How to Cook Real Food on a Budget

Last week I shared 9 Secrets to Feeding Your Family Well When You Don’t Have Time. Through that post, I addressed one of the most common reasons I see and hear for not cooking wholesome meals at home – “I don’t have time!” I showed that even with a full schedule, with a little planning, the right tools, and some tricks for greater efficiency, you can fill your family’s bodies with food that is clean, nourishing, and delicious!

But there’s another reason I often hear that people think real food is not a possibility for them. This reason may be even more common than the first, and it makes me sad that it keeps people from nourishing their bodies the way they deserve.

“I can’t afford it.”

I, too, once bought into the lie that healthy eating is more expensive than eating processed food, but since starting my whole food journey, I am finding that it does not have to be! To help others see that they, too, can afford to eat healthy, wholesome meals, I am sharing my favorite ways to eat real food on a budget!

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Setting Up My Real Food Budget

When Levon and I first got married, I didn’t really have a grocery budget. I knew a few tricks for saving money – clipping coupons, watching the ads, buying store brands, etc. But I didn’t set my budget ahead of time. I made my list of foods I wanted, and merely accepted the final bill as it came.

A few years later, after reading Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, I took control of our spending with an actual, more effective, budget. (Read more about my budget process and get a free downloadable budget for yourself!)

I saw how much we were spending on food, and I decided to learn more ways to cut our grocery budget.

One of the first things I did was take a course called Grocery University, which taught me a LOT about saving money on groceries. I thought I was already doing all the “right things,” but I quickly discovered that there were things I was missing, and other things I was doing completely wrong!

Through some of these methods, and my own trial and error, I was able to slash our grocery budget to almost half of what it once was!

Then came my real food journey, which I began as part of the MuTu System to correct my diastasis recti. When I first embarked on this journey, I expected our grocery bill to skyrocket. But I was determined to get more fit and healthy, so I was willing to pay the price.

This, however, did not happen.

Instead, I found several tricks to keep our grocery budget down while still feeding myself and my family wholesome, nutritious foods. While our monthly grocery bill for just the two of us was once close to $400 (not including the cost of eating out once a week!), our monthly food budget for our family of 4 (with almost all whole foods and home-cooked meals) is now $300-$350.

And I’m going to show you how I do it!

A few notes:

1. I don’t include paper products and household items in my grocery budget. Those go in a separate line in our budget. They are not food, so I keep them separate from our food budget. The purpose of a budget is to see and control where your money is being allocated, so I like to keep it as precise and detailed as possible for a true reflection of our spending.

2. I will admit (real food friends, don’t shoot me!) that I don’t buy all organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised, etc. Perhaps one day I will, but for right now, I am content with the positive changes I have made from processed to whole foods. (However, we do grow our garden using organic methods, so we get a lot of our own organic produce from that. More on that below!)

3. Our boys are still very young. I don’t expect to maintain this budget once we have two (or more) teenage boys in the house!

11 Ways You Can Afford Real Food on a Budget

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1. Shop Sales

The #1 way I save money on groceries is by shopping sales. Each week as I sit down to make out my grocery list, I begin by going through the ads for my two grocery stores. I only put items on my list if they’re a great price. This is especially true of meat, which is often the biggest budget-breaker.

It also includes buying fruits and vegetables when they’re in season. Yes, this means that I don’t get to eat some of my favorite foods year-round, but it’s worth it. Shopping sales saves us hundreds of dollars a year. Plus, the anticipation just makes me appreciate those foods even more! 

Also, when I see foods at rock-bottom prices – especially meat – I stock up! This helps ensure that I never have to pay full-price for anything, and it also fills my freezer for later.

2. Shop ALDI

If you have an ALDI in your area, you should be using it! My weekly grocery bill plummeted once I started shopping at ALDI. Almost everything is significantly cheaper than any other store I shop, and we rarely find something we don’t like as well (if not better) than other brands.

My favorite money-saver from ALDI is produce. The produce from ALDI can be as much as a couple of dollars cheaper than my other regular store. When making my grocery list, the weekly “Produce Picks” are the first place I start. I can usually find a week’s worth of produce in these sales.

