites. You may not even need a costco membership to take advantage of some of this, because some markets have bulk rice already. Naturally bulk shopping for pantry items requires some up-front cash that may be hard to stomach, but it does save money in the long run.
I'm a grandmother now and I raised 2 children on my own, on a strict budget. This is how I know how to shop and save money. Shopping at the stores that bring foods to your car is a huge financial mistake. There are normally a store in your area where you live that can cut your food budget by 20%+ each month and you do not have to go without. I never buy meat or fresh produce at Walmart. Walmart does however have a good selection of frozen vegetables. I always go to Safeway or Albertson's in my area to buy meat. I just make sure it is on sale. The best thing to do is create a weekly menu/meal plan and then make a shopping list to go with it before you go to the store. Also, never go to the store hungry or you will buy lots of goodies that isn't in your budget.
My food budget is about £50 a month. I shop at Aldi, is that in the US yet? Not sure. Anyhoo, the reason it's so low is because a) admittedly I have a smaller appetite and eat about half the normal portion at every meal, and I don't like dessert (no sweet tooth) but b) my mum taught me really good simple, healthy and waste-less cooking. Taken from her mum, who lived on rations during the war. Every ingredient is used, almost nothing is thrown away, the broccoli stalks, ends of carrots etc are all thrown into a soup. I plan my meals (literally takes 5 mins) I shop with a specific list, and I always have extra portions in the freezer for those days i'm too tired to cook. I do eat meat, but most meals I use meat in, like stir frys, pasta dishes etc. I use very little and bulk the rest up with lots of veggies and nuts. Cost per portion for most of my meals is well under £1. Add to that I only really drink tap water, and I never go out to eat. Ever. I personally have too many food intolerances to make it enjoyable, but also it's not so much the culture here in the UK to do it often, especially away from the big cities (London does not represent the rest of the UK). I don't feel restricted in the way I eat, because i've been doing it all my life. Food is fuel to me, im not really bothered what I eat, I don't have the emotional attachment to it that can make changes hard for a lot of people.
Gigglypeach Aldi is in the USA but they are not common. Example, I live in a major metro area’s suberbs, but the nearest Aldi is a 4.5 hour drive away.
I can't eat grains on my diet, and my husband is allergic to poultry items, so we can't eat chicken or eggs. We also can't have dairy, so as opposed to cheap, subsidized milk, we use more expensive plant-based options. We don't drink alcohol and already don't eat out. Some people just live in expensive areas and have limited dietary options.
We eat organic and we try to shop at the (cheap organic) farmers market as much as we can. We also tried to buy some frozen organic vegetables to avoid it from going bad. We cut down our meat consumption by 90% and when we do, it's better quality. We no longer buy alcohol (because people keep giving us bottles), we only buy a piece of cheese a week, for the rest we buy bulk which is more about principle than saving money though I try to shop at places that are more reasonable. We focus on fruits and vegetables mostly and mainly try to discover delicious vegetarian/vegan recipes which is healthy overall.
Making my own frozen meals has been an amazing money saver for me. I make stuffed pasta, mac&cheese, mini pizzas, french toast out of old bread, etc. All of them are "comfort foods" that I make healthier (Ex: using lentil pasta or adding in extra veggies). They last in my freezer for a good year so if I don't feel like eating any of them for a few weeks, I'm not wasting food. It saves me a ton of money in the long run. I highly recommend it!
This was really good, but I have a better challenge for you that I do every week. Feed a family of four, breakfast, lunch and dinner on $100 or less. I am interested to see what you come up with.
I now do weekly online shopping. I pay a subscription of €10,00 every 3 months, so €3,33 a month for orders over €40,00. It saves me time and headache. Also, I don't know why but most items cost 10-15 cents cheaper when bought online rather than the supermarket shelves. We spend about €70,00 a week for two including household cleaning supplies.
Do american grocery stores have "yellow stickers" or anything similar? It's where foods are marked down because their use by is approaching, typically around 6pm-9pm the day before the bbe/ub date. I ONLY buy my fruit, veg, ready meals and bread yellow sticker and it makes me be so much more creative with my cooking.
Yes, we do. However, I don't suggest that you use that method the majority of times for produce especially. Food lose nutrients. I use this method but not on a regular basis. Buying frozen vegetables are a better idea. They tend to be cheap and the nutrients are locked in.
@@neiya8862 That's definitely an important consideration, but I'm vegan and about 80% of what I eat is fresh fruit and veg, with the rest being wholegrain and potatoes. Even if all my food has lost half it's nutrients, I'm still getting far more than the average eater. Plus I pretty much always eat or freeze things the day I buy them.
I recommend trying to use all the food you have before buying more stuff. I bet there are poorer people who would be shocked at the amount of real food that average people forget to eat. Lentils and rice don't collect dust in a hungry home that can't just buy new stuff because they're too lazy to cook.
May I suggest that while shopping you watch the cart of people with large families who come from remote countries. They are used to cook in bulk on a budget and sometimes buy huge bags of rice, cuscus grain, chickpeas or corn, to which they then add a few veggies, onions, lots of cheap spices, and sometimes meat, that they all buy from their "ethnic grocery" at the corner which imports directly from their country. In Switzerland, for instance, I have seen Turkish or Albanese families living high, paying meat and toilet paper half the usual price while the Swiss were struggling, buying in supermarkets 😏
When it comes to meat, I have found that chicken thighs are the LEAST expensive meat so I continue to eat chicken. However, eggs and dairy (on sale) both sub for meat and are cheaper. I also choose vegetables that are the highest in PROTEIN. Although they are not as high as meat, at least I'm getting more protein in them than in lower protein vegetables. Protein is very important. Above all, don't forget that you want to spend enough on groceries to STAY HEALTHY, getting all the nutrients you need. Otherwise, you're just swapping grocery bills for medical bills.
I typically save anywhere from 15-25% on the price of my groceries because I pretty much, almost exclusively, do all of my shopping at one store, and they give me lots of personal discounts in addition to the products that are already on sale. I'll admit, thought, that if my husband feels like cooking then he has to buy his own ingredients, but that's because he's the kind of guy who will only figure out what he's making at 4:30 that day.
Considering this lifestyle as a challenge for a month is okay, but everyone - please don't exclude nuts from your diet. They are expensive, yes, but they are just so healthy and necessary in our diets.
