My grocery bill is steadily climbing and I am not sure what to do. I make too much for SNAP. Any tips or tricks? It’s just me in my household, so would buying in bulk be worth it?
Edit: I want to thank everyone for their responses. I have a lot to think about.
Rice cooker
Bought a nice one (zojirushi brand that has the little elephant), but I’ve read most rice cookers work well. I use it so often for different meals and it’s been a game changer and money saver. Making rice is so simple now, and an easy cheap way to supplement a meal.
Rice eggs is a staple for us now: Make some rice, and when there’s about 5 minutes left on time, throw in some scrambled eggs for a tasty protein.
Mine is microwave safe so was relatively cheap. Follow the 1-2-2-12 to perfectly cooked rice. 1 measure of 2 cups of rice, 2 of water, some salt, 12 minutes. Can reheat, Fri overnight leftover rice and side carbs with anything specially beans.
Dry goods. Bulk bags of dry rice, beans, lentils, corn grits. That stuff will last forever, and are healthy!
If you and some friends/family can pool your money together and afford it, buy a whole entire cow. Parcel out the meat, and freeze it. My family has been doing this for a long time now, and a whole cow, split between 3 households, lasts a little over a year.
Get into canning, pickling, etc. Don’t let the fresh produce you buy at the store, or grow in a garden, just flounder in your fridge, preserve it!
I can a lot of salsa over the summer. Its easy, and it’s easy to make in big batches that last awhile.
I eat out less, I order in less, I’m not going to events as much. I see the increases and it sucks but I’m fortunate enough that I can handle it. For now.
The restaurant prices are the real shockers to me. I’m trying to find some places to grab a burger for two in Toronto; not just a burger joint but a proper restaurant. I’m looking at something like $30 per person average before tax and tip, without fries. Lol. Like excuse the fuck out of me but… dining in it is.
Investing, assuming you have some spare room for storage.
I own 2x50 lb bags of rice, 25lbs of dry black beans, 40 lbs of pizza flour, 50lbs of masa flour, 100lbs of AP flour. Bulk pasta.
At those bag sizes, the cost per serving is tiny.
Rebag all the flours, freeze the individual bags, then store them in Beren’s cans. I fit most of that in 2 cans.
Buy and freeze protein when it’s on sale.
Learn how to make pancake/waffle mix, pizza crust. bread, chicken breading.
Shop for perishables at Aldi or Lidl, Walmart if need be.
You save so much on non-perisable bulk that you can start out with one or two things and slowly grow you pantry to the point there you can afford to bulk buy easily, but you must save for it and reinvest.
I feel pretty lucky in this regard, in that I’ve got family members who work at a grocery store, and they let me bum off their employee discount. It’s only good for store-brand items though, and it only works while they’re off the clock, so it takes some coordination for me to use it. Stacks with coupons though, which also helps.
Buying in bulk can absolutely be helpful, if you can shop at wholesalers or warehouse clubs, and take advantage of coupons and sales. Wouldn’t recommend doing this for perishables though, if you’re only buying for yourself. Might also be annoying trying to find space for everything at home.
pushing my bank account to its limit lol
I have tended towards making very simple, quick, healthy and hearty breakfast meals, since those make or break the day for me if I have the wrong thing.
One breakfast I have is 150g hummus, around 50g of feta and a large whole grain wrap (cut into pieces and microwaved to be like chips), with the batching I use lasting around a week. I get a $6AUD 1kg tub of hummus per week (and usually have a spare as rollover if there isn’t enough in the tub I take from,) $4 250g feta block, and a $4 pack of 8 large whole grain wraps.
I’m likely not accurate with the pricing, since I don’t tend to concentrate a lot on the pricing since I’ve found this breakfast good value, but it tends to come to ~$1.90 per serving.
It’s also why I tend to do intermittent fasting a lot (for usually at least 7 hours), as it is very filling.
Not saying you need my solution, since finding your own solution would allow it to be integrated better into your routine, although inspiration is also great (the wrap idea was from my sister for instance).
Get a long, narrow planter or two. Potting soil, and grow onions, garlic, and potatoes (based on where you live) get grow lights if you can. Onions last longer, but potatoes grow easier.
