After publishing my 2018 spending a few people have asked me what exactly I buy and eat to hit that spending level. Obviously groceries is only one part of the food equation with eating out on the other end, but I wanted to try to explain what it is I buy and eat in case it could help others decrease their grocery bill.
Caveat #1: Keto
I’ve been eating keto (low carb/high fat) for two years and counting so my groceries most likely look different than the average person’s. I don’t eat sugar or carbs (besides veggies), which eliminates a lot of the processed food you see out there. So basically my entire shop includes meat, fish, vegetables and lots of fat. Mmmm.
Caveat #2: Nutrition Requirements
Since I’m a super nerd I know that I require 1514 calories a day to maintain my weight, a minimum of 62 grams of protein per day to maintain my muscle mass, and as I mentioned, I eat keto which aims to consume 20 or less net grams of carbs per day.
Spending Example: September 2018
So given all those warnings, let’s jump into what I spent in September of 2018. Like most spending, my grocery costs fluctuate month to month. I chose September of 2018 because it was the most average month I could find.
I doubt it would surprise any of you that I record everything I purchase and its cost (so I can compare to past prices to determine if an item is a better deal elsewhere). Super nerding at work. So here is everything I purchased for groceries that month for $115.71:
- (2) Shredded Cabbage for $1.29 each
- (2) Turkey Burgers for $3 each
- (2) Ground Turkey for $2.50 each
- Heavy Cream for $1.59
- Guacamole for $3
- Sour Cream for $2
- Almond Milk for $4
- (9) Frozen Steambag Broccoli Packets for $1 each
- (2) Cartons of 16 Eggs for $3 each
- Grapes for $3.31
- 32oz Mexican Shredded Cheese for $7.49
- Mayo for $3
- Fresh Ground Peanut Butter for $2.11
- Another Fresh Ground Peanut Butter for $2.43
- (2) MiO Water Enhancers for $3 each
- (2) Packets of Strawberries for $2 each
- Halo Top Ice Cream for $4
- Salsa for $2.49
- (2) More MiO for $3.50 each
- A 12 Pack of Seltzer for $3
- More Grapes for $3.24
- 1 Lb Flank Steak for $7
- Even More Grapes for $2.53 (yes I love grapes when they’re on sale…)
- 2.5 Lbs of Steak for $18.94
And here is a sample of the food I made with those groceries in addition to whatever we had in our fridge and freezer:
This is one of my go-to meals: A taco bowl. I never get tired of Mexican flavors. It includes broccoli as a base, ground turkey, cheese and sour cream (usually also guac and salsa if the mood strikes).
Keto has ignited a love of eggs. They’re delicious, cheap and super versatile. Top left: an egg and cheese omelette. Top right: eggs and leftover steak with sour cream and salsa. Bottom left: eggs mixed with cheese and pesto with some leftover tomato. Bottom right: what I call ‘hamburger eggs’, which includes eggs, cheese and ground turkey. I then topped this one with sour cream, guac and salsa.
Top left: sous vide flank steak…I’m getting hungry just looking at it. We sous vide a lot of meat in this house. Top right: broccoli ‘mac’ and cheese. Bottom left: a double turkey burger with the burgers used as buns (innovation!) Bottom right: snacks I love including peanut butter and brie (usually separately, but sometimes together because why not?)
And there you have it! What I bought and examples of the food I make with those ingredients. So what led me to make these purchasing decisions? Here are my tips for keeping grocery spending low:
Buy Expensive Items On Sale And (If Possible) In Bulk
Meat can be expensive and I eat A LOT of meat. When I see our favorite cut of steak go on sale for $7/lb I load up as much as I can into my backpack to walk home. Unlike us carfree weirdos, those of you with cars could do even better in this category. When I get home I then put the meat we won’t use that day into the freezer. When we’re ready, we pull it out, sous vide it for 2 hours and have restaurant quality steaks at home for a fraction of the cost. Yum!