I’ve done this too! Lol I setup my Instacart or Prime order and if I have time after work, I go and get it myself. It makes it easier to see what I actually need and in store prices end up being cheaper. Buuuut I also buy alcohol. So 🤷🏽♀️
technically a legume :( From my sparse research walnuts are right behind peanuts in price per calorie compared to cashews, almonds and pistachios. But peanuts have more protein per calorie than walnuts ;)
also, homemade trail mixes are cheaper than pre-made! I "dilute" the cost of nuts by making a trail mix including like peanut m&ms and like dried cranberries. it helps me feel okay with the price of nuts so that I can get them into my diet. You're right, nuts are good for your health!
I don't believe in cutting your grocery budget. you should be able to reward yourself with delicious food and not deprive yourself from the things that make you happy. I rather save money from eating out less. and make food for friends at home instead. you do make some good points about buying things that don't need just because its on sale. great video.
i use an app called bring and meal plan. i use pinterest to meal plan according to whatever im feeling that week. no one said you have to cook all your meals on one sunday. tbh i find it kind of gross with all the different smells and sad when im just reheating in the microwave. you can do this!
My husband and I spend around$150-170 per month for our family of 6. We eat a lot of fresh fruits and veggies and meal plan and bulk cook. Really wish we could lower our food budget just a tiny bit more but it can be hard.
@@hannahjones3532 rice, beans, pasta, and a lot of in season fruit and veggies. Lately coupons have been pretty good so I stocked up on a few extra packs of frozen veggies. We are going to have a garden again this year so that will help fill in the gaps. We were saving for a house so it was necessity to spend so little but we were able to take the kids to Disney World on one income last year plus all bills and groceries.
With my food allergies I'm stuck on buying expensive alternatives to basic foods that I need to even cook anything. My husband gets anything if it's on sale, whether we need it or not. We're three on a budget of $400. Most of the time it won't last half the month because "apparently we need three cans of tuna when none of us eats fish, because it was on sale".
I just did the conversion of how much I spent in my last grocery shopping, $70. I live in south america of course. $150 would be arround the most I spent once, but like arround before chistmas.
Indeed be careful about buying what you may already have. I just bought a new box of cereals because I thought that we had one box that we getting low. It turned out that we had two half full boxes! I did better with Girl Scout Cookies. We were buying a box every weekend when we passed the girls seeling them on the corner. We decided to not buy any until we finished the ones that we had. It turned out that wasn't until they stopped selling so we can start over next year!
My problem is that sometimes i buy groceries and plan meals but then i end up eating out with friends or buy takeout, and without knowing, at the end of the month or year, i got lots of expire products
Jordan F. Page has a great video on saving money through meal planning. Her advice is to leave space in your planning a few days a week if you have a habit of eating out. She also suggests leaving room for leftovers.
Thanks for the tips! But I did not like the "buy no nuts, buy cheap meat" part. Nuts are healthy, meat is not. And I really don't want to know how the animals lived before when their meat is later on sold that cheap 😔
i generally buy on sale and in bulk if cheaper. For example beef by the pound costs me about $9. But for $50 i can buy a huge chunk of beef for $9 per kg. i would buy the goat whole but you do need a larger freezer to store everything.
My groceries bill is way less ..... Firstly when I order for a month if it is not over by end of month I do not buy it again till the end of the next month mean 2 months in a row .... I make sure my pantry is empty before I hit the grocery store. I make I do not throw out any item. If I need to throw out it means we will never have it in the next list .... I buy bigger itmes online from Amazon pantry and the things they don't have will go to my shopping list every other month. Zero pantry at end of the month is great savings
I'm still reeling from the idea that 2 people spend $430 in groceries a month. If i don't pay attention it'll go to 300 in impulse purchases but I spend 100 on food and 40 on other supplies (toilet paper, soap, cat food/litter). We're 2 adults and 3 cats big. I need to look up resources for cutting meat out cause i'm not convinced I'll save money doing so but would like to be wrong.
Jesus.... $215/mo here would be absurd where I live and that's for 3 people. Have done $90-120/mo for the entire house for years. Potatoes are great, eggs are great, broccoli & cheap canned vegetables are great. On sale meats (Can still get pork for $1.00/lb off and on here) - Pasta is cheap as hell, ingredients to make a good pasta sauce are cheap. Bag of yellow onions for garnishing and some bread for the occasional sandwich.
I do agree on all BUT MY GOD, DO NOT CUT NUTS! They are one of THE most healthy foods out there, especially walnuts. Buy them in bulk but do not cut them. They even can serve as diner when you had plenty of food at work (e.g. when someone brought a cake).
Learn even more grocery shopping tips in this video: ua-cam.com/video/izOHWAGJfQs/v-deo.html.
you should do a video about grocery shopping sustainably without breaking the bank. We are using way to much plastic everywhere.
very, very relevant video about your concerns regarding sustainability- it's about 22 minutes long ua-cam.com/video/n5Qbi_dB3Qo/v-deo.html
@@lorablackbird Not to mention the environment! And immense cruelty to animals. Large scale factory farming!
I’m not as into sustainable eating as I am into healthy eating, but lately the amount of waste I’ve seen has been getting to me. If I am buying a fruit with skins (orange, avocado, banana), I generally skip the plastic produce bags, however, I see so many people grabbing them for one or two items and we know many of those bags will not be recycled.
When I go shopping, I bring my own jars, and my own bags. That’s the start. I don’t need much for food, so, just the other day, I opted to grab singles of carrots and celery, I only needed a few sticks of both anyway, this also meant I was avoiding plastic.
Then whatever I needed like the split peas, went into a jar. So did the honey.
I needed hand soap, so I made sure it look for one without any packaging.
When I wanted smaller veggies, I had a loosely woven bag, meant for them. :)
The milk I bought was in a glass container, with a $2 bottle deposit. You use the milk, return the bottle and apply the $2 to the next new bottle.
I don’t get make my own yogurt, so, that’s a waste, but I’ll reuse the container.
Then I needed peanut butter. I had my own jar, so, I just filled that up.
This was long and wordy, my apologies, I should be sleeping, you get my point. Hope that helps till you find a video on it. :)
$215 is way more like it. $400 was not it.
As someone working towards becoming a motion designer, the formatting and design of these videos just make me so happy and inspired. And the transition sounds are total ASMR for me.
There's only one rule that applies to clothes as well: don't enter a grocery store unless you need something specific and planned. That way you avoid impulse purchases and save money. I know for a fact that if I get into a store, I'll leave with something I didn't plan to buy. So it's more about self-control.
"I will get no cheese at all," might be the bleakest sentence in the English language.
Not really, i cut out cheese recently and it's been pretty easy
Even as a vegan I agree with that.
I will gladly go without other things to be able to buy a block of Kerrygold Aged Cheddar. 🧀
How to save money and eat healthy:
Buy steel cut oats and rice and beans.