A few of my other favorite ALDI budget-savers are baking staples, milk, eggs, yogurt, peanut butter, maple syrup, cheese, butter, tomato sauce (though I also make my own), tuna, nuts, canned beans (when I don’t want to cook my own), condiments, whole grain tortilla chips, frozen vegetables, and chocolate (for special treats).

3. Buy in Bulk

You can often save a considerable amount of money by buying in bulk. However, there are two things you will want to keep in mind in order to actually see the savings:

1. Be sure to budget for bulk buying.
   If you make bulk food purchases in addition to what you’re already spending on groceries, you won’t save any money. Instead, you will want to adjust your weekly budget a little to account for bulk purchases. As an example, my weekly grocery budget is $50-$60, and I budget an extra $100 for bulk buying, which I do once a month. This gives me a total monthly budget of $300-350. (I usually round up to $350 just to be safe.) 
2. Buy only what you can realistically eat or preserve.
   No matter how good the price is, if you end up throwing most of your bulk food away, you haven’t saved yourself any money. When you buy in bulk, you will want to make sure that you can eat or preserve all of it before it expires.

For more information on the foods I like to buy in bulk and how I preserve them, read my post 5 Reasons You Need a Freezer (And Why I Need So Many!).

4. Make a Plan (And Stick to It!)

Another way to save money on good food is to create a meal plan for the week. Having a meal plan saves money for several reasons:

1. You can plan around what’s on sale that week.
2. You won’t buy a bunch of things you don’t need/won’t use.
3. You are more likely to use all of what you buy, reducing waste and the need to buy more food.
4. You are much less likely to resort to take-out or other overpriced unhealthy foods.

For my best tips on meal planning, be sure to check out my post, How to Create a Menu Plan That Works For You!

5. Always Make a List

In order to save big money on groceries, always always always make a list (and stick to it)! It is so easy to throw in an item here and an item there, and even low-dollar items add up quickly! Making a list ahead of time, and forcing yourself to stick to it, ensures that you will only buy what you need and stay in your budget.

I also recommend adding prices to your list so you know exactly how much you’re going to be spending. If you shop the sales, you should know most of the prices ahead of time. For items that are not on sale, keep a record of your regularly-purchased items to consult as you make your grocery lists.

6. Cook From Scratch

Not only is processed food hard on your body, but it’s also bad for your wallet. You can save hundreds of dollars a year by cooking your own food at home. (And it usually tastes better, too!)

I often hear people say that buying processed food is the only way they (or those with a small budget) can afford groceries, but I strongly disagree. My grocery cart these days is almost completely filled with whole foods, and I’m spending the same (some weeks even less!) as I always have. Getting rid of all the processed packaged foods, especially snacks, has cleared room in my budget for more wholesome and filling foods.

(Note: As I stated earlier, I don’t buy all organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised, etc. That will, admittedly, add a significant amount to your grocery bill. However, it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing! Cooking your own food from non-organic whole ingredients is still better than buying all food with artificial ingredients!)

Steer clear of boxes, mixes, and packages and make your own instead. Some of my favorite foods to make from scratch to save money are bread and buns, beans, chicken/vegetable stock, oatmeal, and special treats.

Here’s a tip – If you’re short on time, embrace the art of batch cooking. Make large batches at a time and freeze or preserve the rest for later.

For more tips on cooking real food when you’re short on time, visit my post 9 Secrets to Feeding Your Family Well (When You Don’t Have Time)

Tip #2 – For easy beans, stock, and other homemade items, invest in an Instant Pot! Yes, it’s money spent up front, but it will save you money in the long run. If you have the room in your budget, it’s well worth the investment.

7. Grow (And Preserve) Your Own Food

You can save a significant amount of money on produce (especially organic produce) by growing your own. We’ve been growing a garden for a few years now, and I would never willingly go back! Not only does it save us money and allow us to afford organic produce, but it tastes so much better than anything from the store.

Growing our own food is only half of the savings, however. The other half comes from preserving what we grow for the rest of the year. For our family, this has included putting up green beans, sweet corn, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, and herbs. It has also included making our own pickles, relish, tomato sauce, pasta sauce, salsa, salsa verde, and other fun goodies.

