How Our Family Saved Over $1000 a Month on Food
This expense was “eating” up a huge chunk of our monthly budget… and we had no idea! With this one change we were able to save enough money to live comfortably on one income.
Updated March 2024 — Originally published in 2015, this post detailing our family’s easy weekly food budget is still our #1 most visited blog post of all time! Keep reading to learn exactly what our family did to save money on our food budget and live comfortably on one income.
How Can I Afford to be a Stay at Home Mom?
As a member of mommy support groups, I frequently see the question posed: how can I afford to be a stay at home mom? Â
I’ve been a working mom, so I get it that some of us crave “adult time” and enjoy career accomplishments. Â But I also know what a crappy feeling it is to leave your kids in the care of someone else all day.
Ultimately, I made the choice to leave the corporate world and I wanted to share the one lifestyle change that made it possible.
Note: This post contains affiliate links to the products and apps that helped make our weekly food budget successful, so you can try them too. Read our disclosure policy here.
The One Lifestyle Change That Allowed Me to be a Stay at Home Mom
In November 2015, I quit my job. The plan was for me to enjoy the holidays with my family and start the search for a better employer in the new year. I did that, and things went so wonderfully that my husband and I decided it would be best for our family (and my health) if I stayed home indefinitely.
There was just one problem— we cut our income in half.
While I was working, I always stressed about money. Even with two solid paychecks, it never felt like enough. How would we be able to make it on just my husband’s income?
Aside from monthly non-negotiables (housing, utilities, insurance), there was one expense that dwarfed them all. Once we seriously reevaluated our spending in this area, it freed up a huge chunk of our budget.
I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t our cable bill…
It was FOOD.
My husband has always loved to cook, and did so on a regular basis. However, we never planned out meals for the week. As a result, we were forced to pop in to the grocery store on multiple occasions throughout the week for whatever he decided to fix on a whim, or pick up take-out when we were short on time.
It seems hard to believe that food could have such an impact on the budget, so to prove it, I’ll show you what we used to spend.
Our former food “budget”
Wait!! Before you read the numbers below, keep in mind that I originally wrote this post in 2015, almost 10 years ago. As we all know, groceries and restaurant meals cost more now. In 2024 money, these numbers would probably be almost DOUBLE!
Here were our food expenses in 2015:
- $240 – We made at least 3 grocery trips every week, spending about $80 each time.  Going to the grocery store without a list means you’re likely to forget items and end up having to return later.  Multiple visits make it easier to succumb to impulse buys, as you are tempted over and over.
- $160 –Â We ordered take-out about four times a week. Â Whether for lunch or dinner, with tax and tip it’s about $40 for our family.
- $50 –Â While working, I spent about $10 per day on lunch.
- $50 –Â Hubby also would order out food at work.
Add that up and you get $500 in one week!  That’s $2000 every month — wow! This doesn’t even take into account any occasions where we would go out to eat in a restaurant.
It was money we spent without even thinking — we had to eat, right?
And again, in 2024 money, that would probably be more like $4000, which is just wild!
The Weekly Food Budget That Saved us Over $1000 a Month
It was actually my husband’s idea to start weekly meal planning. Amazingly, a commitment to this one concept was the key to a budget that worked.
On Sunday evenings, my husband and I sit down and talk about what we’d like to eat for dinner each night.  To make it easier, we’ve designated days such as “Salmon Mondays,” so all we have to decide is sauce and sides. Other days, my husband might have a new recipe he wants to sample. When the week’s menu is determined, we make the grocery list so we know exactly what needs to be bought.
Want to start meal planning…but not sure where to start? Grab The Ultimate Meal Planner Bundle and make keeping track of your weekly meal plan and food budget a breeze! It’s only $6 and worth every penny!
Why meal planning works
- No more inefficient daily trips to the store. We figure everything out in advance, which allows us to grocery shop once a week.
- Impulse buys are a thing of the past. We go in with a plan and don’t end up buying things that aren’t on our list.
- Bye-bye-expensive restaurant meals. Since we’ve got a meal planned for each night of the week, we don’t need to order take-out because we’re hungry and unprepared.
- Lunch is no longer a separate expense. My husband cooks for an army, so there are always plenty of leftovers for lunch.
Here’s a look at our weekly food budget now:
- $150-200: One grocery shopping trip for the ingredients needed for dinner every night of the week.
- With our couponing experiment, we slashed our weekly grocery bill to only $100-140, so our monthly food total averages less than $600!)
- We also stock up on pantry essentials and save money buying in bulk. Click here for our free pantry checklist!
That’s it. We’ve gone from spending $2000 a month on food to no more than $600.