And if you have a food allergy, you just gotta pay extra money to eat 😂
Yes, I'm a HUGE advocate of planning and meal prep. I spent a small fortune year or so ago on about 60 meal prep containors with lids-that are reusable AND freezable. Depending on how low we are on our frozen meals-we'll take a day or two where family and I will make massive amounts of meals, label them and freeze them. When I do cook meals at home, I always make up an extra portion and put in the containor to freeze. I take one with me when I go to work, heat it up and eat. The extra work pays off when we have those nights where it's been a crazy day and/or we just...don't feel like cooking and would rather order out-we have a stock pile of meals to choose from where we just heat it up and eat. The meal prep containors have more than payed for themselves.
Cooking in bulk probably also saves some gas.
Are you worried about the food going bad?
@@isntsheabeaut7456 not really. It gets ate pretty fast. When i make up all 60 containers it lasts us about 3 weeks of breakfast s and lunches and somtimes dinner
Hi, would you share the containers? Thank you!
@@isntsheabeaut7456 doesn't go bad that easily, in fact a lot of restaurants use this method to cook. She makes containers of food, if you don't trust your capabilities of organization and feel you will end up wasting food, you can try on cutting veggies or fruits and freeze it, that way when you need to cook for later is already cut so you just need to mix up, also with the fruits you can make juices, mermelade, smoothies, etc. Since I study cooking I don't like frozen food, but with this method I can eat fresh and leave a room to create new dishes and improvise.
P.s: also want to remember that food made or with milk or eggs is better to consume in 24h so you don't get food poisoning. For the rest you can keep it in the freezer or fridge for a long time. (1week up to 1 month)
Switch to Aldi and you're good to go 👌
Sarah Cook changed my budget significantly!!
Sarah Cook yesss I love Aldi!!
Sarah Cook 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻aldi for the win!! Im a huge fan:)
Isn’t Aldi primarily super processed packaged foods? If so, def cheaper. But I’m hoping for quality over quantity of empty calories.
M A no aldis stuff is pretty healthy
It really sucks that so many of these money-saving tricks boil down to "have more time." Planning meals, cooking meals, having a dang *garden*... If I had the time to do these things, I wouldn't need these tips!
Mine is quite simple, just make some shop list with only basics (rice, chicken, pasta, etc). Then you save it for every month and buy that. Cook according to the ingredients you have in the fridge (like if you have rice and a bit of meat, roast the meat Boult and put the rice, you will something like a risotto but more cheap and easy). Don't shop in the same markets, look around you live, sometimes some markets have special days with offers, like Friday of fruits and so on. When you have found the stores, write in your list where to buy everything sorted out by the place. Example: xx supermarket (fruits and eggs), xx supermarkets (veggies and meat). Hard in the beginning but once you have it, your life is made. 7(0_0)
@@yogurLAPIZ And that still takes a lot of time lol.
@@candydemon41 some day in your life you will to make it. Like I said, once you make the groceries shop list, everything is about prepare and store. Maybe can a bit of lot of work to do, but sure you will be glad when you are tired but have food at home ready. XD
@@yogurLAPIZ I cook all the time for myself it's something I had to do at a very young age. I took 3 years of home economics and I am more then qualified to cook. I don't eat a lot of rice it is not the best for you. I stick to whole grains, vegtables, fruits, and good quality meats and cheese. I am 23 years old by the way.
Like every new habit, it does take time in the beginning to plan out your shopping and your meals. You will need to carve out some time in your day or week to do these things. What are you doing with your time- is everything you do each day absolutely necessary - can you not drop some things or shift them around? Are your weekends to activity filled that you can't shop or prep food for an hour or two?
I love this type of video content! My husband and I did a total rehaul of our grocery budget about 6 months ago. We’ve failed and learned much along the way.
Some of my favorite tips including knowing where to shop for what. I get my bulk, dry goods from a local grocery store chain. We’ve saved a small fortune alone just from buying spices for the bulk section rather than in glass containers in the baking aisles. I go to Trader Joe’s for my olive oil and certain produce items that cost less than my local grocery chain. I shop at Costco for rice, eggs, and nuts. I get most of my “staple” produce delivered through Imperfect Produce (avocados, broccoli, potatoes, beets, etc) and the prices are very reasonable. It may feel daunting to coordinate what to buy where, but I only grocery shop once a week at most, but I bulk buy from each store. So one Saturday I’ll stock up on meats from the butcher and freeze them. The next Saturday, I’ll refill my pantry with canned goods. And so on. Then we meal prep. Oh, and I make food from scratch when I can. Home made almond milk not only is cheaper, but much tastier. Greek yogurt (a breakfast staple in our house) takes a couple hours in the instant pot and is super easy. Even homemade bagels take half an hour, if you don’t include rising time. It’s not nearly as big of a commitment as it might seem if we just plan accordingly. Making a hobby out of cooking and being creative with your food makes it way more interesting, too!
I plan each week by taking a picture of what’s in the fridge, freezer, and cabinets. If I can’t see everything in there, I probably have too much food to begin thinking about grocery shopping. But if I’m in need, I open Pinterest and start looking for recipes to use up what I already have and I adapt them to best fit what I currently have. So if a salad calls for mandarins but I only have oranges, I’ll just cut those into smaller bits hahaha. If a recipe asks for quinoa, I just swap it for rice. If the dish requires roasted butternut squash, I add whatever winter squash I have available. Once I have the recipe idea in my head, I pin it on my “Meals for the Week” board and add any missing ingredients to my personal shopping list in Wunderlist. I then repeat until I’ve planned a week’s worth of food for two. I shop on Saturday, prep most on Sunday (make rice, boil eggs, chop onions and then assemble some of the meals), then do another mini prep on Wednesday night using up the remaining stuff from Sunday that I prepared in bulk. I’ve seriously cut our grocery bill in half and our eating-out bill by like 70%!
These are great tips!!
You are my favorite person on the internet! These are so helpful! For example, I had no idea Trader Joe's olive oil was cheaper. And as I just got into cooking healthy meals, I was lamenting how expensive spices can be. It never occured to me to buy them in bulk.
I do the same thing with Pinterest, lol - look up recipes based on what I've got that needs to get made soon, and then make it work.
I appreciate you taking the time to make this comment.
I think my family needs to employ some new methods. Our groceries bills seem astronomical now. Thanks for the tips!
Great ideas, thank you @Ruth Corson ! You should open up a UA-cam channel ! 🤩
These are such great ideas! Thank you for taking the time to make this comment, I'm feeling really inspired by this :)
Dude ,215 dollars its still a lot, i'm a student. Ask me for tips.
though its ~200 for 2 (or 100 for 1) which is not bad at all. whats your spending like?
