How to Save Money on Groceries

Out of all of the biggest household expenses – housing, healthcare, transportation, etc. – grocery shopping is one of the budget categories where most of us have the flexibility to spend less. You can absolutely save money on groceries each week and still enjoy high-quality, nutritious meals that don’t take all day to prepare.

We all have to eat, and we should try to eat well, but there’s no reason it has to be so expensive.

Use these money-saving hacks to stop overspending on groceries. These are REALISTIC ways to get your grocery spending under control and not feel like you have to eat out all the time.

How Much Should You Spend on Groceries?

So how do you know if you’re overspending on groceries?

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) publishes a monthly Food Plan that estimates the cost of nutritious meals at different budget levels: Thrifty, Low-Cost, Moderate, and Liberal. These plans are based on current food prices and dietary standards and they’re updated every month.

As of August 2025, the USDA’s Thrifty Food Plan shows average grocery costs for a reference family of four (one adult male, one adult female, and two children):

• $230.70 per week
• $999.50 per month

You can look up the estimate for each family member in your household to come up with a baseline. It really is a good guide to begin setting your own realistic grocery budget.

Once you have a baseline, track your expenses for a week or two to see where you fall. You’ll adapt it and tweak it to your specific needs as you stay faithful to keeping track of your spending on groceries.

How to Spend Less on Groceries

Step 1: Set a Realistic Grocery Budget

So now you have a specific number to form the basis of a realistic grocery budget, you can get serious about saving money on groceries. The first step is that budget. Once you figure it out and decide to stick to it, you won’t mindlessly toss things in your cart. This alone will save you potentially hundreds of dollars. It can very eye-opening to see how even inexpensive items add up to a large total.

You may be surprised at how much the little things like snacks, drinks, or convenience foods add up. But don’t worry – this isn’t about being restrictive, it’s about being purposeful.

Remember: The point of a budget is to ensure you have money for what you want.

Step 2: Start Using Practical Grocery-Saving Strategies

Now you can get serious about grocery savings. I’ve compiled the most realistic, useful strategies, hacks and shortcuts to navigate the grocery store.

• Meal plan around nutritious, affordable meals.
• Meal prep
• Learn how to save at the grocery store
• Learn how to do “mini-stockpiling.” A well-stocked pantry brings a feeling of security when income is tumultuous.
• Learn your “buy prices” for regular purchases.
• Make some things from scratch. You wouldn’t believe how easy some things are to make on your own. Like croutons! (I couldn’t believe how easy they are.)

The strategies, life hacks, and shortcuts below will save you money whatever your situation, age, geographic location, etc. and help you be more frugal with your grocery budget:

• Put together a meal plan based around nutritious and affordable meals. Keep it simple and doable. Focus on nutritious, versatile ingredients to get the most benefit for your grocery dollar.
• Meal prep so you have things ready and there’s less temptation to buy at a restaurant. Nothing wrong with eating out, but wouldn’t you rather plan a special night out than make a hurried and expensive run through any old drive-through that’s convenient?
• Shop more than one store. Find stores around you and begin learning how to save money at each one.
• DO sign up for the free loyalty program at every store you shop regularly.
• Be deliberate about every item you purchase. Another way to word it: stick to your list.
• Purchase things when they’re on sale. Learn how to do “mini-stockpiling.” This isn’t where you turn your whole garage into a grocery store, but you do stock up on items you know you’re going to use when they’re on sale. A well-stocked pantry gives you the flexibility to buy things when they are on sale because you have plenty of ingredients at home to make meals. I will often buy five pounds of butter when there’s a good sale and stick it right into the freezer.
• Keep track of regular prices so you’ll be able to spot a deal when you see one. (You can use a price book for this.) Get acquainted with the per-pound (or per-ounce) price of the foods you buy most often. For instance, boneless meats may be $3 or $4 per pound; produce could be closer to $1 per pound. How much do you typically pay for milk? Eggs? Bread? Butter? The two price categories you should get to know best: 1) things you buy often 2) things that cost the most.
• Find less expensive versions of things your family likes to eat or drink. Be willing to try new things. For example, if you buy orange juice every week, try making it from concentrate, or even possibly squeezing your own when fresh whole oranges are on sale. (With juices especially, though, beware of cheaper varieties laden with sugar. Those are not worth the savings.) The biggest way to save money on fruit juice is to learn how to enjoy drinking water instead.
• Make more food from scratch. This is a learning process, so don’t try to make a whole week’s worth of meal from scratch on your first try. Just do ONE thing: maybe that’s making homemade French toast instead of buying frozen, or whipping up your own batch of honey mustard salad dressing instead of buying the bottled kind. Experimenting is fun, and you’ll get your favorites and you’ll learn what things you don’t like to make from scratch. Along the same lines, when you go to the grocery store, buy ingredients, not prepared foods, as much as possible. Some convenience foods might be helpful when you know you have some busy weeknights ahead, but they are usually going to cost you more. Just two examples: 1) soup is really easy to make and much less expensive than canned 2) you could make an entire chicken pot pie with very inexpensive ingredients and not a lot of work. But these do take a little bit of time. (Convenience foods at the grocery store generally cost less than fast food.)

