Inflation has been out of control, it’s no surprise to any of us. But where does it stop? How much should I be spending for my family size? How can we feed our family with the rising costs? What can we do to save some money?
Per the USDA food plan for December 2024, my family of 6 grocery costs should be:
- Monthly thrift-cost plan = $1496.10
- Monthly low-cost plan = $1631.00
- Monthly moderate -cost plan = $2015.60
- Monthly liberal-cost plan = $2454.70
I don’t know about you but those numbers are still to high for our family, but it does give me a point of reference. I choose to follow a monthly budgeted amount for my groceries that has been changed many times before I found the right amount for us. So now that I know how much to spend it’s time to figure out what to spend it on.
The first thing I do is see what we have left in the house. I don’t do anything to in depth just a general check. Do we need milk? Yep. Do we need bread? Yep. Then I check with the family to find out if there is anything in particular they want. With that said they don’t always get what they want but I try to have some goodies in the house for them.
Next I check out the grocery ads to see what is on sale this week. While at the same time I’m going through the digital coupons that the store has available. I also listen/watch my favorite youtubers and find out what good deals are out there this week.
I make my list based on the sales, very seldom do I pay full price for items. So if chicken is on sale I choose to have meals that are chicken based throughout the week. IF the sale is a great deal then I may choose to pick up a few extra packages of chicken for the freezer for future use. Some weeks there really isn’t much and those weeks I choose to live off of what we have in our freezer and buy the bare minimum.
Once I’m done making my list, then I check out the grocery rebate apps. I look to see if any of the things on my grocery list have a coordinating rebate to go with it. For example yesterday I went grocery shopping and picked up a dozen eggs for $3.99 (which was an amazing price right now for eggs), but when I checked Ibotta there was a rebate for $2.50 back on a dozen eggs. So ultimately the final cost for my eggs was $1.49. WOW that was great!
Sometimes while looking through the apps I find items I may not have on my list but I know they were on sale and then there is a rebate or two for it also. With a match up like that I may be able to get the item FREE or at a significant discount. So depending on what it is and if it is something I know our family will eat and can we fit it in our budget I may pick it up. The apps make a big difference in our grocery costs. Last year I saved $712.19 using just Ibotta, every penny counts!!!
My best advice on how to keep your grocery cost down is to check the ads, digital coupons, other saving programs your grocery store offers (such as Kroger Cash Back or Meijer MPerks), rebate apps (Ibotta, Fetch, Aisle, Checkout 51, Merryfield, Rakuten) and most of all your budget. Get your necessities first, the things that you absolutely can not live without. Then if you have any money left over you could pick up some wants or save that money for next week’s grocery trip.
By no means am I perfect in our grocery shopping budget and unfortunately I do go over budget at times, but I’m working on it. When I go over budget I do have to figure out where that extra money is coming from. So I have to go back and adjust the budget by taking money from another budgeted item that I can do without.
If you have any questions about anything I’ve talked about today I am ALWAYS happy to help. If you want more information about each of the apps or how to use them step by step I can do that. Please feel free to contact me here.