@@ruolbu 120 ~150 per month. I buy for 2 people. I am basically Mr.Krabs.
Same, my partner and I spend 50-75$ per month. But we also get some of our produce from our schools food pantry and thankfully our school pantry also has gluten free pasta which saves me around $10. I think my budget would be slightly lower if I could eat gluten.
@@yeseniacl5885 My brother and I room together but I usually do the shopping. Indeed, $150 is what I spend a month when I can get a good haul. Two grocery stores near me have Pick 5 sales all the time, where I can pick 5 meats for $20. Little bro clued me in to a store I'd never even paid attention to a few months back that sells more meat in their packs and has better selection, for the same price. It's also a store with the most diverse amount of foods I've ever seen so if I'd stop being a chicken, I could get some interesting and diverse fruits and veggies from around the world. I need to make a list of what I'd like to try and how I'd prepare them so that I don't waste.
I also added that last part because while I cook for us, we probably could be eating better. I cook dinner for us for the week which usually is a baked meat, rice or pasta, and a vegetable. But when we first moved out...we probably ate taco salad every other week, haha! Had to get it out our system, the foods mom only cooked every now and then but now we could cook whenever! Anyone else experience this when they moved out from home? :)
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValleyDude, You inspired me ♡
I have been a vegetarian for 25 years now and I talk from experience when i say that it costs more to have a diet based solely on fruits and vegetables than on a diet which includes meat
I'm the same and completely agree! Especially when you try organic in the dirty dozen list
I disagree completely. If you shop at farmers markets. I’ve been vegan for 3 years vegetarian for two before that and my friends and I spend way less than people our age who eat animal products. Depends what you’re eating I think.
I had the opposite experience. We had a local healthy harvest group so I could get enough food for 2 weeks for $40
If you’ve been a vegetarian for 25 years you have no idea what it now costs to have a meat based diet .
Nuts are one of just 2 food groups to have been scientifically proven to make you live longer. The other is leafy green veg. I try to buy frugally but I'm more interested in eating healthily.
I’m still struggling to kind of make an ends, so, I have to penny pinch.
This means my grocery bill, is super low, I don’t always have food, but it’s made me a super smart buyer.
I cut out much of what’s not essential.
But two things I do, I make one meal, and stretch it through the week. If it’s a soup, I’ll make rice to stretch it more and fill my belly.
I do make smoothies, but I get frozen $1 bags. Not the best, but not the worst. To be honest, I could cut that out and just eat cereal or something. But this is also part of a trick I use to make sure I eat.
I have depression, and some times, it’s hard to eat. Having a smoothie that I can sip through the day, till I come home and eat my soup or whatever, helps me eat. I make it before I leave in the morning and have it all day.
To be fair, I really don’t spend much at the store, my average bill is maybe $30/week. Or more if I’m out of some staples.
Good suggestions. The next step now is to cut back on food waste so that 1 month of food may last a week or two more. As part of a young family of 4 it is tricky but using a blackboard of sorts to layout what we have eat, need to buy, and could make from scratch really helped. I mounted it to the pantry door next to the fridge and actively update it. I also took advantage of some cheap freezer safe food prep storage boxes to portion and save food in the freezer instead of letting it go to waste or allowing to be so big and cumbersome you never open it back up. Net result: Wife is finally taking lunches to work and not starving herself (side benefit is she no longer eats out on the way home), no more spoiled food found hidden in the back of the fridge, no more wondering what there is too eat, and lastly i know exactly what i need when i walk into a supermarket.
Quarantine has changed my mindset to “use what you have, as often as you can.” It helps me find new recipes and come up with my own fun creative recipes!
I'm annoyed that the budget included things that were already in the house and fresh veggies from a garden. That's not an accurate count then. I feel guilty about spending the amount of money that I do and I think people are kinda lying
Yep, I feel the same. For two people we need 300€ monthly in Germany. I plan every week, we are not eating out and have no sources like a garden.
I’d love to spend less but I can’t imagine how without cutting down on the health aspect.
$430 per month would be a goal for me. For my husband and I, we spend 200- 250 per week depending on the season and for most months it's a 1000 for the whole month. And we do not eat meat, cheese etc, but we do buy a lot of nuts and greens which are pricy. Even though I try to stay conscious about how much we spend on food, eating healthy for us is an investment and it's worth it.
*In college I made 50cent ramens with eggs and cilantro thrown in. Not the healthiest but C H E A P.*
Sean Lei Ramen with eggs one of my late night meals 😋
@@clairebear5463 Hell yeah! Honestly tastes great too.
BROWN RICE AND BEANS
BROWN RICE AND BEANS
Yea i ate only ramen, and rice and free food for a semester and gained like 50 lbs lol
We spend about $400 a month for 3 adults and 2 kids, and that includes cleaning supplies, shower stuff, food. $35 every other month for the pooch's bag of kibble. Our food costs could very well be lower if we didn't live in a county with one major grocery store (safeway) and ONE, yes, ONE walmart and then the rest of the county is nothing but small time mom and pop type grocery stores, gas stations and mini marts. Our county is only about 77,000 people, not a lot of options to choose from but we do pretty good all things considered. It's hard to eat vegetarian out here only because of the lack of options to choose from.
which country?
Good Ol Grays Harbor county.
35 every other month on dog food?!? What is it, kibbles and bits? :/ I buy Origin Tundra for $121/bag for my poodle. The extra protein and nutrition up front saves vet bills in the long run for sure. Dogs deserve diets that replicate what they would do for themselves in the wild (i.e. 85% meat ingredients), not your $35 bag where the first ingredient is corn :(
@@narutohorsegirl all natural grain fre e allergy free bag of kibble from vets office. And shes only 14 pounds
20 pound bags lasts our 14 pound spoiled rotten something or other about a month, month and a half and we get it from our vets for $35-the ingredient list is: Chicken, chicken meal, peas, garbanzo beans, lentils, fava beans, sweet potatoes, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), egg product, flaxseed, tomato pomace, natural flavor, salmon oil (a source of DHA), dicalcium phosphate, salt, choline chloride, dried chicory root, yucca schidigera extract, tomatoes, blueberries, raspberries, dried Lactobacillus acidophilus fermentation product, dried Bifidobacterium animalis fermentation product, dried Lactobacillus reuteri fermentation product, vitamin E supplement, zinc proteinate, copper proteinate, ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, potassium iodide, thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), manganese proteinate, manganous oxide, ascorbic acid, vitamin A supplement, biotin, niacin, calcium pantothenate, manganese sulfate, sodium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin (vitamin B2), vitamin D supplement, folic acid.