Rice and beans. Tomato sauce/paste for stretching and altering it.
soylent is pretty awesome
Getting by, just. Which sucks as I have a relatively decent wage and feel like I’d be in the 2 foreign holidays, 2 cars and a big house crowd a few decades back.
Aldi and Lidl.
Costco too
Costco really only makes sense with a family or group. Buying in bulk isn’t necessarily better for a single person, especially given that any impulse buys are more expensive at Costco
You can coordinate splits with Costco members.
But beware, Aldi’s Greek yogurt (for example) is actually cheaper than Costco’s, $/oz (at least when I last compared). Costco is not always cheaper; if you really wanna save, you have to do the math relative to what local stores are available.
That makes sense
If it is freezable, it is fine (rotisserie chicken, for example).
I also make them into preservable forms, like I made little jar of scallion oil from a giant bag of scallion and they last years in the fridge. Ginger and garlic works as well.
You can also cook produces and store in the fridge, they will last longer, although not forever. For example, mushrooms, cabbage, etc.
Look for red 50% off stickers at Aldi (US). You can freeze meat and save for later
Only buy in bulk what you can and WILL eat before it spoils. Staring into a cupboard that’s empty except for a huge box of something that seemed like a deal but now makes you gag is … a life lesson.
Since it’s just you, buy cooking vegetables frozen in bags, so you can take out one serving and don’t have to hurry to eat up the broccoli wilting in the fridge. Unlike canned, frozen veg keep their nutrients. Which you do need. Being unhealthy isn’t frugal.
Only buy in bulk what you can
This is the Sam Vimes boots theory in action.
Not criticising you, and you’re not wrong. However, buying in bulk suggests a) having the money to do, and b) having somewhere to store the bulk items.
Good point about frozen veggies. It’s also easier to portion out what you need compared to the binary state of a can of food.
When it comes to prepping, cans should be reserved for calorie and nutrient dense ingredients that benefit from canning anyways, like canned meats, condensed milk, sardines and shellfish, or ingredients that primarily come in canned form like diced or pureed tomatoes. Like frozen food they’re canned at peak freshness compared to store bought produce which has to be picked early to ripen in transit.
The biggest risk right now is food prices are going up due to inflation (plus corporate greed and food cartels like the meat cartel), but will soon be going up due to a lack of fertillizer globally due to the strait of Hormuz. Next year is going to be worse by far. With a lack of oil you might get rolling blackouts so be careful to not get too much frozen food…
A deep freezer can help though. You can freeze bags of water inside the deep freeze and as long as you don’t open it during a blackout it can last for a day or two (depending on how much water you freeze in there) to keep your stuff from going bad.
do note that fresh vegetables can be cheaper than frozen, depending on the season and where you live
I have a farm share (CSA). At the start of the year, you pay up front for a share; in return, you get boxes of veggies during the season. Since the farmer is paid up front, they don’t need to borrow money from the bank and hope for a decent harvest to repay the loan, so there’s less pressure on them: they know their farm will still be around next year. And you get boxes of veggies that were picked within the past 24 hours, so they’re all incredibly fresh. You’ll get some stuff you can find in the grocery store (ex: roma tomatoes, bell peppers) but since all the middlemen have been cut out, they last a long time (I’ve had heads of lettuce last like a month); and you’ll get some that’s either heirloom varieties (too fragile for handling by the supply chain feeding grocery stores) or unusual (ex: pawpaws, ground cherries).
I’m going to say up front that a farm share isn’t for everyone; it takes some adjustment and a bit of work to make it work well, but for me it’s worth it. I’ll note that I’m single (so it all falls on me) and vegetarian (so I can sometimes eat a lot of veggies).
Each farm chooses how to operate, so I can only speak in generalities. To accommodate different family sizes, some farms offer boxes of different sizes/prices; others offer a half-share, so instead of getting a box every week for 20-26 weeks, you get a box for 10-13 weeks (you choose which weeks you want a box). You can also find a friend to split the cost and content of a share, either splitting each box, or alternating pickup weeks.