Compare Prices
When we lived in Manhattan, I learned that prices of specific grocery items can vary WILDLY based on where you go to buy them. During this phase of discovering how to lower my expenses, I started cataloguing items that were significantly cheaper at another grocery store, such as Trader Joe’s. I have a similar list for Seattle and shop at different places accordingly. Obviously there’s no need to go overboard with this. If something is $0.10 cheaper and 10 minutes away by car it’s not worth it, but if it’s 1/2 the price like many items, such as the avocados and ground turkey at Trader Joe’s here, it’s worth it to me.
Buy Only What You Need
One of the reasons I’ve mentioned that I love walking my groceries home is because it helps me be really intentional with my grocery purchases since I have to lug them up a hill. Do I REALLY need that? Will I eat it before the expiration date? A lot of the time the answer is “no” so I save on food waste and (in my case) weight on my back.
Splurge With Strategy
I’ve talked about simple items that make me feel like a princess. Unless this item is always cheap, such as tea or seltzer, I wait to buy it until it goes on sale for a reasonable price. The big example of this in my life is grapes. I LOVE grapes, but they are high in sugar and usually super expensive. However, when they go on sale I allow myself to buy a package whenever they’re at a reasonable price (which during September was apparently MANY times 🙂 ). The price was something I could swallow, I still got to enjoy my treat AND it actually felt like a treat because it’s not an everyday occurrence.
And that’s it! Those are my tips based on my experience spending $125 on average for my monthly groceries.
How about you? What’s your grocery budget? Do you have any tips to lower it while eating delicious food?
This is awesome, I literally just found your blog yesterday and read your 2018 overview. I eat Keto myself primarily and find that much of the stuff is expensive relative my slow carb diet (beans and lentils are cheap). When I saw your grocery budget and Keto I was curious to, and when I saw this in my inbox this morning and it’s almost like you read my mind. Now I know it’s possible to get our grocery bill down. Thanks!
Welcome fellow keto-eater! So glad I could (seem) to read your mind 🙂 . And yeah carbs are super cheap. When I first got a job and was paying Manhattan rent we only ate rice and pasta because it was the cheapest food we could find. I’m surprised it’s not that expensive to basically just eat meat and veggies with some planning. Let me know how decreasing your bill goes! And thanks so much for stopping by!
Damn! $125 is one visit to the grocery store with my husband, and that took effort.
Major respect and congrats on that.
Hahaha thanks! This is obviously just my spending so yeah it would most likely go way up if I included my partner’s grocery spending.
I love this! You are a “super nerd” and it’s awesome. I am wondering how you maintain weight at 1514. I lose on that amount, but maybe that’s because I’m currently a big walker. I eat 2500 a day (no joke)! Maybe I should exercise less to save money (that would be a little insane but I bet people have done it).
I also have certain items that I wait until they are on sale to get them. I have a threshold for certain items (like I won’t buy them unless they are below a certain price; Almond Milk – $2, Cereal – $3, Tea – $2, organic shampoos – $5). I don’t know where I came up with these rules sometimes! Your rules are working awesome for you. Congrats!
Thank you!! And yeah it sounds like I’m a lot less active than you lol. I walk and carry my groceries, but that’s the extent of my exercise. I also don’t ‘count’ those as exercise calories in MyFitnessPal since the counts seem a little random.
And exercising less to save money isn’t something I’ve heard of before lol! I love your approach to waiting until things are on sale – that really helps me overcome ‘analysis paralysis.’ If it’s not on sale I keep moving. And that’s so cool how you have rules! That sounds fun actually – kind of like how I see budgets, as a game. Thank you for stopping by!
That’s amazing! I’m still in the $350 ballpark. I find for me, buying small amounts at a time and more frequent keeps my costs somewhat lower and helps me not waste food. PS those meals look yummy!