My boyfriend and I did something similar in Sep 2018 we made the rules ourselves but it was essentially what was outlined in the video. We did so well that we did it a second month. Then a third month. Now it’s just our budget. We went from $400 or more to $260 or less for a family of THREE( including household products). We still a deep freezer stuffed with meat, full shelves and eat a ton of veggies. When you start too looking at what you are purchasing and why, and how much of it you are actually using up vs throwing away it becomes super easy to make permanent reductions in your food budget. One of our biggest helps in this is writing out our meals before shopping, using what we already have as a base and buying only the extra ingredients with a few things that we buy in bulk when on sale. (Also note: BF and I both work from home so we eat every meal here)
3:51 buying only cheap meat is a _terrible_ idea. Meat should be the most expensive thing you buy. Why? Well, meat isn't good for you (in large quantities), nor the environment, nor the animals, which are often treated in a terrible way. So you should only buy high quality organic meat so that meat becomes something special - something you don't eat everyday.
I do agree in only buying organic meat rather than buying cheap meat. When I find organic meat I will buy extra and freeze.
@Lara Levine It also often means the animals are treated worse. Free range chicken and eggs cost more, as does grass-fed versus corn-fed meat.
Cheaper=poor quality=gross=might as well just cut it out completely rather than choke it down. I pretty much ended up going vegetarian simply because I was so broke.
There are also cheaper cuts, as well as meats that could be approaching their sell by dates.
@@supernova622 My rule is to only buy good quality meat (that's met high animal welfare standards), but it's really expensive... So every few weeks I try to hit up the grocery stores around the time they do the deep/"last day" discount and see what's going cheap. This week I scored a free-range chicken marked down from £9 to £1.67, which was four servings (plus stock from the bones). I eat less meat overall and am more attuned to using every last scrap of it.
Could we get an updated version of this video?
Top tip for fancy cheese buying: the closer a soft cheese is to its “best before” date, the better it is flavour and texture-wise, so those cheeses on sale are actually the best ones to buy for every reason.
I don't really get how you could replace bread with quinoa or pasta in some dishes but ok :D I personally would never limit myself to a certain price of meat, because I feel like meat is one of those things where you can totally tell if you spend more money on it. It just taste so much better. We don't eat meat during the work week most of the time and try and buy organic or local meats, always have shopping list and try to plan out the meals you will eat and love.
Can you tell the price of meat or which is more expensive than the other in a blind trial, or is it just like that psychological thing with expensive wines, which connoisseurs can't really even tell apart?
@@petitio_principii I have seen a video on UA-cam about that, and the chef said is was all about how you prepare the meat. Meat is something you need to understand for cooking it, if you know the tricks to test better you can make cheap meat taste as expensive. Of course the expensive gonna be more enjoyable, but cheap meat doesn't mean tough to eat or dry. I'm a pastry student so I make superb stuff in school (professional and expensive ingredients) and at home I use the supermarket quality, still for me it taste the same and texture too, the thing is about what I do to have the same results, sometimes I have to take a way around or add more of something, more time, etc. But the results is the same. 7(0_0)
Buy good healthy bulk bread at costco and divide each package into two freezer bags. Take out a new bag from freezer to fridge when needed. Keeps fresh in freezer for couple of months. No more throwing away leftover bread and you buy a lot less often. Saves a ton. Same goes for nuts, buy big bulk cheaper bag, divide and keep in freezer, keeps fresh for over a year. The large bag goes a long way this way.
Starting with a full pantry and a garden with salad veg in it - yup, that’ll help! This video was so basic it hurt. No discussion of brands versus generic, brand loyalty, cheap ways to cook and so on.
Oooo! Ooooo! Ooooo! I know the answer to this!
A) buy 50% as many items, or
B) buy brands that are 50% cheaper
Excellent video. Very helpful. Before you go grocery shopping for say the next two weeks, check your fridge and pantry (cupboards) for what you do have. With that in mind figure out a meal plan and go from there. You don’t need to buy meat every time you go shopping but I love the wiggle room idea because when you see a deal on meat, grab it. That is what a freezer is for.
I need an updated version of this because I feel like food costs are so high right now! This is about what I spend with my family, and I want to cut it in half as well... But many of the tips and getting creative still stand.
I'm just starting to get the hang of meal-prepping, but it has helped me at least to make sure that the things I buy don't go to waste, don't spoil before I finally decide to use them. But these are some really good tips, and I think I'll take on that challenge. It will probably somehow simplify my meal-prepping and planning.
Question- do you guys eat out/have lunch at work that is NOT home prepped? In other words, are there other sources of food that you have besides your groceries?
I don't know if you're asking the OP or the commenters as 'you guys' but assuming the latter... yes, I budget for eating out 3x a week (though I don't always eat out that much). One of those is most often my Chick-fil-a breakfast burrito on Saturday. The other two times are usually a food truck at a brewery and/or a more formal sit-down restaurant. I used to eat out a ton, and as a single person with no kids and a fair amount of disposable income, it's really not that big of a deal for me, but over the years I've a) gotten sick of eating out all the time and b) realized that I'd much rather put that money towards investments and retirement so I can live big when I'm older. lol. Anyway, breakfast and lunch during the week are always prepared at home and when I'm being frugal, my monthly grocery costs usually come to $150. I should mention that food costs where I live are super high. I was talking to a family member and we compared grocery costs, my total is sometimes as much as twice her's for the same kinds of things.
Yes so we don’t have a grocery vs eating out budget. We just have a food budget. So my boyfriend and I spend $140 a week and that is a combination of any food/drink item we buy.
I am bad about eating out -expensive and unhealthy, consumes time and gas- so I have started keeping filling foods and snacks at the office in my desk(and fridge) to "shop" for lunch: whole boxes of triscuits, almonds, fiber whatever, apples, oatmeal, fancy ramens, cheese, olives, roma tomatoes, soups, salami and lunchmeats. I get the pleasure of making a lunch without having to meal prep, since I am BADDDDD at meal prep and even at remembering my lunch tote. My car has an emergency can of almonds and bottled water to stave off fast food cravings during travel.
We spend about $300 for a family of 4. Biggest thing is having left overs. Most all the meats I buy we can have 4-10 plates. Eating smaller portions helps a ton. My house also gets free lunch from work/ school.
Really really enjoyed this video, so interesting to see. I wish nuts were cheaper than they are. Also love looking at what's for sale in our store every week. I wanna try this soon :)
But from what i see, usually theres always at least one type of nut on sale! Just keep an eye out on sales!
