A Few Ways Our Family Has Reduced Our Grocery Bill

There are a few reasons why we have done what we have done to reduce our grocery bill and I’ll get to those soon enough along with the ways in which we accomplished them. Read on to see how we reduce the grocery budget each month over the last two years.

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Reasons why we reduced our grocery budget

• rising cost of everything
• ingredient lists
• choice over convenience

Rising cost of everything

As a budgeter, I keep a close eye on how much things cost. Perhaps to a fault. So when I see milk jump in one of my only two local grocery stores by $0.50 twice then by a whole dollar another time in a year, I am a little shook. It’s getting expensive to just live and breathe in 2023! We need food to live and breathe and good quality foods are just astronomically priced currently.

I am pleased to say that milk has come down in the last 3 months just a tad but that’s how inflation works. The price jumps up then it’ll come back down but never, ever to the original price it once was. We are relieved that is has come back down after months, if not years, of that high price. So we think nothing of the price it was 3 or 4 years ago. We settle into the “new normal” (a phrase I absolutely loathe).

Our plan to reduce our grocery budget hasn’t actually reduced the number on the cashier’s screen each week due to inflation. Where we once spent $125 a week for a family of four which included fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, and dairy products; we still spend the same. Only now with very few fresh fruits and vegetables, no meats save maybe bacon sometimes, and as for dairy, half and half. It’s ridiculous, actually.

Ingredient lists

It’s one thing to have to check all labels due to a child with a food allergy.

It’s a whole other beast when doing that turns into “why does this need food coloring?”, “how do you even say that word?”, “is corn syrup in everything we eat?”, “what does bioengineered mean?”… because those lead to research rabbit holes you’ll never recover from once you find out what’s down them.

I do not say that to scare you. I say that to encourage you to ask more questions! I assure you in the last 4 years, we’ve been shown time and time again that the powers that be are NOT interested in the every day people’s best interests. At all.

We have to take care of ourselves while on this earth.

Choice over convenience

Bearing the things in mind above is precisely why we choose to do things “the hard way” or as I like to call it, “the way it once was done”.

Surely it is more convenient to hit the grocery store for all your food needs but what my family has decided matters more than convenience is the quality of food we are eating.

Yes that comes at a higher price also. It also costs in time and energy.

To us it is worth it. I cannot speak for you reading this post. But do keep reading to see what we have cut from our grocery list and how we are working to make it happen.

We stopped buying these things at the grocery store:

• apple sauce
• jams and jellies
• certain herbs
• eggs
• most meats like chicken, beef, and pork
• brown sugar
• powdered sugar
• ranch seasoning
• some canned items like green beans, tomatoes, and peas
• vanilla extract
• milk
• butter
• ice cream
• breads
• brownies, cakes, cookies, pancakes

A caveat:

There are times when I still need to purchase these items from the grocery store because my pantry runs out of it but I make attempts to not need it for a recipe and to note that next year I should source more of that thing. We are not perfect but we are making efforts to not need these things from the grocery store as often as we once did.

Each of these things has been researched, sought out, budgeted for, experimented with, and often times failed at before it got added to this list.

Our family did not wake up one morning and decide to start making or sourcing all of these things. They’ve accumulated over the years.

You will do the same.

Here’s how we did it

Eating the seasons helps. Meaning to eat what is actually in season so you get the freshest, best tasting foods at the most affordable prices.

Preserve what you grow and raise to stock your own pantry.

Keep kitchen staples readily available so you can make these things as you need them.

And finally, doing the research to figure out how to make these things, preserve certain items, and grow what you need well.

Apple and Pear Sauce

When apples and pears are in season, we buy them from farms or harvest from offering neighbors. We have our own trees planted but they will not produce for some years.

“The best time to plant a fruit tree was 10 years ago. The second best time is today.” The quote goes something like that. So get you some fruit trees now and let them give back to you each year.

Apple and pear sauces are super easy to make in your crock pot and preserve with water bathing. Get the kids involved with peeling them. Show them that food comes from trees, out of the ground, on a pasture, in your backyard; not the shelf of a store.

Jams and Jellies

A quick internet search or a look through an old cookbook ought to set you up right for these.

Strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, apple, and dandelion jellies and jams are crowd pleasers in this family. During each season, we source what we can from our own berry bushes and from local farms to enjoy in season desserts and preserve the rest for the year.

Certain Herbs

Growing herbs is a beginning gardener’s dream! Many grow so easily with minimal effort or space. So many herbs grow well in containers in a windowsill, on a porch or patio, etc.

Preserving herbs by air drying is super easy too. Herbs like mint, rosemary, basil, oregano, sage, thyme, and cilantro all grow well in most locations and preserve in an air tight jar for up to 1 year.

Eggs

This one may have been the gateway drug to homesteading for us. We sought out a local farmer to purchase eggs from for about 2 years before we got our own chickens.

Once we got laying hens, then we toyed with the idea of meat birds.

Most meats like chicken, beef, and pork

Raising backyard meat birds isn’t easy, I’ll be the first to admit. You can’t come in hot ill-prepared. You need to budget for feed costs and plan to have somewhere safe and secure for them to stay like a mobile tractor. You’ll also need to plan for harvest day and the set up plus supplies needed to properly freeze the meat. Studying how to process a meat bird is a big deal too.

