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Did you know that the average American family in 2018 spent $7,923 on their food budget?

That is an average of $152 every single week!

Well, we think that number is too darn high! Today we’ll show you our secret to slashing your food budget by hundreds of dollars per month.

The secret is to build meals around our $50/week grocery budget list!

That’s right. You can make a week’s worth of delicious, healthy, filling meals for the family with only one trip to the store and $50.

Follow this plan for a month and you’ll save $400 PER MONTH over what the average American family spends on food.

How can you stay motivated cooking at home all the time?

I’ll be totally honest and say that cooking every meal at home can be a grind at times. The way we found to beat the Wednesday evening meal blues. You know how those go…

Where it is a lot easier to just load up the car and head out for burgers rather than figure out what to cook.

Our trick was to start meal planning and have fun with cooking.

We started experimenting a lot more with recipes and now feel comfortable cooking pad thai or tikka masala so we don’t always have to go out to eat to satisfy those cravings.

We now enjoy going into the kitchen and baking a new bread recipe or making a new sauce.

Meal planning involves planning out all of your week’s meals ahead of time and cooking in batches so when Wednesday night rolls around you have everything ready to go.

Luckily it is a lot easier than it sounds! There are a ton of great meal planning resources out there for recipe ideas, cooking tips and food storage for grab and go lunches.

And the best part is building a budget grocery list and meal planning go hand in hand!

Tips for sticking to a $50 budget grocery list

Always plan your meals ahead!

Planning all of your meals for the week lets you take advantage of the best seasonal fruits and veggies by using them in multiple dishes.

In fact, it really allows you to optimize all the ingredients by using them in multiple dishes. A 99 cent per pound pork shoulder can be used in quesadillas, tacos, pulled pork sandwiches, etc.

The same goes for a whole roasted chicken. One day it is chicken and mashed potatoes and the next the rest becomes chicken and rice soup.

You get the idea!

It also helps to prevent store wandering which for us usually leads to a bag of chips or cookies sitting in the cart!

Check the clearance sections

We always make lap by the produce and meat clearance areas at our local grocery store.

There are almost always bags of apples for $1 that become apple sauce that the kids just love. The meat section almost always has steaks that, at $15/lb are a bit pricey, but at $5/lb are just right to jazz up a meal.

Make use of the staples

Here are some of our favorite dried staples to buy in bulk at the grocery store. Often they are far cheaper than buying the individual packages and we always go through them quickly.

Rice

Quinoa

Beans

Oatmeal

Grits

Dried Spices

I feel like we need to take a second to talk about bulk spices

Dried spices are easily 10x less expensive buying in bulk than in the individual jars. Every time I buy a bag of bay leaves that is enough to fill up two spice jars and it only costs 18 cents I feel like I’m robbing the place.

Here’s our favorite $50/week budget grocery list

Fruits & Vegetables

Carrots – $1.49/bunch

Potatoes ($.30/lb) – $1.20

Spinach – $1.49/bunch

Avocado – 4/$5

Frozen Green Beans – $1.50

Frozen Brocolli – $1.50

Tomato Sauce (28oz) – $1.39

Lettuce – $1.49/bunch

Apples ($1.29/lb) – $2.58

Banana ($.25/each) – $1.00

Protein

Ground Turkey – $3.99/lb

Chicken Thighs ($1.59/lb) – $4.77

Dairy

Milk – $2.49

Eggs – $2.19

Cheese – $2.69

Butter – $2.59

Staples

Oatmeal – $3.89

Beans – $1.00/bag

Peanut Butter – $1.79

Bread – $1.99

Tortillas – $2.29

Pasta – $1.00

All in we come out to a grand total of…$49.32! And we have ingredients to make breakfasts (eggs, oatmeal, bread, peanut butter, butter), lunches (beans, rice, chicken, avocado, tortillas, bread) and dinner (chicken, pasta, tomato sauce, vegetables, beans, cheese) and snacks (apples, bananas, peanut butter, carrots, milk).

This list was also made in a pretty high cost of living area so for many people you can easily shave off $5 – $10. Shopping at discount grocery stores like Aldi or Grocery Outlet is another way to reduce this budget even further.

Making healthy, delicious and cheap meals at home doesn’t have to be difficult

By planning ahead and making smart shopping decisions you can realistically stick to a grocery budget that can, in the end, save you thousands of dollars per year.