It’s an incredible change and all it took was setting aside 30 minutes on Sunday night to create a meal plan.
If you think about all the time saved by consolidating grocery trips, it might actually be less time to meal plan than to try to go through the week without one.
Of course, we’ve made other adjustments to our lifestyle since I left my job, but none as significant as the meal plan. Maybe it sounds overwhelming to cook every single night, but just look at how much money you can save (for us it was more than $1400 a month!)
An added bonus is that when you cook your own dinners, you know exactly what you’re getting — it’s healthier! (This helped me with my weight loss after baby).
Even if you don’t aspire to be a stay at home mom, you could put up to an extra thousand dollars in the bank every month. That’s a weekend vacation!
If you take a realistic look at what you’re spending on food, you might find that you don’t want to “eat up” a large portion your income any more.
And yes, this even works in 2024.
Our Meal Planning Essentials:
Here are some of the tools and apps we’ve used to help save money on groceries and our food budget:
- Money-saving apps to get cash back on groceries — My absolute favorite is Ibotta — I save more with their rebates than I do with coupons and I get the cash back right away! Plus you get $10 just for signing up!) Click here to sign up for Ibotta through my special link and claim your $10 welcome bonus!
- The Ultimate Meal Planner Bundle — Our customizable printable set makes it easy to keep track of what you have on hand, plan shopping trips and weekly menus, as well as save favorite recipes for years to come… and it’s only $6! Click here to grab one and make meal planning a breeze.
- This magnetic dry erase calendar is awesome for keeping your menu handy on your fridge & these magnetic hanging dry erase markers (you’ll never lose them!)
- Gallon Freezer Bags (Not only do you save money buying them in bulk, but you’ll be less likely to run out! These are a must-have for freezing meat when you find it on sale & stock up!)
- Plenty of storage containers for keeping leftovers fresh
- Vacuum sealer for maximum freshness and even more savings! We have the Food Saver brand!
- eMeals meal planning app which provides weekly menu plans, builds your shopping list, and integrates with your favorite grocery store’s pickup and delivery apps!
More Money Saving Tips
- 7 Ways to Make Meal Planning Easier
- 5 Steps to Save $10,000 in One Year
- How we Lived Well for a Year on $30,000 – A Yearly Budget That Works
- How to Have an Awesome Christmas on a Budget
- 4 Keys to Living Well as a One Income Family
- How to Stop Worrying About Money
This really has changed our lives and I’m so excited to share it all with you! There’s no reason you can’t start saving money right away too!
- 4th of July Pretzel Bites - June 3, 2026
- Celery Bug Snacks - June 2, 2026
- No Bake Cookie Dough Pie - May 28, 2026
If you coupon and plan around sales the savings are even better. Good job cutting your budget down
Thanks! I definitely should check coupons before I shop 🙂
Wow that’s awesome! I should take a look at this too especially now that I’m getting back to my healthy eating habits. I’m already a huge comparison shopper (and I love that walmart had the price comparison thing on their app that gives you $ back if they find something cheaper elsewhere – called savings catcher). I think with coupons I could save even more!
Thank goodness for warmer weather. We like to grill out a lot and usually make enough for days!
Thanks– I was a little nervous people would call me crazy for even spending that much in the first place! I’m usually very frugal, but for some reason I didn’t pay attention to our food bills. Oooh yes grilling season– can’t wait!!
Well, it is completely nuts, and I should know. I’m crazy. (Post partum psychosis x 2 and depression with S.A.D.!). Of course, I also put a ton of groceries and meals out on credit cards while I was essentially homeless back in the early ’00’s so I know that food is one of those sneaky expenses.
You’re right Kristy, food can definitely be a sneaky expense!
Great post! It’s amazing how much food a family goes through, but with careful planning like yours the cost savings is substantial.
Thanks for the positive feedback! I’m glad we got in the habit of smart shopping when they’re young to be ready for when they’re older. I ate SO much when I played soccer in high school!
You should really get the app Ibotta. I have other apps for getting money back on purchases such as Receipt Hog, Walmart Savings catcher, and Snap, but Ibotta is the one that is worth your time. I’ve only had the app for about a month and a half and I’m just about up to 20.00 in my account. (You can cash it out when you reach $10.00)
Thanks Leah! I’ve heard of Ibotta but haven’t looked into it closely yet– but I’ll definitely do that today. Every little bit adds up!
The ibotta cash out is $20.00.
Yes, looks like they raised the min, but I can usually hit that pretty quickly with high-dollar rebates and bonuses 🙂
I don’t coupon much. I found that I’d buy things not normally on my list, and spend more. So, I only clip coupons for items I already use, or if I occasionally want to try a new product. The downside to food coupons is most of those items are highly processed, prepackaged foods, which are neither healthy, nor cost conscious (of course I buy some of those items, I’m not a purist).
