How to Wrangle a Food Budget Gone Wrong

With the potential exception of personal care products, food budgets are where most good financial intentions go to die.

I have a few theories about why this is:

• Like money, our relationship with food is emotional. We eat when we’re hungry, bored, tired, cranky, happy, sad – it’s as much an activity as a means of sustaining life, for a lot of us.

• It’s social – a lot of our restaurant spending doesn’t happen because we’re taking ourselves out to dinner. Usually, we’re out at a restaurant because we’re meeting friends or coworkers and the $30 bill is par for the course.

• It’s highly personal to your literal size. I’m 5’1” and approx. 110 pounds, so generally speaking, I’m a fairly small human. I eat a lot less than my 6’, 170-pound male counterpart, and guess what? Less food costs less money. Go figure.

• Food typically doesn’t cost all that much all at once, but it’s a frequently purchased, medium-cost item. In other words, it’s a lot easier to spend $15 every day for a week than to drop $105 all at once, but most of us wouldn’t flinch at spending $15 on lunch every day (though we would think twice about spending $105 all at once, once per week).

All that to say, this is an area of our budgets that we typically set when we’re well-fed, inspired, and ready to take on the month.

*Flash-forward to the following Wednesday night: You’ve just worked for three days, your boss is pissing you off, you have a headache, and there’s nothing in your fridge.

In that moment, do you care that you decided on Sunday when you set your budget that you were only going to eat out on the weekends? No. You’re rationalizing the Uber Eats delivery and – well, YES, you want the crab rangoon for $5 more – that’s that.

As a former “spend $700 per month on dining out” offender, I can speak with firsthand experience about the transition from bleeding money at Fuzzy’s Tacos 4x/week to spending less than $300 on groceries and dining out total.

It’s one of the easiest areas to trim, candidly, because it’s often far more out of control than we even realize, and changing our habits is far more in our immediate control than some of our other large spending categories.

One quick disclaimer

I realize food can be a touchy subject for some people (I don’t know the exact statistic, but there’s probably a 50/50 shot that any given reader of this post has a not-so-great relationship with their eating).

Please know that this post is intended to focus on strategies for spending less on food, but that you should always prioritize your health above all else – in other words, if you need to buy special food to maintain a healthy relationship with your eating habits, please don’t stress yourself out about spending. Health comes first.

That said, let’s dive in

There are a few principles I rely on when it comes to maintaining a successful food budget – but keep in mind, I’m no five-star chef, and I still think this is an area of opportunity for me, too.

That said, this post isn’t going to have any gimmicks in it. No “hacks,” no weird shit (“Eat two meals a day instead of three!”), and no insanely unrealistic changes – just small tweaks that, in my opinion, can actually create pretty impactful results.

I’m not going to tell you the shit you already know (“Buy store-brand! Don’t shop while you’re hungry!”), but I will give you some real-world, specific examples of how I keep my food budget super low without subsisting on pre-packaged cartons of sad brown rice and meekly seasoned hunks of chicken breast.

My food goal: An average of $2/meal per person

At $2/meal, that’s $6/day (on average).

$6 per day x 31 days in a month = $186.

If you’re like, “$2/meal? What the f***? How is that even possible?”

We’ll explore that below – but that’s really a guideline for groceries, since your takeout meals will blow that up. Chipotle is the only exception – I split my burrito bowls over two meals, which really makes the cost $3.50/meal, a steal for takeout. I’m convinced Chipotle is basically equivalent to buying groceries, if you can make it last for two meals.

Principle #1: Avoid meals that require a lot of weirdly specific ingredients.

That dragonfruit chicken with minced organic mint leaf? Maybe skip it.

I’m not saying you can never cook crazy shit, but where I think a lot of grocery budgets get out of control is trying to accommodate a bunch of different meals that really have no relationship to one another – buying ingredients that work for one meal in the whole month is going to (low key) make it cheaper to buy that meal as takeout than to buy all the ingredients and make it once.

And I don’t know about you, but 99% of the time, when I make something really bizarre, I’m not making it three more times that month. Usually, the fancy ingredients just sit there and either go bad or get tossed over time because they’re not very useful for anything else.

Just because you’re cooking at home doesn’t automatically make it good for your budget. If you have to download a PDF in order to collect all the ingredients, it’s probably going to set you back more than you’re hoping to spend.