Some farms will pre-pack the boxes for you; others will put the veggies on a table and let you choose among them; for example, this week’s share might be something like “choose 3 zucchinis/eggplants; choose 2 lbs of a bunch of different types of tomatoes; choose 4 varieties of hot peppers”, etc. Some farms you have to pick up at the farm itself; other farms have distribution points in outlying areas, will let you pick up at local farmers markets, or have home delivery for an additional fee. Some farms have work shares: instead of paying for a share, you can choose to work like 4 hours a week during the season and get a box of veggies each week in return. Most farms have pick-your-own availability for veggies that may not be to everyone’s taste (okra, herbs), where some people may want extras (tomatoes, peppers, beans), or where personal taste is important (flowers).
I’ve been with a bunch of different farms over the years (I’ve moved several times; and sometimes I’ve joined a farm that isn’t a great fit for me). For the past couple years, I’ve been getting my own box instead of splitting a share, and I’ve opted to get a 10-week share (I choose the weeks). One thing I like with the 10-week share is that I’m not facing fresh veggies to work with every week; sometimes a weekly share can seem overwhelming!
Most people make some adaptations to make a CSA work for them. It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally come up with a set a recipes for stuff that I like, that uses the veggies I tend to get, much of which stores well; and I have a pattern of processing that works for me:
Each week, the farm sends out an email ahead of time, letting you know what’s in season and sometimes with a rough idea of how much to expect (“this’ll be the last week for blackberries, but we have lots of tomatoes!”); that helps me plan what to do ahead of time.
On weeks that I have a share, I go to the farm, do the PYO (it’s included in my share, and my starving Irish ancestors would be upset if I didn’t get them!), and choose the veggies for my box. When I get home, I wash everything, then sit in front of the tv, watching my guilty-pleasure shows and processing the veggies - as applicable, I trim, peel, slice, dice, mince, etc. As I finish each veggie, it goes into a sealed bowl or a Ziploc and goes into the fridge. I also have a spare bowl for scraps - ends and peels of onions and carrots, trimmings from peppers and leeks, etc. Those join other scraps in a big Ziploc in the freezer; when I have enough scraps, I use it to make veggie stock. And there’s another bowl for stuff I can’t use, that either goes in the garbage or a compost pile (I’ve stopped composting in recent years).
On Saturday, I spend a couple hours cooking, usually 2-3 big dishes or 4-5 smaller ones - it depends on my mood and what’s in season. Then half the food gets portion-sized and frozen; the other half gets eaten over the week or so following. While cooking, I may pickle some veggies. Pickling is easy: you put your chosen veggies and spices in a jar, heat up your pickling brine, pour the brine over the veggies, and seal the jar. During a season, I may pickle dilly beans, beets, giardinieri, garlic, onions, cucumbers, etc; I may eat them out of the jar or use them as ingredients in future dishes.
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On Sunday night, I sit in front of the tv, once again watching guilty-pleasure shows, and I use whatever veggies are left over to make salads. Each week I try for a mix of styles so I don’t get bored: for a couple salads I may toss in some nuts and berries or apple pieces to make it a bit sweet, while others I’ll put in extra peppers or onions to give it some zing. Any lettuce goes on top so it doesn’t get soggy over the week; crunchy stuff like croutons goes in a snack Ziploc on the side so it stays crunchy (ziplocs get rinsed and reused every week, and some recycled year to year). Dressing goes in an old pill bottle along the side. I make ten salads: one for each lunch and dinner for the week.
In front of Sunday night’s tv, I’ll also make little veggie snack-packs: veggies in a Ziploc (add a little water to keep them fresh), some of them with an old pill bottle of dressing or dip on the side After I’ve finished, any veggies that haven’t been used cooking, salads or snack-packs, they get frozen to be used in future meals.
Herbs tend to come in small bunches during the season and it can be annoying to process small amounts each time. I’ve settled on cleaning and chopping them up each week (in front of Friday nights tv), then freezing them. At the end of the season, I’ll take them out of the freezer and dry them and add them to my spice cabinet.
Once or twice a year, I’ll spend a couple hours making freezer jam, which is insanely simple: mash the berries, add sugar and pectin, stir, put in containers, leave them on the counter for a day, then move to the freezer. I can use the jam for sandwiches, cake filling, topping for pancakes and waffles, or give them out as stocking stuffers over the holidays.
And once a year during high tomato season, I’ll spend a Saturday afternoon processing tomato: I’ll make and can some salsa, make and freeze some marinara, boil down a bunch of tomatoes into tomato paste (freeze them in ice cube trays, then move them to ziplocs; you can use them as-is or dilute them into soup, sauce or puree).