Thank you!! Buying smaller amounts is a good idea! So glad it helps you reduce costs and food waste. Thank you for stopping by!
that sure is a low number. we must average 100/week for two of us but mrs. me isn’t too careful with the purchases and i don’t mind that. 95% of what we eat is real food that we have prepared/cooked from scratch and that makes me happy. included in our 400-500/month are things like household items like toothpaste, toilet paper, and dog food so i have no idea of the pure food part.
we did 2 steaks sous vide this past weekend and they were tremendous. a couple of hours at 124F and the sear step brought them to about where yours were. you ever sous vide eggs? best texture in the world.
I mean at $100/week for 2 of you you’re not that far off from my numbers individually 🙂 . That’s awesome that you cook from scratch 95% of the time. I’m trying to up my percentage of that personally. And ah yes – I separate out the household items cause I’m curious *cough* or a nerd *cough*.
Yumm! Now you’re making me want sous vide steak again. We sous vide in celsius (to try and make ourselves learn it…it’s not going too well lol…) and usually do 54C/129F…I’m going to try 124F next time though! And yes the sear is key – Mmm! Yes we sous vide eggs – it’s so cool how precise you can get there! Agree on the texture – it’s the best I’ve had!
Haha! Celsius is easy. It’s Fahrenheit/Imperial that’s hard! But seeing as how only 3 countries in the world use it, I’m not going to follow your lead and try to learn it.
Anyway, that wasn’t what I came here to say. I enjoyed the breakdown of your food shopping and was interested to see your photos. I’m interested in keto, but with having two adult males living here as well, my grocery bills would go through the roof if we all started eating all that protein.
Food’s pretty cheap in the US. 🙂
Might have to wait until the kids move out!
Agree Fahrenheit is hard, but it’s what I grew up with so I’m used to it. Need to learn the more helpful Celsius! I don’t find it that easy unfortunately…for some reason. And oh no – please totally don’t waste your time learning Fahrenheit.
Glad you enjoyed it! And let me know if you do try keto what you think about it. I could see how that situation would increase your bills a lot 🙂 .
Walking your groceries home is SO helpful for staying in budget. We finally moved some place where I can do this again, and it’s wonderful!! I’m so impressed at how little you spend!
Glad you think so too! Awesome job on moving somewhere you can! And thank you so much.
I like your style of food choices. That is exactly how I eat when I am not on a Veganuary challenge. I am drooling after looking at your pictures.
Our family tries to stick to $600 per month for a family of four. Some of the money spent goes to the occasional junk food for kids school lunches like chocolate dipped granola bars. eek!
Living in Seattle is expensive but it looks like you have the food budget nailed.
Haha – thank you! How’s Veganuary going? All this meat will be here for you on the other side. We’re halfway through (or at least that’s what I’m telling myself – I’m doing Dry January for the first time).
$600: That’s not bad at all! And yeah – I ate a lot of stuff like that as a kid. What a time lol. And thank you! Let me know if you ever want to meet up in our home city!
Nice job on the low food spending APL! And your food looks wonderful too! 🙂
We definitely spend a lot more, but many of the same principals you write about here still hold true for us!
Thank you on both counts!! Glad some of these tips hold true for you – your food looks delicious 🙂 . When I have more time I’m planning to expand my repertoire and try some of your recipes (if not before). I expect my food spending to increase at that time. Thanks so much for stopping by!
Great job on spending so little but still eating well. The pictures look great!
I was proud that our family of 3 spends roughly $250 per month on groceries, but you’re totally crushing it!
Thank you! And $250 for 3 people is amazing!!! I’d love to hear the tips you have 🙂 .
stay tuned- going to release an epic post on cutting the grocery bill soon.
Woot woot!
Keto ftw. Going on 18 months, myself.
Right?! Keto is amazing. Congratulations on 18 months! That’s impressive.
