How do you lower your grocery bill eating healthy..

We're a family of 6 and I'm able to stay home, so all of our meals are cooked from scratch. It's just a habit of getting into, to bake everyday, use beans and lentils in ways you never thought possible, and do all the prep work at home. Buying healthy foods is cheap, if you don't buy it all pre-cut up and pre-washed and if you stick to what's in season in your area. Shop the flyers, plan your meals and try new recipes… bake your own bread, make things that you can take with you, mini quiches to go for breakfasts and summer oats are great to grab and go, wash cut and chop everything yourself. Buy frozen fish and veg they're just as good as fresh and usually way cheaper. We buy all our pork and beef from our neighbour, and raise our own chickens for meat and eggs. It's doable, and even raising 4 boys our grocery bills are around $150 a week.

I never buy anything full price unless it's something we actually need. Otherwise I send my husband (who is amazing for doing the grocery shopping that I hate so much) to the store with a list of various options like :Buy strawberries, blueberries, or grapes - whichever is on sale. And I will do that for fruits and veggies. i've also learned that some veggies, like celery and carrots, always seem to be ridiculously cheap.

We never buy meat full price. Our grocery store sometimes has specials on fihs buy one get one free - plus we have coupons. I ALWAYS use coupons. Some grocery stores have double daze where they double the price of your coupon certain days. Does yours?

Sometimes, we just eat breakfast for dinner - like a bowl of cereal and toast. My daughter likes it, my husband likes it, and after we get home from the gym at 7pm, we only have so much time. I don't get a lot of opportunities to cook during the week so I only make 2-3 meals per week. We then eat leftovers or "whatever we have" the rest of hte time. We have nutritious food on hand at all times, and value eating as a family - it doesn't have to be chicken and veggies for dinner.

I started my garden last year and was able to get fresh tomatoes and cucumbers all year. It took me a day to dig up the sod, get the seeds, plant etc and after that all I needed to do was water it here and there. Oh so easy! I am going to do it this year again and bigger. So cheap to grow your own stuff!!

We have a family of 3 and average 80 a week for groceries, if that. We don't spend more than $5 a week on "treats" like quaker granola bars or goldfish.

ETA: I also eat WAY less when I eat more nutrition dense foods.... so there's a cost saver there

Aquaponics

I don't know where y'all are shopping, but unless you are insisting on organic everything, fresh produce is not expensive, especially the in-season stuff that doesn't have to be shipped from a foreign country. See if there's a farmer's market or any "pick your own" farms in your area. It's usually even cheaper there.

Meat, okay. But become friends with the meat guys, ask them when things go on sale, and then go buy a bunch of stuff and freeze it.

Cook in bulk, eat leftovers, etc.

If you truly can't eat wheat products, well, rice and beans are way cheap.

If push comes to shove, look for other areas in your life where you could cut back. If you seriously have medical conditions that force you to be more picky about your diet, then you are going to have to prioritize that over some other things. You are not forced to eat stuff that makes you sick because it's allegedly cheaper.

I too thought "wow my bills got more expensive at the grocery" but then I looked at how much less we were spending eating out and realized its all about the big picture. not sure if you've cut back on eating out too to balance this cost. Also, if your family doesnt mind eating the processed foods, sometimes you might have to make two separate meals, one to fit your dietary needs and one for them. It will be a pain, but you'll be spending less on the stuff you can/enjoy eating. Just a suggestion.

Same here - I spend about $200-250/week for our family of 4. I buy mostly organic and natural foods, high quality meats, etc. Though I wish the costs were lower, I think the quality of our food is so important and worth it - so I try to cut costs in other parts of our lives so that I can afford the better food.

Is there any where else in your life that you can cut costs to make your food purchases more affordable?

Focus on simple, low-ingredient meals to keep costs down - for example, a dinner of chicken breasts, potatoes and a veggie is pretty cheap. Don't try to make fancy sauces or other dishes that require multiple ingredients you don't already have on hand.

Purchase the less expensive cuts of meat - for example, buy sirloin steaks instead of NY Strip. Purchase conventional fruits/veggies instead of the organic versions. Then stay away from buying unnecessary "treat foods" if you can.

Check the company's website for coupons - and mambosprouts.com also has natural food coupons.

Good luck

i shop sales and sometimes use coupons and we also have an aldi's around here so i shop there a lot which has cheaper foods and i also get the cheapest brand. you don't always need that name brand stuff it all usually tastes the same anyways lol

and sometimes frozen meat also is cheaper then the fresh meat from the deli. and turkey burger is not only healthier but also usually cheaper then beef burger so i often buy that over beef as well.

I'm not being snarky. I don't understand these posts. eating fresh is so much cheaper than eating premade crap food. A whole chicken is less than $5. After you eat it, you cook it and make soup and add left over, and almost spoiled veggies and stuff. You have a few more meals.

It's so cheap to eat better, but I think there's a learning curve because everyone does it wrong for a while. It takes a while to figure out what healthy really means. And, then, it takes even longer to figure how that translates into savings.

Edited to add that frozen veggies are extremely expensive. I go to buy them and cringe, and then go buy fresh. I'm not paying in excess of $8 a bag. It's crazy expensive where I live, or where I shop, I don't know.

Where do you get a whole chicken for less than $5?

Grocery store. All the time. I get them for as low as $3 sometimes.

I don't get how regular chicken could be that expensive (> $5) anywhere in the US, except maybe Alaska or Hawaii where you might have excess transport costs.

I buy a whole rotisserie chicken at Whole Foods, for heaven's sake, for $6.50. Surely an uncooked whole chicken at a normal grocery would be less than $1.50 cheaper? I wouldn't know - I love Bell and Evans chicken too much to even look at other chicken prices.