10 Ways to Save Money on Groceries That Don’t Leave You Feeling Poor

You know the usual. Shop on a full stomach. Make a list. Check the loss leader items for the week. Shop with cash or a set dollar amount. All of those are great tips. But what if you’ve been doing all of that, and the end result is you wind up feeling poor? How can you turn that around? 

Here are some of my tried and true methods for saving money without feeling like it’s a sacrifice. 

1. Consider the “premium” house brands if the budget house brand makes you feel like you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. At Fred Meyer (and a few other Kroger stores) this is Private Selection, or for organic on a budget look for Sumple Truth. Walmart has BetterGoods and Marketside. At Safeway, there’s Signature Select and O Organics. Not all stores have a premium house brand, like WinCo. And then some stores focus on the premium experience in all of their house-branded foods, such as Trader Joe’s. My family has been impressed with both of Walmart’s premium house brands. For Father’s Day, I bought Bettergoods ice cream to top the wild blueberry crumble that I baked. The ice cream was very creamy and rich. It definitely had a premium feel and taste, but it was substantially less expensive than the other premium brands. I’ve mentioned the Marketside uncured beef hot dogs that we buy. My husband always asks if they’re Hebrew Nationals. They are very much like that big brand, but a couple of dollars less per pound, and they’re uncured.
2. Using mostly scratch ingredients, challenge yourself to recreate a favorite restaurant meal. You may need to buy an ingredient or two that is not technically “scratch,” but that’s okay. One of my favorite meals to recreate at home is a Five Guys-style burger, all the way. If you’re making burgers for several people, this is super frugal. One green pepper can be split multiple ways, ditto on a package of mushrooms. 
3. In the same vein, look up copycat recipes for all of the products you use and see if any of the recipes look especially doable and budget-worthy. I’ve made copycat ketchup, mustard, Mounds candy bars, Tootsie Rolls, and more. All are delicious. Someone else has put in the work to figure out how to make these taste like the store-bought version. All I have to do is follow their recipe.
4. Host a potluck for no reason. Just get friends together to gather around a table that’s been a contributory event. Pre-COVID, we did this often with friends from church. Those were fun times, and everyone left with full tummies.
5. Use your good dishes, glassware and linens. This past spring my daughters wanted a tea party as the celebration for their birthday. We already had the good china and table cloth. We played classical music in the background, and the dining room made for a “special” location for the tea (we normally eat in the kitchen). The sandwiches were budget-friendly. We always have tea on hand. We splurged on a couple of foods. But overall, this was every bit as lovely as a meal in a restaurant but a fraction of the expense.
6. Mentally reframe the concept of saving on groceries. Instead of thinking “I need to save money,” tell yourself “I am being a good steward of my resources and not being wasteful.” Alternatively, remind yourself of the tradeoff that you’re making. Are you saving for that once in a lifetime trip? Does spending less on groceries right now mean you can pay off your mortgage sooner rather than later? Are you hoping to help your adult kids buy their first home? When the grocery budget begins to stress me out, I remind myself of what we’re saving for. My son and his wife bought a house while interest rates were super low. Our daughters most likely won’t be as fortunate. My husband and I would like to help them get into that first home. Looking at saving on groceries in order to help our daughters takes the whole issue of feeling poor out of the equation. 
7. Spend a little money on a new seasoning to make those budget-friendly foods taste new and special to you. This sound like such a little thing, and it really is, but in winter I like to buy a bundle of fresh cilantro. Cilantro makes a plate of rice and beans taste special.
8. Use the calculator on your phone to keep a running total while you grocery shop. If after adding everything on your list to your cart you find that you still have money left in your budget, go back through the store and buy a little extra of items on sale that you will use and maybe choose 1 mini-splurge item to give your week a boost, all while sticking to your budget.
9. Make your own easy meals, whether that means using your crockpot or instant pot, or batch cooking to freeze almost-instant meals, or prepping sheet pan meals in a freezer bag for the week. You wind up with convenience food that didn’t cost a bundle. In our house we bulk prep pizza ingredients to freeze for easy pizza nights later. We make large batches of pizza dough, pizza sauce, and shredded cheese to package into single pizza amounts. This is a fabulous way to do pizza nights. Most of the “work” is already done. Get the components out of the freezer, allow to thaw, then assemble. Convenience food at scratch cooking price.
10. At the end of the shopping week, instead of running to the store to pick up something easy, take a look in your fridge and find 3 or 4 foods you can quickly make for a cold plate supper. Remember my no-shop weekend snack tray from earlier in summer, or my more recent cold plate meal after a day adventure. These were both easy to pull together using just what I had on hand. I made hard boiled eggs, deviled eggs, pickled carrot sticks, a couple types of cold salads, sliced and cubed cheese, ants on a log, apple wedges and dip, quesadilla wedges, and sliced melon between those two meals. Using what I had on hand saved us a bundle. Imagine if those meals had been the night before a planned grocery trip. We had enjoyable and quick meals without spending an extra cent.  The bonus to an end of the week meal from odds and ends is those bits didn’t go to waste. 

Sticking to a tight grocery budget doesn’t have to feel like a struggle. There are so many ways to turn it into a game, have that premium experience, or simply feel like you’ve done something nice for yourself.

Do you have any outside-the-box ways of putting meals on the table that completely throw away that “poor” feeling? How did you addressed this issue in your leaner days?