Peanut butter, at least, is cheap. ;)
I JUST discovered this year the hidden gem of the bakery sale rack. At my local store, anything on the rack is .89/per!! I've gotten kaiser rolls, sesame seed hamburger buns, cranberry bread, wheat berry bread, etc.
I've been getting more into vegetarian/vegan cooking because I need to get back to more veggies. However, I went vegan in college for fiscal reasons - animal products are expensive! However, I still love bacon and cheese, but a little more veggies never hurt.
Though, I hate frozen veggies. Not because of the taste but the texture. Fresh is where its at. Plus it challenges me to use them within the week and to shop seasonally. Plus I'm weird and really enjoy grocery shopping, haha.
Punctuated and corrected transcript for teachers and learners of English:
Everyone has strategies to make their groceries cheaper. If you're a coupon clipper, a person who shops in bulk, or a person who chooses vegetarian meals to avoid expensive meat, you know some of the biggest tricks for grocery shopping well, but it seems that while some people benefit from these suggestions, others don't. Coupons just aren't their style or there's no wholesale club nearby or they
simply don't want to give up meat.
My challenge to myself was a bit « cart before the horse » I told myself that I wanted to cut my grocery budget in half without providing a single way to do so. I also wanted to continue the healthy eating habits we'd set for ourselves after completing the whole food diet earlier this year. I don't know if this “goal first, methods later” approach would work for others, but this is how it ended up looking in my life by the numbers.
My husband I spent an average of $430 a month on groceries, before the challenge we needed to get the grocery budget down to $215. I succeeded; it came in a few bucks under even, but not without really examining the way I shop for food.
Looking at the list of suggested foods in my grocery store shopping plan application on my phone I was able to identify some specific things we no longer bought including alcohol, a reduction from a bottle of wine or a six-pack every week to every other week for the month. Buying less alcohol at home saved us $34.
Meat, we still bought this, but I didn't add it to every meal, and I tried to stretch meat more than I had in the past. I tried to use eggs more often since the serving of them was cheaper than a serving of meat in most recipes. This was a reduction of about $25 but I did use frozen meat from before this month a couple of times. Bread and snacks: I loved eating bread, but I realized that we had plenty of rice quinoa and lentils and the pantry gathering dust that we could use instead of bread almost everywhere in our meals.
I also find that if I don't have snacks in the house I just don't eat as much between meals, so that was a more zero-sum game, no more pretzel crisps sadly for this month, a total reduction of $17 as you can see this didn't add up we didn't get enough savings from simply cutting things to make the $215 happen instead I tried a bunch of mental tricks on myself.
Number 1, I used an online shopping cart. I really hate picking something up in a store only to end up putting it back on the shelf, however I have no problem adding something to my online cart and then deleting it, so my shopping planning app was essential before any trip to the store. The prices of things were right there so I could dither about whether I wanted something or not, look back at recipes I wanted to use that week and invariably put some things back on the shelf before even entering the store.
Number 2 I had caveats, once I was able to plan most of my purchases, I planned the things I wasn't sure about in a different way. I knew that I ate too much cheese and my grocery often has half priced fancier cheeses available, so I ended up listing check for half-price fancy cheese. If there is one on half-price sale, I can get it but if not I will get no cheese at all.
Number 3: I left some wiggle room in my list instead of specific ingredients I would write ‘salad veggies’ or to ‘stir-fry veggies’ or pick up a starch if potatoes, sweet potatoes, pasta or quinoa is on sale I can choose that. Or if there are some bell peppers in the less pretty veggie tray on sale, I have the flexibility to choose those. I always have a plan but there's wiggle room in it.
Number 4: I made a few rules that helped me avoid some of the biggest temptations toward higher spending. For instance I'm not allowed to purchase nuts given their astronomical cost, lately I can't purchase meat that costs more than a dollar fifty per portion etc
These rules don't work for everyone, but you may note that you often repeat the same impulse purchases. I often buy premade frozen foods that are just a little bit on sale as just in case options, so having a rule against them for the month helped me to avoid things that normally pull me in.
Number 5: I 100% cheated! I still advocate for just using things you already have which is technically cheating. For the past month I raided the pantry for cans of soup and packages of pasta and anything else that could make a meal. It meant I didn't get quite as many fresh veggies as was ideal, we still did okay though since we've got a bonkers (crazy) quantity of salad greens in our garden. Another excellent grocery spending cheat however, canned goods and other staples go bad eventually so I turned the extreme frugality into a time to rotate out some of those items before they went bad. This obviously isn't a cheat you can use. If you're eating through your cupboards every month that might be a sign that you aren't buying too much food but instead buying food that is too expensive or you're already as frugal as possible. I think our problem is that when we see something that we might use on sale we get it and then save it forever. We needed to stop that for a while and I'm betting some of you could stand to do so too. All in all I'm glad I survived the grocery bill challenge. I want to both keep our spending lower than our previous four hundred thirty dollars in the future as well as do this more extreme challenge again at some point just to get creative again.
What was the shopping planner app you used? I'm guessing it's specific to store/location...?
That's what I thought. I know the Kroger app shows prices and availability of items by location as well as their weekly deals and coupons.
Basìcally: stopped eating things she loves a lot, used all the stuff she had in the house. To conclude, she saved like 100 bucks and not 215 bc she had so much food at home...
exactly
Planning recipes absolutely helps, but if you have a way to acquire bulk rice, you can cut additional amounts. In a year, it's extremely plausible for someone to eat their entire body weight in rice/pasta over a year, and using jasmine rice as an example, it's almost $2/lb in sub-5lb quantities here, but it's at or under $1/lb if you buy in quantities of at least 25lbs(I've seen as low as $.70). No need to buy it all at once, the bulk discount has diminishing returns before you buy restaurant quantitites. You may not even need a costco membership to take advantage of some of this, because some markets have bulk rice already.
Naturally bulk shopping for pantry items requires some up-front cash that may be hard to stomach, but it does save money in the long run.
I'm a grandmother now and I raised 2 children on my own, on a strict budget. This is how I know how to shop and save money. Shopping at the stores that bring foods to your car is a huge financial mistake. There are normally a store in your area where you live that can cut your food budget by 20%+ each month and you do not have to go without. I never buy meat or fresh produce at Walmart. Walmart does however have a good selection of frozen vegetables. I always go to Safeway or Albertson's in my area to buy meat. I just make sure it is on sale. The best thing to do is create a weekly menu/meal plan and then make a shopping list to go with it before you go to the store. Also, never go to the store hungry or you will buy lots of goodies that isn't in your budget.