Also, do you have enough freezer space?

Beef in the freezer has been a recent adventure for us. We have learned a lot from this massive upfront purchase. Thankfully, we have some good suggestions for our next freezer stock up of beef. Budgeting for a purchase like this is imperative. You will spend more upfront, but per pound, the cost is significantly helpful to reduce the grocery budget than shopping in store.

Pork is a new one for us as we are raising 4 kune kune pigs with another family currently. We hope to harvest and fill our freezers next fall. Lots of learning and researching to continue doing this one and we will definitely use a meat processor. Take the pigs alive, pick them up in freezer safe bags.

Brown and Powdered Sugars

When I learned just how easy these two were to make at home myself, I felt genuinely duped. See for yourself here:

Brown Sugar

Powdered Sugar (short video)

These two are great ways to reduce the grocery budget… especially when that powdered sugar is made of an ingredient already in your home plus a blender!

Ranch seasoning

I encourage you to take a gander on the back side of a Ranch packet the next time you’re at the store. Good luck pronouncing those preservatives to make it shelf stable.

Or you can just make your own from herbs likely already in your spice cabinet.

Here’s the recipe for ranch.

Canned items like green beans, tomatoes, peas

I have to be honest with you here: I’ve yet to use my pressure canner but I have successfully preserved green beans using the vinegar beans recipe of open kettle method and water bathed tomatoes I grew in my garden. #rebelcanner

As it was my first year with the green beans and a new recipe, I didn’t preserve nearly enough but I have big plans for summer garden 2024!

Dehydrating will be your next best friend for things like tomatoes, field peas, and many other garden vegetables. Make sure you have the right storage helpfuls like bags and dehumidifier packets.

Vanilla Extract

This one takes time but I highly encourage you to make some like TODAY. Go to your local ABC store and grab a fifth of vodka or bourbon, Vanilla Love USA for vanilla beans, and Amazon for the bottles.

There’s a 6 month waiting period for this extract to be ready for use but the longer it sits, the better it is.

Every baking recipe, it seems, calls for vanilla extract and it is pricey in the store. In 6 months, you’ll be so glad you made a batch of extract.

Milk

Depending on your state laws, this one can be tricky. It’s going to be a very valuable friendship you have made with local farmers one day. Go ahead and work on building those now.

Butter

Like milk above but you can also make your own butter from heavy whipping cream and then save the buttermilk for delicious pancakes.

Ice cream

Again, next time you’re in the store, take a little gander at the ingredient list of your favorite ice cream. It’s so sad.

Then there are the big name ice cream companies that are knowingly using bioengineered ingredients and still charging an arm and a leg for it. And that’s certainly not helping to reduce the grocery budget.

Investing in your own ice cream maker to make ice cream at home with your family will create core memories and enjoyable desserts without all the unnecessary junk.

Breads

Clearly you can grab a loaf of bread off the shelf or even from the bakery section of your store for real cheap but have you looked at the extensive list of ingredients?

Flour, water, salt, butter, sugar. That’s all that SHOULD be in bread.

You do not need to be a sourdough queen to make good bread. There are many delicious yeast bread recipes out there too.

I recently made tortilla wraps that ended up being more like naan bread and were spectacular. This happened because we didn’t have any wraps in the house and the kids wanted those for lunch. Off to Pinterest I went for a recipe. In about 20 minutes, we had wraps for lunch.

Slowly but surely we are working our way into buns and other breads but for now we are very into sourdough sandwich bread.

Brownies, cakes, cookies, pancakes

Feeling like a broken record at this point but again, the food allergy led to reading labels and not understanding ingredients but knowing this can’t be all the things needed to bake a cake or make a dessert!

I cannot say I’ve mastered a great cake yet but the kids ask for homemade birthday cakes now and so I try my best.

I actually found this simple brownies recipe on the internet in 2012 after having our son and going from two incomes to one so I could stay home with him. I was determined to save money anywhere I could. I’m a brownie obsessed woman and this recipe is my go to.

Let your kids get in the kitchen and learn to bake. The first batch will be awful, the kitchen will be a wreck, but after a few times, you’ll likely not ever have to bake another cookie again. Because they can handle it without you. It’s glorious!

How can I make some of these changes?

To reduce the grocery budget by working on your own list like I have above with things you are making, growing, or raising yourself will take time. It will take devotion to researching and trying. I highly recommend choosing one thing to get ridiculously good at first then another.

Each year we make a goal board of homesteading goals. Things on this year’s include making yogurt, learning homemade butter, raising chickens, expanding the garden, and learning my sewing machine again. Will it all get checked off? Probably not but having a visual list of things I WANT to try helps keep me on track. Instead of thinking of all the things I want to try and then easily talking myself out of it.

Try a goal board (or list) of things you want to try before the end of 2023. Is it swearing off boxed brownies? Want to make a good loaf of bread? Want to waterglass eggs for the winter? Write it down then start studying it, maybe budget for it if needed. After that, TAKE ACTION! Take one step in the direction of that thing.

That’s how to start creating your own list of ways to reduce the grocery budget. Maybe one day we’ll come out of inflation and these efforts to do it myself, make my own, etc will actually pay off.

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