Lili@creativesavv says:

The trick to eating well on a small grocery budget is a combination of smart shopping and creative cooking from scratch.

If you live in the suburbs, then you have many shopping choices. Just scour the ads for your grocery stores and buy what’s on sale at a couple of different stores, sticking to whole foods and skipping the packaged items. Eat seasonal produce when it’s in season. We eat a lot of carrots, cabbage, onions, celery, and winter squash in the cooler months. The price per pound is quite low on these vegetables. (My daughters have been making this fabulous curried carrot soup this winter. I’ll get their recipe and share. It’s cheap and delicious!)

But if you’re in a rural or urban area, your stores are limited.

For a rural area, you do have the advantage of farm stands and u-pick in the warmer months, plus you may have land of your own to grow veggies.

In an urban area, you are lucky to find much in the way of produce in stores. If fresh produce is sorely lacking, remember that frozen vegetables are almost as nutritious as fresh, and in an urban store, may even be better, as they haven’t been sitting around for several days. You should be able to find staples like dried beans, brown rice and oats in an urban market. For health and budget, steer clear of manufactured food products.

The other half of the equation to eating on less is learning to cook from scratch, with basic ingredients, like dried beans, brown rice, oats, carrots, onions, cabbage, seasonal fruit, and learning to bake bread products. That doesn’t mean you have to bake sandwich bread every week. But even learning to bake muffins, biscuits, cornbread and quick breads (like banana bread) will save you a considerable sum.

If you are feeding kids, minimize the convenience snack foods and opt for popcorn, made in a pot on the stove, whole fruit like apples, oranges and bananas, instead of fruit snacks, homemade cookies and banana bread, and water or milk to drink. Save soda, chips and other expensive snacky foods for special occasions, like a birthday. I can count on one hand how many cans of soda my kids have each had in the last year. We could afford to buy it, but I consider it “party food”, so we just have it a couple of times per year. Same with potato chips. If we’re wanting a potato snack, I either make oven fries from sliced whole potatoes, or I save the skins from some peeled potatoes for mashed potatoes, and I make roasted potato skins.

We do eat things like pizza. Only our pizza is made from scratch, with only real foods, no weird fake cheese, sauce made from tomato paste, garlic, onions and oregano. Often it’s cheese pizza, no other toppings. But occasionally I have something to add to it, like olives, or a hot link sausage that I slice up for the top.

You may wonder, do my kids feel we eat differently from many of their friends? Yes, definitely. But they understand that we are eating this way because we know it’s better for us. We are choosing a smarter diet. I do have to remind them of this from time to time. And when they’re feeling “deprived” then I step up my efforts to create something from real foods, from scratch, that really wows them. Then they get the message once again, that we are creative and smart and resourceful, and can come up with better stuff than what’s in boxes at the store. Truly, the parent’s attitude of being smart and resourceful is the biggest tool in persuading a family to eat a healthy, but fun, diet.

And we save a small fortune on our grocery bill. I’ve been at this for a long time, so I’ve learned many tricks to creative cooking. As a result, we spend very little per person on food per day, far less than the $4 per day in the video.

carol says:

Connie,
THis is a topic near and dear to my heart. I second everything Lilli has already said.
My current food budget is $350 month for 3 people with college boy (often with friends) and college girl popping in for food/a visit/a stay or to shop my shelves. : ) $41.67 for a new organic CSA I’ve joined to replace my former one on hiatus for a year, $50 for any restaurant foods/celebrations, $258.33 for actual grocery shopping. “Groceries” include personal care items, paper goods, food.
So, I have $116.62/person/month.
A SNAP aka “food stamp” recipient getting $4/day x 30 days=$120/month. Yes, it CAN be done.
Example (using my usual sale prices here in CT):
2 7 lb roaster chickens @ $1/lb $14
2 lbs Italian sausage $4
2 lbs pasta $2
2 29 oz cans tomato puree
2 dozen eggs $3
2 lbs rice $2
4 lbs dried beans (white, black, pinto, lentils) $4
large canister oats $2
100 ct tea bags $2
10 lb potatoes $5
cabbage $2
3 lb onions $2
3 lbs sweet potatoes/yams $3
celery $1.50
6 lbs apples $6
8 lbs bananas $4
5 lbs carrots $3
4 cans chunk lite tuna $2
qt mayo $2
mustard $1
ketchup $1
vinegar $1
14 one lb bags of fzn plain veggies: peas/beans/corn/CA blend/broc-cauli/limas etc $14
48 oz bottle oil $2.50
salt $0.50
black pepper $2
chilli powder, garlic powder, cinnamon, Ital blend $4
4 lbs block of cheese $12
4 lbs sugar $2
10 lbs all purpose flour
lb yeast $1
2 boxes brownie mix $3
lb butter $2 (margarine would be less than 1/2 that)
2 quarts plain/vanilla low fat yogurt $4

Total: $120 for one person for the month. Imagine if this was a family of 4, so $360 more? I’d have a field day!

So what is on the menu:
bfst:
oatmeal (plain, with sugar and/or cinnamon, banana or apple)
hot tea with sugar if desired
cinnamon-apple coffee cake
cinnamon streusel coffee cake
toast from homemade bread, buttered and served with egg
apple-cinnamon yogurt parfaits topped with toasted oats

Lunch:
soups
anything leftover
hot tea to drink, if not water
leftover chicken sliced for sandwiches
grilled cheese sandwiches

Dinner:
-roast 2 chickens(make ahead, break down into meal sized baggies for later), roast veg x 4
-rice n beans x 4
-chicken chilli x 2
-chicken stir fry x 2
-arroz con pollo x 2
-creamed chicken on pasta x 2
-chicken salad x 2
-chicken n dumplings x 2
-pasta with Ital sausage x 2
-pasta with marinara and cheese x 2
-baked potatoes with broccoli (or other fzn veg)n cheese x 2
-tuna cakes with starch and veg x 2
-lentil soup/chicken soup/vegetable soup-make large batches so easily 8 servings each

This carries me well into the next month. I even included brownies for dessert, baked apples are another go to option, with yogurt on top.

A bit Spartan? perhaps. Just showing how it could be done in my neck of the expensive woods. : )