9 Ways to Shop for Healthy Foods on a Budget

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You want to cook healthy meals for you family and feed them all the best foods. You want to use fresh meats and produce and have a nicely stocked fridge with fruits and vegetables. You cruise through the store loading up your cart and realize when you hit the register, your cart full of healthy foods does not match your budget. 

It happens to you every time. You’re stuck in the roller coaster of wanting to eat healthy but wanting more money in your wallet after your grocery trip. You don’t have to give up eating healthy for the sake of your budget. You can still give your family the best foods and not spend hundreds every week at the grocery store.

1. Meal Plan

Walking into the grocery store without any idea of what meals you’re making is just asking for trouble. When you take the time to sit down and plan out your meals, you’re saving yourself tons of money, and wasted food! 

2. DON’T Shop The Perimeter

One of the main rules anyone will tell you to eat healthy is to shop the perimeter of the grocery store. All the bad foods are down those middle aisles, right? The truth is, canned and frozen vegetables are just as healthy as fresh ones and can be a fraction of the cost. 

3. Use Grocery Pickup or Delivery

Ordering groceries for pickup or delivery doesn’t just save you time. Do you ever go into the grocery store with a plan in mind, ready to stick to your budget, only to wind up at the cash register seeing a number that’s not in your budget? When you’re able to see your total before standing at the checkout with your card, you can take the time to regroup.  

I was a skeptic of ordering groceries for a while until I tried Imperfect Foods. I get a window to pick out my order and it arrives at my house two days later. I’ve gotten a few items that had gone bad during shipment, but they were quick to refund the cost of those items once I reached out. I usually spend about $75 a week from www.imperfectfoods.com and have another $30-50 trip to the store.

4. Make a List

I know you hear this one regularly, but it’s important. Sit down and make a list before you go to the store. Take inventory of what you have so you aren’t buying something extra “just in case” you might be running low at home. When you meal plan, write down all the things you’ll need for your recipes after looking through what you already have at home. This gives you a little bit of a precursor for how much you’re going to spend and deters you from making unnecessary purchases.

5. Shop Your Kitchen

If you’re like me, I can bet you buy some extra things every month that are just sitting in your pantry or freezer. Once a month, use those extras for the majority of your meals for that week. This has been one of my favorite hacks to cut down our monthly grocery budget.

I can almost eliminate an entire week of grocery shopping (and about 20% of our monthly grocery expenses) by making use of what we already have. If this seems like too much of a challenge, try shopping your kitchen for dinner twice a week. Trust me, using what you have is going to be a game changer for your budget.

6. Avoid Premade Meals

It’s no secret that making your own meals versus eating out saves you money, but did you realize that premade meals at the grocery store can kill your budget too? They’re quick and might not seem like a “splurge” since you typically still have some preparation, but it would be SO much cheaper to make it yourself.

Premade foods are also typically loaded with preservatives and aren’t as healthy as their packaging makes them appear to be. Help your wallet and your waistline by skipping the premade food section! 

7. Shop Around

I know going to multiple stores is annoying, but it really pays to shop around. Stores have different deals going on each week (especially for meats), so check out their ads online and see where you get the biggest bang for your buck. Aldi is usually my go-to, but they don’t have EVERYTHING. I’ll do some pricing research before heading to another store for those items. 

8. Bulk Buy Every Few Months

Bulk purchases help build your freezer stash and will save you money if you plan ahead. We have a membership to Costco and will bulk purchase meat every few months. My husband also runs a catering business so the membership fee serves us for that purpose too. If you don’t see yourself making use of a club store membership, save your money and look into buying family packs or bulk buying sale items at your regular store. 

9. Shop At Aldi

Three years ago, I refused to shop at Aldi. I loved our Martin’s (owned by Giant if you don’t have Martin’s in your area) and couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning my nice fancy store for what I thought of as essentially the left overs from other grocery stores (I was so wrong). My husband finally convinced me to go and, after seeing that total on the register, I never looked back. Without using any of these other tips, we saved $60-100 EVERY WEEK. They’re also now offering curbside pickup at some stores so you can use that tip here as well to be mindful of your spending! 

I hope putting at least a few of these tips to good use will help you stick to or lower your grocery budget while being less wasteful. If you have any other tips or tricks, I’d love to hear them in the comments!