Principle #2: You definitely don’t have to meal prep (I don’t), but being cool with eating more or less the same shit for breakfast and lunch every day will cut your food costs dramatically.

For example, my breakfasts are standard. I have two major go-to options (and one is rather random).

Quick breakfast: A bagel with cream cheese. Simple. I get a six-pack of bagels for $2.99 and a tub of cream cheese for about the same, and that lasts me the week. Call it $6 for 6 breakfasts, or $1/meal.

Fancier breakfast: I’ll get eggs involved. I’ll either scramble eggs with (already cooked) rice in a frying pan and pour in some stir fry sauce (trust me – it’s like eating fried rice for breakfast) or scramble eggs with shredded cheese and use it to top the bagel. Eggs are $2 for a dozen, so they go a long way. Shredded cheese – for a big bag of store brand – is probably $5, but it lasts for a month.

If you’re like, “Well that doesn’t sound very healthy!” Yeah, you’re right. It’s not. But I’m not trying to be a health freak – I’m trying to cook filling food that provides carbs in the morning so I can kickstart my day. This ain’t called Calorie Counting with Katie, right? (But even if it were – I maintain that eating healthy does not have to be expensive. Buying exclusively fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is truly pretty inexpensive; more inexpensive than buying processed foods.)

I apply a similar strategy for lunches:

Quick lunch: A bowl of arugula, crumbled goat cheese, candied almonds, and a quarter or half of an apple sliced. I mix olive oil with honey for the dressing. Call that $11 upfront, but you can squeeze 7 lunches out of it (so $1.60/meal).

Boujee lunch: Sometimes I’ll do a caprese salad vibe; slices of baguette ($1.99 for the whole thing), a few chunks of mozzarella, sliced roasted red pepper, and drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I’d price this about the same as the above, and call it roughly $1.60/meal if you can stretch it for 5 lunches.

Do you see what I mean? Simple combinations of ingredients. Of course, the aforementioned 6’ male counterpart would laugh in my face if I told him to eat caprese salad for lunch with nothing else, but I’m not a 170-pound man. That’s plenty of food to fill me up without making me tired for afternoon meetings (which, yes, is a byproduct of eating a big lunch that’s heavy on the meat).

Principle #3: Plan to fail by buying some ready-to-eat, pre-made stuff.

Usually, I’m just over it by dinner time.

That’s the sad truth – if I don’t have something easy on hand, I’ll be more tempted to go buy takeout during the week.

I recommend planning for this by purchasing some easy items. My favorites are:

• Frozen pizzas and flatbreads (seriously – Trader Joe’s and Kroger both have so many options that are actually pretty good, like “prosciutto, arugula, and fig flatbread” or “goat cheese and veggie crumble” – I’m not talking sloppy-ass pepperoni Diggiorno) for $3-$5 each

  • The bonus here is that – if you’re eating for one – you probably won’t eat the whole thing, and can eat the other half for lunch the next day (so split that upfront cost in half for your meal average)

• Soup dumplings or pork dumplings from Trader Joe’s (I believe it’s about $3.99 for a box of soup dumplings, or much cheaper for the bag of pork dumplings that you fry in a pan)

• Orange chicken from Trader Joe’s

The other great, easy go-to is pasta. Sometimes a bowl of penne with marinara and parmesan hits the spot, and that’s well under the $2/meal average since the box of pasta and jar of sauce last such a long time.

Another option is going back to the comfort food favorites – I make quesadillas and grilled cheese sandwiches pretty frequently, so I have cheese, tortillas, and bread on hand. That’s another thing I’ve noticed about myself at dinner time – while I may be down to play it cool at breakfast and lunch, by dinner, I’m usually craving some bullshit. By having easy comfort food on hand (my go-to is a grilled cheese dipped in marinara sauce, or a quesadilla dipped in sour cream), you’re way less likely to go pick up guilty takeout.

Plus, while that doesn’t sound very healthy, the truth is, eating at home will always be better for you than going out to eat. The portions are smaller, you control how much butter the food is cooked in, and you’re just less likely to binge. Unless your takeout of choice is some 1% upper class bullshit from Sweetgreen, you’re probably going to be better off making your own food – even if it’s considered “unhealthy” in the traditional sense.

Principle #4: Live it up on the weekends by grocery-shopping specifically for fun stuff.