For all my best tips & tricks for growing and preserving your own garden produce, be sure to check out all the posts in my 4 Weeks to a Glorious Garden series:

• 4 Weeks to Glorious Gardening: 7 Benefits of Growing a Garden {Week 1}
• 4 Weeks to Glorious Gardening: Lessons From a Greenhorn Gardener {Week 2}
• 4 Weeks to Glorious Gardening: All About Herbs! {Week 3}
• 4 Weeks to Glorious Gardening: What to Do With All That Produce {Week 4}

I also highly recommend Melissa Norris’s book, The Made-From-Scratch Life: Simple Ways to Create a Natural Home!

8. Reduce Your Waste

Make the most of your grocery budget by using all of what you buy. After all, the more you waste, the more you have to buy to replace it. The more you can use, however, the less you have to buy, stretching your precious dollars as far as possible.

Here are a few ideas for eliminating waste:

1. Cut up fruits and veggies as soon as possible, making snacking and cooking with them as convenient as possible, thereby encouraging their use.
2. Save chicken bones to make homemade chicken stock.
3. Save vegetable scraps for homemade vegetable stock.
4. Use the most perishable foods first in the week.
5. Have a “clean out the fridge” night for supper toward the end of the week, pulling out random leftovers and letting your family choose from the smorgasbord.

9. “Shop” Your Pantry or Freezer

Get in the habit of “shopping” your pantry or freezer. With a little creativity (and Google!) you can probably pull together quite a few delicious meals from items you already have in your pantry or freezer, especially if you’ve done a good job of building a stockpile at rock-bottom prices.

Having a freezer and pantry inventory helps tremendously with this. It’s hard to use what you don’t know you have! Read about my own experience creating a freezer inventory, and download a free printable inventory here.

10. Stretch Your Meat

As I stated earlier, meat is one of the top, if not THE top, budget buster when it comes to groceries. Therefore, finding ways to stretch your meat will do wonders for stretching your grocery budget!

Here are some of my favorite ways to make the most of my meat purchases:

1. Use meat to compliment a dish, not be the dish.
   Rather than centering meals around meat, incorporate a little meat into your entrees. Example: Rather than serving chicken breasts as the main dish, chop or shred the cooked chicken breasts and make chicken & rice, chicken tortilla soup, chicken spaghetti, or white bean chicken chili.
2. Stretch your meat with real food “fillers.”
   Make your meat go a little further by mixing it with rice, beans, lentils, or shredded veggies. Taco meat, burgers, meatballs, and sloppy joes are all great for this!
3. Serve meat with a variety of side dishes.
   Not only is it good, nutritionally speaking, to include a healthy showing from all the major food groups, but the more your family fills up on other food, the less they will miss the meat!

11. Incorporate Meatless Nights

My meat-loving husband is not a huge fan of this one, but one of the best ways to stretch your meat budget and lower your food bill is to incorporate weekly meatless nights. There are lots of other (cheaper!) sources of protein, and it won’t kill your husband or kids to skip the meat now and then (as much as they might claim otherwise 😉 ).

Sign up here for a FREE list of some of my favorite meatless meals (that aren’t pasta!)

Cooking real food certainly can add extra dollars to an already-stretched-thin grocery budget, but it doesn’t have to! As with my post from last week, I hope you now see that with a little planning and a few tricks, a real food diet is more possible than you might have once imagined. And I believe that the payoffs in your body and your health will be priceless!

Become the Master of Your Meals!

If this post was helpful to you and you’d like to learn more about how to feed your family in less time, for less money, and with less stress, then you definitely want to check out The Every Mom’s Meal Solution Handbook. 

I wrote this book for any mom (or woman… or man!) who wants to feed her family well but feels frustrated by a lack of time, money, or energy. It’s FULL of practical tips and strategies for creating meal solutions that work for you no matter your season, budget, or lifestyle.

Want to learn more? Click here to read more about the book and what it can do for you!

You Might Also Enjoy:

• 15 Highly-Nutritious Baby Foods You Haven’t Thought To Try
• 9 Secrets to Feeding Your Family Well (When You Don’t Have Time)
• 15 Make-Ahead Breakfasts for More Relaxed Mornings
• 7 Simple Healthy Lunch Ideas for Moms