How I cut my monthly grocery bill by $150 without price-matching!

I've known for a while that we have a problem.  A big, fat, ugly problem.  We spend way too much on groceries.  For a mama that's trying to stick to a budget it's an issue that has literally kept me up at night.  Now, what I consider to be a lot of money on groceries might not be a lot for you and your family.  I've talked to a number of different friends in different financial situations, and the numbers have ranged from about $200 for a family of 3 to about $600 for a family of 6.  We were right in the middle with a family of 4.  I couldn't figure out how in the world we could cut back.  I felt like I tried to be frugal with our groceries, but I always ended up spending tons of money and then came home feeling like we still had nothing to make for dinner.

Right about this same time another thing started to happen that would affect my grocery shopping.  Walmart's price-matching policy changed.  I used to use that a lot and saved quite a bit on fruits/veggies.  Now they won't match Rancho Markets, a local Hispanic grocery store that has amazing deals on produce.  I'm talking 6 lbs for a dollar watermelons. Walmart figured out they were losing money on deals like that so they stopped price-matching Rancho Market ads.  That made shopping a little more inconvenient but I could understand why they did it.  Then I found out they stopped price-matching anything that wasn't exactly their brand.  I tried to get some great value cheese, but the ad said Western Family brand.  Well, Walmart, you don't carry Western Value.  That was the last straw for grocery shopping at Walmart.

The thing I found to be the biggest problem with staying in the budget was that we ended up at the grocery store two to three times a week.  I'd find that I didn't have one or two items for dinner.  Quick run to the store and another $50 because I found more things that sounded good at the moment.

It was time to come up with a plan.  And that's exactly what happened.  My friend, Rebekah,  introduced me to the two week meal plan.  I had thought a lot about starting a meal plan, but didn't really know where to begin.  She explained what she did and I thought it could work for me.  It takes very little preparation and I was amazed at how much it's saved us.

So here it is:

Get a piece of paper out and number lines 1-14.  Decide what you want to have for the next two weeks.  Now, this is the hardest part for me.  I hate coming up with something to eat, hence the reason a lot of nights end up being pizza nights.  For the most part that has changed.  To make things a little easier on me I have a set of dinners that are on my list every week.  Two of my days are spaghetti, two are tacos, at least one is stir-fry.  In the summers one is hotdogs and one is hamburgers.  That takes care of at least 7 days.  Half way there.  Then I start to go through Pinterest and a few of my favorite cookbooks. I go through each of the recipes I choose for the ingredients.  My staple meals are easy, because I typically have everything I need for them on hand, or intent to get the ingredients every time (such as tomatoes, lettuce, and onions for the tacos and hamburgers).  I make a list of the things I need and estimate how much I expect them to cost to make sure I fall within my budget.  It sounds like a lot of time but it really only takes an hour or so (or three if I'm watching "Friends").  Two hours of planning for the month to save me $150 is soooooo worth it!

Some weeks, like this week for example, I have most of the stuff I need for the next two weeks so I will look for other deals on snacks.  I normally don't get a lot of junk food because it's so expensive and I'm super cheap.  This week, however, I was able to splurge on squeeze fruit for the kids, Capri Suns, Oatmeal Cream Pies, etc.  I also purchased a few gallons of water to add to our emergency supply and a package of diapers for the little one.  I spent a total of $103 for the two weeks.  I have to mention that I also did Bountiful Baskets this week, that I'll pick up on Saturday.  That's another $17  This is my first week doing it while on the two-week meal plan.  I think it will work out well because our current produce normally lasts us about a week, so it will come just in time to replenish for the next week.  If we don't have to go to the store for more produce it means I'm less likely to spend more money on other things while I'm at the store.

Here's an example of my dinners for the next two weeks:
1. Mini Tostada Salads
2. Stir Fry with Soma Salad
3. Spaghetti and homemade bread
4. Chili Dogs
5. Tacos
6. Philly Cheesesteak Quesadillas
7. Zesty Chili-lime Chicken Taquitos
8. Pizza
9. Crispy Tortilla Roll-ups
10. Spaghetti and homemade bread
11. Hamburgers
12. Southwest Pasta Salad
13. Tacos
14. Breakfast for Dinner

The actual cost of the ingredients for those meals this week was under $50 because I had most of the stuff already.  The rest was made up of 4 gallons of milk, about $10 worth of yogurt, water, snacks, diapers, fruits/veggies, etc.  Your "other" section may look a lot different than mine.

Here are a few tips:

• You'll notice a lot of our meals are of the "Hispanic" variety.  That means a lot of my ingredients can be used for more than one meal.  Instead of using a little cilantro and letting the rest go bad, I can use it all and save a bit too :)
• To help save a little money and save on time before dinner I purchased a five pound package of ground beef and cooked it all up at once with some onions.  I separated into containers before putting it in the freezer.  Now all I have to do is take out a container and heat it up with any seasonings I'd need for that meal.