We love Mexican flavors too! We make street tacos and burrito bowls probably twice a week! Lol We dropped out bill down to $250 by doing nearly everything in this article. Buying only what we need and reducing our food waste to zero has been a primary reason our bill has been so low!
Yum!! I need to make taco shells out of cheese again. That was a game changer. And woah congratulations on your grocery spending!!! So glad these tips didn’t just work for me!
For the quality of food you purchase I’m floored that you can keep your spending where you do. I spend literally 3 or 4 times that on trash food each month. Thanks for the inspiration!
Yeah I’m surprised my grocery spending didn’t shoot up when I stopped eating ‘trash food’ as you call it 🙂 . And anytime! Thanks so much for stopping by.
Well done! You beat me to the punch on this post 🙂
A few people have asked me how I averaged just over $130/month on my groceries throughout 2018 so I was planning to actually track every grocery purchase in February and write a post on it haha. I’ll be sure to link back to your post for inspiration! 🙂
It’ll be interesting to see how it stacks up as I eat a lot differently than you do!
Haha – oops lol! I’m excited to read your post about it and see how it shakes out! Let the diet dollar battle begin!!
I’m a new reader of your blog, enjoying the archives today. What percentage of your meals are homemade versus eating out? Do you eat 3 meals a day? We also follow Keto. Thanks!
Hi! So glad you’re enjoying the archives! I go out to eat about 3-5 times a month so only about 5% of my meals are eating out. That’s changed a lot over the last few years – I didn’t even know how to cook when I lived in NYC so basically all my meals were eaten out. I eat 2-3 meals a day since I’m rarely hungry for breakfast with a few snacks thrown in. And hello fellow ketoer! How’s your keto going?
Thanks for the reply. I have been gluten free for 12 years due to celiac, so switching to Keto was not too bad and has greatly improved my energy levels. I see Keto as being my default way of eating for life. I just felt horrible all the time eating (GF) carbs daily. Now I’ll have them once in a while, like holidays. But I’m fortunate that there is an amazing Keto cafe and bakery here in town (Lake Stevens) so I can treat myself in a healthy way.
So glad it’s improved your energy levels! My cousin has celiac as well and was so happy when she discovered the issue and cut out gluten. I see keto the same way! I also am looser with keto on special occasions – and when traveling. I need to figure out a balance with that before travel becomes my life. You have a keto cafe?!?! That’s so cool! I haven’t heard of one in the PNW before. I’m going to favorite it in case I’m ever in the area!!
Urban Pantry & Catering
The best!
I love this post and approach. One thing I don’t see in your monthly bill are any spices and cooking fats….how do you work those into your food budget planning process? Are you just using up existing large tubs of coconut oil, ghee, etc.?
Hi Patrick – glad you like it! This list is just from 1 month last year – I don’t usually buy spices on a monthly basis since they last a while. As for fats we buy butter (though not during the month above), but most often use left over bacon grease that we save from our many bacon cooking sessions 🙂 .
Hi Purple. I’m working on getting down my grocery bill and starting Keto mainly to simplify me diet. I think the lowering the grocery bill will be relatively easy since I spend about $450-600/mo for a single on groceries ugh!
My question is around frozen meat and the sous vide. I have a sous vide that hasn’t gotten a ton of use. Your fajitas look mouth watering.
What’s been your process for going from frozen meat to cooked fajitas or other meals? Do you know any resources that I can use to get into sous vide? Do you have a vacuum sealer or do you use some other method?
Thanks! Love your blog, sorry if you’ve already answered some of these questions.
Hi Nate! Welcome to keto and lowering your grocery bill! As for sous vide, it’s like you’re reading my drafts folder 😉 . I’m publishing a guide to how I sous vide in August, but to answer your questions now: frozen meat in a sous vide is cooked the same as fresh – just longer. Typically I just add 30 minutes to the cooking time. So glad the fajitas look good! I can confirm they taste delicious as well 🙂 .