I like to eat “fun” food on the weekends since I don’t really go to restaurants: I’ll buy cinnamon rolls or croissants for breakfasts instead of my usual. Mini corn dogs! Tater tots! The works. I love Trader Joe’s for that reason; I usually buy staples at Kroger (because it’s cheap) and then go to TJ’s for the fun stuff. Even then, it’s cheaper than eating out, but it still feels like a treat.

I usually do that fun weekend grocery shopping on Friday nights after work to kick off the weekend – it’s a bit of a ritual, and it makes it far less tempting to go out on the weekends and overspend on food when I know I’ve got a few fun items that I’m excited about at home.

Principle #5: This might be the biggest one – get over the idea that the only way to socialize is to go out to eat.

You may need to be the friend in your friend group that breaks this trend for the rest of you, but I promise, on some level, everyone will probably be relieved. If you’re anything like my friend group when I first graduated, none of you make enough money to have any business spending the way you are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at every hot spot in town.

Because here’s the truth: Going out to eat is the least creative way to spend time together, and it’s way more special when it’s rare. And if you need restaurants and bars to feel comfortable with your friends, you probably need better friends. (I know. I’m an asshole, but it needs to be said.)

You can be the world’s savviest grocery shopper, but if your friends go out to eat 5x/week and you feel compelled to tag along every single time, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

I try to stick to the “one restaurant experience per week” rule, because that works for me. If this is something that matters more to you, great – but realize you’ll have to trim somewhere else to make up for it. Money is about prioritizing, and I think what the majority of people will find when they actually cut back on eating out is that they don’t actually miss it that much.

Aside from being expensive, most restaurant experiences are underwhelming. Unless you’re truly into food – like, run a food Instagram account and consider food a hobby – you probably aren’t going to feel that big of a lifestyle impact by reining it in. I have a few family members that are truly into food – like, went to culinary school, worked in restaurants, or travel specifically to go to cool restaurants. Food is a hobby for them. It’s not a way to waste time or fill space with friends.

Knowing which category you fall into can help clarify how much of your monthly income this category should receive. I was in the, “I’m just being lazy and uncreative, and my friends want to go to mimosa brunch so I’m going to go,” camp, not the, “I’m an artisan pastry chef and $18 baguettes are my calling,” camp. Be honest with yourself, then spend accordingly.

Principle #6: Meat and alcohol are probably your priciest purchases. Plan accordingly.

I truthfully don’t really care about meat, so I don’t buy it. It’s expensive, I don’t like cooking it, and that’s enough of a reason for me to ignore it at the grocery store. I’m not a vegetarian; I’ll eat it in the pre-made food I buy if it’s topping a pizza or inside of a dumpling, but I’m not buying steaks or chicken breast to prepare.

Remember? I don’t meal prep. I think it’s depressing.

Some people LOVE making their six to-go containers of rice, vegetables, and chicken every Sunday. I did that one time and ended up throwing out half of it. It doesn’t work for me because it’s too regimented (and I realize that’s hilariously ridiculous coming from the girl who sells spreadsheets online), but it’s true! I like food to be fun, so I don’t like meal prepping. All that to say – meat doesn’t really take up space in my grocery budget.

Alcohol, on the other hand, is not something I’m willing to sacrifice. I drink beer or wine every night with dinner, and usually have at least one glass – sometimes two. I never have more than two in one sitting (even on the weekends), but it’s a consistent staple in my day.

I’d say I probably spend $15 to $20 on alcohol per week (whether that’s a bottle or two of wine, or a six-pack or two of craft beer). I tend to stick to the $7-$9 range on bottles of wine and $10-$12 range for the “make your own six-pack” section of Kroger’s beer aisle.

If you like something, plan for it. Having a fruited sour to accompany my article-writing nights at 8 p.m. after working all day make it feel like a hobby, so I pay for it. It’s all about nailing down what you value and spending accordingly.

And if all else fails, pay the fee to buy your groceries online and have them put in your trunk

Some people truly can’t go through a grocery store without picking up impulse purchases in every single aisle. Go in for pasta, come out with three bags of chips, a pack of artisan kombucha, two boxes of rosé you’re buying for the branding, and a bar of dark chocolate with an endangered animal on the package.

Ordering your groceries ahead of time not only helps you clearly price-compare, but it avoids impulse purchases altogether. Drive up, pop the trunk, and let them load your car. Pay the extra $5. You’ll save money in the long run.

And for the love of God, don’t do your grocery shopping at Target. That’s a budget tragedy waiting to happen.