My food budget is about £50 a month. I shop at Aldi, is that in the US yet? Not sure. Anyhoo, the reason it's so low is because a) admittedly I have a smaller appetite and eat about half the normal portion at every meal, and I don't like dessert (no sweet tooth) but b) my mum taught me really good simple, healthy and waste-less cooking. Taken from her mum, who lived on rations during the war. Every ingredient is used, almost nothing is thrown away, the broccoli stalks, ends of carrots etc are all thrown into a soup. I plan my meals (literally takes 5 mins) I shop with a specific list, and I always have extra portions in the freezer for those days i'm too tired to cook. I do eat meat, but most meals I use meat in, like stir frys, pasta dishes etc. I use very little and bulk the rest up with lots of veggies and nuts. Cost per portion for most of my meals is well under £1. Add to that I only really drink tap water, and I never go out to eat. Ever. I personally have too many food intolerances to make it enjoyable, but also it's not so much the culture here in the UK to do it often, especially away from the big cities (London does not represent the rest of the UK). I don't feel restricted in the way I eat, because i've been doing it all my life. Food is fuel to me, im not really bothered what I eat, I don't have the emotional attachment to it that can make changes hard for a lot of people.
Gigglypeach Aldi is in the USA but they are not common. Example, I live in a major metro area’s suberbs, but the nearest Aldi is a 4.5 hour drive away.
I can't eat grains on my diet, and my husband is allergic to poultry items, so we can't eat chicken or eggs. We also can't have dairy, so as opposed to cheap, subsidized milk, we use more expensive plant-based options. We don't drink alcohol and already don't eat out. Some people just live in expensive areas and have limited dietary options.
We eat organic and we try to shop at the (cheap organic) farmers market as much as we can. We also tried to buy some frozen organic vegetables to avoid it from going bad. We cut down our meat consumption by 90% and when we do, it's better quality. We no longer buy alcohol (because people keep giving us bottles), we only buy a piece of cheese a week, for the rest we buy bulk which is more about principle than saving money though I try to shop at places that are more reasonable. We focus on fruits and vegetables mostly and mainly try to discover delicious vegetarian/vegan recipes which is healthy overall.
Which grocery app do you use?
Making my own frozen meals has been an amazing money saver for me. I make stuffed pasta, mac&cheese, mini pizzas, french toast out of old bread, etc. All of them are "comfort foods" that I make healthier (Ex: using lentil pasta or adding in extra veggies). They last in my freezer for a good year so if I don't feel like eating any of them for a few weeks, I'm not wasting food. It saves me a ton of money in the long run. I highly recommend it!
This was really good, but I have a better challenge for you that I do every week. Feed a family of four, breakfast, lunch and dinner on $100 or less. I am interested to see what you come up with.
This is a great idea. Planning before shopping is very important. I need to get a little better at it. Thanks!
I now do weekly online shopping. I pay a subscription of €10,00 every 3 months, so €3,33 a month for orders over €40,00. It saves me time and headache. Also, I don't know why but most items cost 10-15 cents cheaper when bought online rather than the supermarket shelves.
We spend about €70,00 a week for two including household cleaning supplies.
Me and my husband $120 a month .living healthy. Farmers market $28 - $35, Aldi $35.
Holy crap. You should be doing the video! Where do you live??
A L D I 🔥🔥🔥
Grocery salvage stores🔥🔥🔥
Aaaaand invest in a food saver to prevent food waste.💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻🔥🔥🔥🔥
I just wish food savers weren't so wasteful
What even are those?
Sadly Aldi isn’t very common in some places when I lived in Georgia they were there but in Colorado they don’t exist
Do american grocery stores have "yellow stickers" or anything similar? It's where foods are marked down because their use by is approaching, typically around 6pm-9pm the day before the bbe/ub date. I ONLY buy my fruit, veg, ready meals and bread yellow sticker and it makes me be so much more creative with my cooking.
Yes, we do. However, I don't suggest that you use that method the majority of times for produce especially. Food lose nutrients. I use this method but not on a regular basis. Buying frozen vegetables are a better idea. They tend to be cheap and the nutrients are locked in.
@@neiya8862 That's definitely an important consideration, but I'm vegan and about 80% of what I eat is fresh fruit and veg, with the rest being wholegrain and potatoes. Even if all my food has lost half it's nutrients, I'm still getting far more than the average eater. Plus I pretty much always eat or freeze things the day I buy them.
Goalsss, I should’ve seen this before I went grocery shopping I will for next time! (Use up all of my already here groceries) before buying next ones
I spend 400/month just for my self
I dont eat meat and dairy products i never try to save in food, is a bad idea
I recommend trying to use all the food you have before buying more stuff. I bet there are poorer people who would be shocked at the amount of real food that average people forget to eat. Lentils and rice don't collect dust in a hungry home that can't just buy new stuff because they're too lazy to cook.
Good ideas but hard to do some items with a family of 4 and 3/4 males and 2/4 teens...do you have any recommendations for families?? Thanks
May I suggest that while shopping you watch the cart of people with large families who come from remote countries. They are used to cook in bulk on a budget and sometimes buy huge bags of rice, cuscus grain, chickpeas or corn, to which they then add a few veggies, onions, lots of cheap spices, and sometimes meat, that they all buy from their "ethnic grocery" at the corner which imports directly from their country. In Switzerland, for instance, I have seen Turkish or Albanese families living high, paying meat and toilet paper half the usual price while the Swiss were struggling, buying in supermarkets 😏
I'm currently trying to buy more fresh food and avoid frozen dinners. This is great.
When it comes to meat, I have found that chicken thighs are the LEAST expensive meat so I continue to eat chicken. However, eggs and dairy (on sale) both sub for meat and are cheaper. I also choose vegetables that are the highest in PROTEIN. Although they are not as high as meat, at least I'm getting more protein in them than in lower protein vegetables. Protein is very important. Above all, don't forget that you want to spend enough on groceries to STAY HEALTHY, getting all the nutrients you need. Otherwise, you're just swapping grocery bills for medical bills.
I really liked this video! Grocery shopping is an area where I am trying to cut back as well. I’d like to see more videos on this topic!
plan it first on the online shopping cart? Brilliant!!!!! I dropped my already low budget down another $100 a month!
Love these! Is there a playlist for the making it work series?
There is! You can find it on our homepage. :)
Love this new graphic style of your videos! So pretty!
I typically save anywhere from 15-25% on the price of my groceries because I pretty much, almost exclusively, do all of my shopping at one store, and they give me lots of personal discounts in addition to the products that are already on sale. I'll admit, thought, that if my husband feels like cooking then he has to buy his own ingredients, but that's because he's the kind of guy who will only figure out what he's making at 4:30 that day.