How much time is all this? I find it helps to reframe things and count them toward other goals or desires. The hour I spend doing PYO on alternate weeks isn’t “farm-share time”, it’s counted toward my weekly exercise goals. Time in front of the tv isn’t counted either, as I’m catching up on guilty-pleasure tv (without the guilt, since I’m actually working, lol). The couple hours batch-cooking on alternate Saturdays, I would likely to have been batch-cooking anyway. That really leaves like 1.5 to 2 Saturdays each year, where I’m making jam, making and canning salsa, etc.
Price-wise, I’m paying $400 a year for a ten-week share, but again I re-frame it: I eat the fresh meals over the summer and fall and the frozen meals over the winter and spring, plus there’s also whatever I’ve pickled, canned, jammed or frozen. For me, it’s really a year-round benefit that works out to about $7.70 per week for farm-fresh (often organic) ingredients and homemade meals spiced to my personal tastes. It provides over half the food I eat each year, which means the rest of my food budget stretches further. And I’m eating healthy foods, not highly-processed stuff.
For me, the key has been coming up with a set of recipes for the ingredients I’ll get, for dishes that I’ll enjoy, and that preserve well - usually frozen. I only have the normal freezer-on-top-of-fridge, but by the end of the season, it’s crammed with lasagna, French onion soup, eggplant Parmesan, scalloped daikon, strawberry pancakes, blueberry muffins, stuffed tomatoes and peppers, zucchini boats, butternut squash bread, seven-layer casserole, chili, etc.
I’ll admit this isn’t for everyone: you need to adjust your habits to what’s in season instead of what you buy from the store, you need to find recipes that work for you, you need to spend time cleaning, processing and cooking the veggies. But for the people who do adjust, it can save money.
Wow thank you for your insights. That sounds great. I realy have to look into that.
I usually struggle with finding new recepies I want to make and end up resorting to my usual rotation. Do you by any chance have a recipe that you find interesting and thats not too hard to make for a single person? Would be greatly appreciated :)
I realy have to look into that.
Try googling CSA and your county (if in the States), or CSA near your town. There’s also local harvest.org, but they don’t list everyone, and some of the ‘too far to consider’ farms will have local drop-offs.
My most recent discoveries are scalloped diakon and butternut squash bread [not entirely sure that’s the recipe I used, but I’m at work, lol].
I found butternut squash bread because last year’s harvest brought me no less than ten butternut squashes and I didn’t want to eat all of them broiled or in soup. The bread is great - it’s like zucchini bread or banana bread - light, mild, good with a bit of butter or cream cheese on top. I cooked down the squashes and froze the cooked innards, then made the bread over the winter, when I had more time (and partially because I couldn’t have fitted all the fully cooked loaves into the freezer, lol). It’s good and simple.
The second one’s a little more complicated to cook but I’m actually delighted with the scalloped diakon because I’ve been trying to find a decent daikon recipe for years and everything either makes it too noticable (I don’t actually like diakon, but I refuse to waste food) or it makes the dish bland and unappetizing. That scalloped daikon recipe makes them mild and tasty and just right for me. Daikon saves well, so my plan for diakon season this year is to just save them all up and make one large batch of scalloped daikon all at once.
I also made a really nice ground cherry tart once, but I’ve been struggling to re-find the recipe :( There are also fairly easy recipes for using display pumpkins to make pumpkin pie, which I often do: I’ll process the pumpkin and make pie filling, freeze the filling flat in a Ziploc, them unfreeze it and stick it in a pie shell for Thanksgiving or Christmas. If I’m eating with someone, I can legitimately claim it’s a pie made literally from scratch.
If anyone has questions, I’m happy to answer!
CSA is great and ethical consumption, and I am thinking about getting one from my local community farm. The only obstacle is that I need to drive there and that is annoying.
That being said, from my personal experience, CSA will be more expensive than big box stores.
CSA will be more expensive than big box stores.
Probably, yeah, and I don’t want to minimize that. However, chances are also that the food is either more unique (heirloom varieties that taste better but either don’t travel well or “looked ugly”), or it’s fresher and will last longer (because they’re not being sent to a sort-and-pack facility, put in a warehouse, sent to a regional warehouse, a local warehouse, and then the back of a store).