However, I DO shop the ads. For example, last week my favorite store had a 10 for $10 sale (mix and match, you didn’t have to buy 10 of the same things). Staple items that were on my list, I stocked up on. This upcoming week, they’re having a buy 2 get 3 free sale – and many of the items are meat, poultry, and other items that can be frozen and preserved.
One other tip that I advise is: invest in a FoodSaver vacuum-seal machine. They cost about $80. This allows you to buy the family and bulk sized items, package into recipe sized portions and not worry about waste from freezer burn. It works great on produce and block cheese too, extending their shelf life dramatically. It’ll pay for itself in less than a month for an average family, especially if you find yourself throwing out untouched left-overs often.
Congratulations on your huge savings so far! I used to spend about $800/month feeding myself and two teen-aged boys, not including eating out (and yes, I still work full time). I now spend about $500/month by:
simply looking up the store ads online
stocking up when on sale
avoiding most pre-processed food aisles
doing a better job of preserving the food that I do purchase.
I also don’t have to pre-plan the meals so diligently now, because with my well stocked freezer and pantry, I nearly always have the items on hand, so, deciding on the family dinner is more like eating out – “what do we feel like having tonight?”, rather than ‘it’s spaghetti Wednesday”.
Kim, thanks for reading and for the great tips! The vacuum sealer is definitely worth looking into, as I hate to see any produce go to waste. I haven’t found coupons to be a substantial money saver for us (a few bucks here and there) for the same reasons– we don’t eat a lot of packaged foods. BTW- I think I know which store you’re talking about– so I’m excited to hear about a buy 2 get 3 free sale! Thanks again for your helpful suggestions 🙂
I don’t coupon anymore either for the same reasons. We just don’t eat a lot of processed foods and couponing was causing us to buy things we hadn’t been and shouldn’t be eating. In addition, I was spending way too much time shopping and thinking about deals I might be missing out on if I didn’t get to the store fast enough. I shop two stores at this point–one that has huge discounts on quality produce and another discount grocer for all the other groceries.
Its nice that you shared your experience to help people dont get me wrong, but I don’t feel it applies to me or in fact most of the people I know. The amount you formerly spent on food exceeds our monthly income. We live off $1,900 each month. The sentence about having an extra $1000 per month to put away for a vacation or something kind of grinds my gears.
Hi Hayley, thanks for reading and I appreciate your comments. When I was working we had a substantially higher combined income, so I admittedly wasn’t as mindful of our spending as I could have been (trust me, I wish I would have been!) I definitely wasn’t intending to insult or “show off,” I was merely writing from my own experience. I understand that everyone has different circumstances and backgrounds and might not relate to my exact situation. However, I just want to say that my husband was raised with less than almost anyone I know, and has worked his you know what off to ensure that his daughters don’t ever have to go through that. Yes, good healthy food is a priority for our family, but that’s really it other than bills. Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts- I appreciate all respectful opinions 🙂
Stacey- I just wanted to say I appreciate your honesty and sharing how you saved so much money…we probably also spend at least $2,000/month on food, and it’s refreshing to hear someone in a similar situation come up with a creative idea. I think alot of my friends are in a similar situation as you as well. Everyone is in a different place and I feel like your story was more of an example of what you can do! Thanks so much!
Hi Mel, thank you so much for your kind words! I’m so glad that you found my post to be helpful and that you took the time to let me know 🙂
I have to agree we live off that amount monthly We only have 200$ to live off a month for food. To save that much on food, glad it worked for you. If we had that much to just throw at food a month. I still dont think I could do it. How could you not tell.
Hi Kat- I understand that not everyone will relate to my experience. We live in one of the biggest cities in the country and everything is SO much more expensive here than the small town where I grew up. When you don’t have a set food budget and aren’t paying close attention to what you’re spending, it can add up very quickly. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
This is so incredible once you total it up! Any chance you could elaborate on other Salmon Mondays and other go-to days? I feel like I barely have 10 meals that I can cook easily and then it’d get repetitive quickly.
Hi Sahar- thanks for reading! Here is the link to all the recipes we’ve posted so far: Hubby’s Fabulous Recipes. If possible, I try to put one new recipe on the site each week. My husband cooks in large amounts so we have leftovers to eat for lunch every day. Most of the time we keep it simple: a protein, sometimes a grain, and lots of veggies. One of the easiest things to make is stir-fry– you can change up the ingredients to keep it interesting. Saute meat and veggies in a large pan with soy sauce, mirin (Japanese cooking wine), and Hoisin sauce. Easy and delicious! 🙂