Considering this lifestyle as a challenge for a month is okay, but everyone - please don't exclude nuts from your diet. They are expensive, yes, but they are just so healthy and necessary in our diets.
Yes!!! I love planning the shopping online first! I'm more accurate with my budget and it takes way less time in the actual store!
mglouise97 that’s great to know! I’ll have to try 😄
I’ve done this too! Lol I setup my Instacart or Prime order and if I have time after work, I go and get it myself. It makes it easier to see what I actually need and in store prices end up being cheaper.
Buuuut I also buy alcohol. So 🤷🏽♀️
Nuts are good for your health, though, and peanuts are really cheap.
technically a legume :( From my sparse research walnuts are right behind peanuts in price per calorie compared to cashews, almonds and pistachios. But peanuts have more protein per calorie than walnuts ;)
also, homemade trail mixes are cheaper than pre-made! I "dilute" the cost of nuts by making a trail mix including like peanut m&ms and like dried cranberries. it helps me feel okay with the price of nuts so that I can get them into my diet. You're right, nuts are good for your health!
I don't believe in cutting your grocery budget. you should be able to reward yourself with delicious food and not deprive yourself from the things that make you happy. I rather save money from eating out less. and make food for friends at home instead. you do make some good points about buying things that don't need just because its on sale. great video.
Garden should be the top tip!! Great list❤
I love the little crinkly sounds when food appears and moves
i use an app called bring and meal plan.
i use pinterest to meal plan according to whatever im feeling that week.
no one said you have to cook all your meals on one sunday. tbh i find it kind of gross with all the different smells and sad when im just reheating in the microwave. you can do this!
I really like this series. 😊
What do you use to edit your videos??
My grocery spending hack: Don't eat! it'll work for at least a month.
Eating vegan 3-4 days a week will cut everything down. Also Indian grocery stores have amazing legumes!
I really like the online shopping cart idea!! That's such a smart plan
My husband and I spend around$150-170 per month for our family of 6. We eat a lot of fresh fruits and veggies and meal plan and bulk cook. Really wish we could lower our food budget just a tiny bit more but it can be hard.
PLEASE share your secrets, that’s incredible
@@hannahjones3532 rice, beans, pasta, and a lot of in season fruit and veggies. Lately coupons have been pretty good so I stocked up on a few extra packs of frozen veggies. We are going to have a garden again this year so that will help fill in the gaps. We were saving for a house so it was necessity to spend so little but we were able to take the kids to Disney World on one income last year plus all bills and groceries.
@@Anyankah Amazing!!! Thanks so much for sharing :)
With my food allergies I'm stuck on buying expensive alternatives to basic foods that I need to even cook anything. My husband gets anything if it's on sale, whether we need it or not. We're three on a budget of $400. Most of the time it won't last half the month because "apparently we need three cans of tuna when none of us eats fish, because it was on sale".
I just did the conversion of how much I spent in my last grocery shopping, $70. I live in south america of course. $150 would be arround the most I spent once, but like arround before chistmas.
do you have a copy of yr shopping list and prices?
Please Somebody tell me what program is she using to create her videos? PLS
Indeed be careful about buying what you may already have. I just bought a new box of cereals because I thought that we had one box that we getting low. It turned out that we had two half full boxes! I did better with Girl Scout Cookies. We were buying a box every weekend when we passed the girls seeling them on the corner. We decided to not buy any until we finished the ones that we had. It turned out that wasn't until they stopped selling so we can start over next year!
I love this Making It Work series! It’s refreshing.
My problem is that sometimes i buy groceries and plan meals but then i end up eating out with friends or buy takeout, and without knowing, at the end of the month or year, i got lots of expire products
Jordan F. Page has a great video on saving money through meal planning. Her advice is to leave space in your planning a few days a week if you have a habit of eating out. She also suggests leaving room for leftovers.
Thanks for the tips! But I did not like the "buy no nuts, buy cheap meat" part. Nuts are healthy, meat is not. And I really don't want to know how the animals lived before when their meat is later on sold that cheap 😔
i generally buy on sale and in bulk if cheaper. For example beef by the pound costs me about $9. But for $50 i can buy a huge chunk of beef for $9 per kg. i would buy the goat whole but you do need a larger freezer to store everything.
People don't tend to think about the coast of eating crappy for years, my family of 3 trys to stay at 160$ plus 40 for my daughter after school snacks
the no snacks in the house rule is my go to. no snacks = no extra food I don't eat or extra food I do eat that's bad for me
By just introducing some meatless meals will automatically cut your grocery bill. Great tips
Greetings from South Africa
My groceries bill is way less ..... Firstly when I order for a month if it is not over by end of month I do not buy it again till the end of the next month mean 2 months in a row .... I make sure my pantry is empty before I hit the grocery store. I make I do not throw out any item. If I need to throw out it means we will never have it in the next list .... I buy bigger itmes online from Amazon pantry and the things they don't have will go to my shopping list every other month. Zero pantry at end of the month is great savings
That " if you know... You know how the tricks well" had me feeling like a saving guru 😏😗
I'm still reeling from the idea that 2 people spend $430 in groceries a month. If i don't pay attention it'll go to 300 in impulse purchases but I spend 100 on food and 40 on other supplies (toilet paper, soap, cat food/litter). We're 2 adults and 3 cats big. I need to look up resources for cutting meat out cause i'm not convinced I'll save money doing so but would like to be wrong.
I like a few foods that are expensive but eat all the time like fish, kimchi, tofu and soya milk.
What was the shopping app?
Was there a specific app that you used for grocery shopping?
Jesus.... $215/mo here would be absurd where I live and that's for 3 people. Have done $90-120/mo for the entire house for years. Potatoes are great, eggs are great, broccoli & cheap canned vegetables are great. On sale meats (Can still get pork for $1.00/lb off and on here) - Pasta is cheap as hell, ingredients to make a good pasta sauce are cheap. Bag of yellow onions for garnishing and some bread for the occasional sandwich.
do canned goods go bad if properly canned? I don't think so. They may look uglier, but should be safe to eat
We have a farm shop close by and shop fruit and veggies there. This way we also eat seasonal food. Much cheeper.
I do agree on all BUT MY GOD, DO NOT CUT NUTS! They are one of THE most healthy foods out there, especially walnuts. Buy them in bulk but do not cut them. They even can serve as diner when you had plenty of food at work (e.g. when someone brought a cake).
Definitely going to try that online shopping cart method
Why the film grain effect? It's a bit distracting.
i think you're my new favorite channel.