I also like that it forces me to eat more vegetables than I would in my ‘normal’ diet.
Not really financially constrained, but I also don’t spend a lot on groceries as I just don’t like wastefulness. Some tips:
- No alcohol.
- No tobacco.
- No branded products.
- No soda. I drink mostly tap water, though considering you’re American that might not be a viable option.
- I eat quite a lot of bread, though again it might be difficult for you to get edible bread.
- Frozen vegetables are good, decently healthy and easy to buy in bulk.
- Rice and dried pasta are cheap and easy to combine with the above.
- Modest amounts of animal protein, if any. Cheap alternatives include tofu and peanuts.
- Since you’re alone, you can cook for two or three days and save some time and money. One option is to cook for two servings but alternate, so that you eat the second serving 2 days after. That way you don’t have to eat the same thing twice in a row.
I drink mostly tap water, though considering you’re American that might not be a viable option. it might be difficult for you to get edible bread.
Stereotypes about America get weird.
I base that assessment on my experiences visiting the USA, and what I heard from colleagues who lived there.
When I visited (Aspen, CO) the tap water tasted like dirty pool water. I guess it can be better in other areas. The bread was terrible as well, easily the worst I had in any hotel breakfast in any country I’ve visited. From what I understand, Whole Foods has some decent options, but is expensive. You can make your own bread of course, but that’s a more time-consuming option.
You based your impression on a hotel breakfast buffet. That’s bread designed to be shelf-stable, not delicious. Let me assure you right now, we have bakeries here, and not just in supermarkets.
If you think it’s normal that a hotel breakfast buffet (in a very expensive hotel at that) doesn’t serve good bread, I think it underscores my point.
Your point was that good bread (well, “edible”) is hard to find in the US. It’s not, though. Yes, we have bad bread too, and maybe you don’t where you live, and that’s great. But the existence of bad bread does not mean good bread is unavailable.
Food for Life sells exceptional bread. It’s found in the frozen section. It’s pretty expensive, but you get what you pay for.
It is true that, if you remove any joy from life, it becomes a lot cheaper.
Good advice, but you missed pulses.
If bought dried and in bulk they’re quite cheap while being very nutritious.
Canned pulses are a bit more expensive, but more convenient in handling.
Ideally you you have lots dried ones for meals you prepare with foresight and some canned once when it’s spontaneous and you have little time for preparation.
Put canned tomatoes in the mix and you have nice and cheap phytochemicals on top.Luckily, I live in one of the 10 best states for tap water. I’m not a big bread eater, so isn’t really an issue.
No chlorine?
I’m just chipping in here in the soda wars, a SodaStream is fantastic for sparkling water! Add a slice of lemon, or two slices of cucumber for fun.
I met a guy who bought a used CO2 canister, and built the gasification thingy himself, one charge lasts like 5 years…
When I had no money and no time, I relied heavily on a rotation of the following meals, with current 2026 costs in my expensive city:
- Chili Mac: 1 lb dried pasta ($1.25 for 1600 calories, 54g protein) boiled in salty water (let’s call salt and water basically free), a can of chili ($2.50 for 540 calories, 32g protein), 2 oz of shredded cheese ($1 for 220 calories, 12g protein), 0.25 oz of hot sauce ($0.25 for flavor but negligible calories/protein). Total: $5, 2360 calories, 98g protein.
- Stir fried chicken and broccoli on rice: 1 lb chicken thigh ($4.50, 600 calories, 87g protein), 1 lb broccoli ($1.50, 150 calories, 9g protein), 1 lb rice ($1.50 for 1600 calories, 32g protein), $0.50 of condiments/seasoning. Total: $8, 2350 calories, 128g protein.
- Ramen with enough stuff to make it not suck: 1 package of Shin Ramyun ($2 for 500 calories, 10 g protein), 2 eggs ($0.30, 150 calories, 12g protein), 4 oz frozen edamame ($2, 90 calories, 9g protein), 2 oz scallions ($0.20, let’s round down to 0 calories and 0g protein). Total: $4.50, 740 calories, 31g protein.
Just as an aside, chicken breasts are actually cheaper per pound than thighs at Walmart.
add a splash of heavy cream to the ramen and you will never go back