Tips to Reduce Grocery Expenses even more

Once you have a realistic grocery budget and you’re sticking to it, you might be able to reduce it even more by using easy tips, tricks, and grocery store hacks I’ve listed below. Remember – the most important thing is that you and your family are fed and nourished. But once that’s taken care of, it can be quite fun to see how the pennies saved add up over a few weeks’ time. Maybe you can use your grocery savings for a splurge, like taking the whole family out for a treat every week!

• Use coupons. Couponing is not what it was in the 2010s. Some paper coupons still exist (and some are pretty good) but more and more, digital coupons in store apps are the norm. Whatever form they take, coupons are still part of a sound strategy for shopping frugally.
• Consider joining a warehouse club. In some situations, paying a membership fee to shop at a store can save you money. It can also be an expensive mistake. Be sure to read my related articles: How I Save Money at Sam’s Club and Is a Costco Membership Worth It?
• Use apps. But the main apps you need are actually the store’s own native shopping app, which will usually have coupons, the specific layout of the store you’re shopping in, weekly ads, and personalized coupons and discounts. Sometimes these even let you scan your cart and check out. Other shopping apps have negligible benefits. In my humble opinion, coupons are a necessity while rebate and receipt-scanning apps are just a bonus. But some shoppers insist these types of apps are a very big part of their grocery savings strategy. That’s why I include them here. Most of these give you points for scanning your receipts, and they can be used on top of (after) coupon savings. After accumulating a certain number of points, you can trade them in for gift cards or cash. Your mileage may vary, and success may depend on the stores you shop and the foods you buy. For convenience, I’ve added a list of apps below.
• Reuse everything. See how far you can stretch what you have (within reason). Some of these ideas are pretty old school: Are you wasting paper towels by grabbing a new one every time? How many uses can you find for plastic grocery bags? Will that sour cream container work as a container for leftovers? Keep straws, plastic utensils, paper napkins that come your way. Frugal people have been doing these things for years, and we get a lot of flack for it. Join us! 🙂

Can Grocery Shopping Apps to Help You Save or Make Money?

You can find a plethora of grocery apps to help you manage or benefit from the basic weekly chore of doing your grocery shopping. The question is whether they are worth the time and storage space (and perhaps privacy risks) for the benefit?

Grocery Store Apps

Most major stores have smartphone apps these days, and these have become an integral part of shopping frugally. I’m pretty sure stores have intentionally made it easier to shop with the app, because when you are logged in and using it they get very important and valuable information about you, about what you buy, and about how you shop. They would otherwise have to pay for that information, and here we are, giving it to them for (almost) free. (They do have to pay for app development and they give us discounts and deals as incentive to use their apps.)

Still, knowing full well why they want me to download, log in, and use their apps, I benefit enough from store apps that I consider them almost essential. I was a holdout for a long time, but no more.

• With the Kroger app, I can see a deal in the store, scan a QR code, and instantly load that coupon.
• With the Sam’s Club app, I can scan my items and skip checkout, going straight to the guy scanning receipts at the exit.
• With the Walmart app, I can scan the bar code of any item to see how much it costs. (It would be nice if I could just look at a price tag, but the Walmart near me doesn’t do a good job tagging the shelves.)

Those are just three of the store apps I have on my phone. There are several others! Some I downloaded just to take advantage of one sale or feature, then forgot to delete it later. Others are necessary (or at least more convenient) to take advantage of grocery savings. If you shop regularly at a grocery store, it’s worth finding out what savings or benefits you’ll be able to access with the app. I personally would not shop Kroger without the app. They’ve just made it too essential. (You even sometimes get coupons that are personalized to what you buy. These loyal customer coupons often last much longer than the regular weekly coupon deals.)

Receipt or Scanning Apps

Some shoppers swear by them, but I’m not convinced. While some apparently do pay, the savings or earnings are extremely low for the effort involved. In some of my frugal groups online, I’ve seen folks report $100, $300, or even up to $1300 per year. Per year. Almost anything else pays better than that.

Links provided will be affiliate links whenever possible. That means I may receive a small commission if you sign up using my links. Thanks!

But in the interest of being thorough, I’ll list a few shopping apps I’m aware of. Please note that I have not personally tried all of these. In fact, the only one I’ve used with any success is ibotta.

• ibotta – I do like ibotta and use it a few times per year.
• Fetch
• Receipt Hog
• Receipt Pal
• Checkout 51
• Coinout
• Pogo
• Makeena
• Frisbee
• Receipt Jar
• Flipp – this just lets you search grocery sale ads. Some people find it convenient; I prefer going to the website or the store’s app on my phone.
• Shopkick
• Crowdtap
• Upside (for fuel)
• Swagbucks
• Dosh
• Merryfield

Also please note that I’m not recommending all of them. I’m only listing them for your convenience because this is a question that almost always comes up whenever someone mentions saving money on groceries.

Grocery List Apps

Since “stick to your list” is one of my shopping tips for how to save money on groceries, I’ll share a few apps that may help with this. Pencil and paper still work too!

• Text message app on your phone – Okay, it’s super basic but this one works. You can send yourself a text or include family members in it. This is especially helpful if you have a family member who doesn’t want to learn a new app.
• Remember the Milk – Last time I checked, this older to-do list app is still getting good reviews in the app store. By now, thousands of people have downloaded it. One feature is list-sharing, so you and other family members always know what needs to be picked up from the grocery store.