My favorite sous vide resource is: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/topics/method/sous-vide. I don’t use a vacuum sealer – they’re not necessary. We use freezer bags and use the pressure of the water to get the air out of the bag, close the bag and then use a binder clip to keep the bag attached to the sous vide container. So glad you love the blog! Good luck with sous videing and thanks so much for stopping by!
Thanks that’s great. I can’t wait to see the new post!
Quick follow up question, thanks for your help!
What’s your take on things you should buy organic vs conventional? Does it make much of a difference?
This post really inspired me. I went to a cheaper grocery store this week instead of whole foods. I found 3 pounds of bacon for $4.99 and chicken for around $1/pound.
Sure – I think organic vs conventional is obviously a personal choice, but for me I buy conventional – not specifically for the price difference but because I haven’t found any strong evidence that it makes a large difference in the grand scheme of things. If you have feel free to share 🙂 . So glad I could help inspire! Those are awesome finds – congratulations!!!
I recommend reading up on this a bit more, especially with such a meat-heavy diet. I mean, you can always say that you don’t care much for animal welfare but that’s just a bit sad imho. Organic for vegetables is probably not always necessary because regional and seasonal products are far more impactful here. But for exotic produce / products fair trade is the gold standard and that is often organic as well. Fair trade and organic is a much better choice for the workers on the plantations.
Shouldn’t you use the extra money the market gave you to make life better for other and not only yourself?
Hi Purple, this is so wonderful. Thank you for sharing! My husband and I also live in Seattle and are completely flabbergasted at how low you’re grocery bill is. May I ask: which stores do you frequent? Are you hitting the International District produce stands, Viet-Wah Supermarket, farmers markets…? (No need to list out specific items for each place unless you’re feeling super generous, extra nerdy, AND have nothing better to do!)
Hi Erin – thank you! What part of Seattle are y’all in? I’ve never shopped in the International District. I lived in Queen Anne for 5 years and shopped at the QFC and Trader Joe’s there. I used the QFC card they give you to get discounts on their items, but that’s it. Good luck!
That’s incredible. We must be ass-backwards :-p Currently working on optimizing our grocery spend. We’re in the Central District but soon to be moving to reduce our rent.
Haha I doubt that very much 🙂 . I know prices have increased during the pandemic and was curious how much so I just checked my budget and the average grocery cost for myself this year when we were still living in Seattle was $200/month. Hopefully that helps 🙂 . Also moving to reduce rent is exciting – congratulations!
In the broccoli “mac” n cheese, what is the “mac”? I’m sure that it’s not macaroni pasta…
The broccoli is the ‘mac’ 😉 though it could be anything really – cauliflower, spinach, whatever. It’s all just a vehicle for cheese!
“When we lived in Manhattan, I learned that prices of specific grocery items can vary WILDLY based on where you go to buy them. During this phase of discovering how to lower my expenses”
This is a great tip and something I’m starting to notice actually. We shop between Whole Foods vs. Brooklyn Fare in Hudson Yards and some items in the former are *much* more expensive than the latter. And some items in the latter are much more expensive than the former.
I’ve also found that for produce (which tends to spoil after a week), doing a weekly run to Chinatown yields the cheapest results ($1/box of blueberries instead of $3-$6/box at Whole Foods).
Buying in bulk + sous vide is a great tip. I really should invest in a sous vide. Lately, I find that braising can also turn cheap/tougher meats into something more delicious. We tried Tim Ferriss’ “Osso Buko” (but with lamb shanks instead of oxtail) at $9/lb and it’s plenty of meat for that price and it’s ultra-delicious.
I feel like sous vide will give me more options in the strategy of “buying cheap cuts, and turning them into filet-mignon levels of deliciousness” – all the while having it be low effort.
I’m so happy those tips could help! Also I can’t recommend sous vide enough. I did an entire post about it I love it so much (though we can still try to pretend that this is a finance blog haha…). And ooh I need to try to make that Osso Buko!