How we cut our grocery bill in half

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A couple of months ago we decided to make the jump and start doing online grocery delivery. One of my cousins kept telling me how awesome it was and I don’t know why but I just kept thinking it would be too expensive to buy online versus actually going to the store. But then one day I got a coupon through a newsletter for delivery fees waived for two months, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.

You guys, my life has forever changed!!! We went from spending $200 per week to $100 a week in groceries.

online grocery delivery

By doing online grocery delivery, we have saved so much money it’s not even funny.

Before online grocery delivery, we spent on average $811.24 per month.

Two months in and we’re down to $398.87 per month. 

As you know, we have two crazy little dudes (who never stop eating); Greyson is three and Beckam is one. Going grocery shopping with these two, I always had my hands full. Not to mention those grocery carts, ya know with the massive (& dirty) toy car in the front are very hard to drive. I don’t even want to start sharing my horror stories of actually running into people. And every time Greyson comes to the store with me, I’m leaving with $20 of extra “stuff” I would not have bought if he wouldn’t have been with me. I know…I should be saying no, but I’m one of those moms. And sometimes I want the treats too. Ha!

So today I wanted to share with you guys what we’ve been doing and how we’ve been able to save so much.

meal plan

Every Sunday, we plan out our meals for the week. We sit down together and go over our social calendar, who’s doing what drop off and pick up, and what we want to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Going over meals with Jamie has been a game changer.

Then I make a list of what we have and what we need and order online mid-week, and not one thing more. We kind of meal planned before (or at least I thought we did), but I never went to the store with an actual list. I knew what we needed for ingredients for dinners but never actually made a list that I would bring with me to the store. I would start buying extra fruits, vegetables, and random food of what I thought we eat for breakfasts and lunches. And a lot of it would get old and go right into the garbage. Now that I actually sit down and go through our week and not buy anything extra we’ve saved a lot of money. And I also only buy for one week at a time.

This is what I was most excited about when we organized all of our kitchen cabinets. Say hello to our weekly meal drawer! We got five bins with five labels, Monday thru Friday. We only plan five meals and leave two days for either leftovers, or we typically go out to eat one day during the week. That way when we get our delivery order, the ingredients can go right into the bin. The prep bins have also saved a ton of time when getting dinner ready. Instead of digging through all the cabinets, we pull out our one bin. Or Jamie can get started on dinner before I get home and know exactly what we’re making and what goes into it.

buy for one week

We’ve become super conservative. Conservative as in we only buy what we need. I plan my weeks so that every Wednesday by midnight I have to get my order in for delivery Thursday’s between 12-4. I love meal planning mid-week. I don’t know why but it feels so much different than doing it on a Sunday for the week ahead like I had previously been doing and when I would go grocery shopping.

But now the problem is I have quickly become obsessed, in a good way.

use the coupons

I also have become coupon crazy. We get daily free newspapers in our mail and never once have I actually read the darn thing, let alone knew they had a TON of coupons. I also would have never actually read through them, cut them out, and actually brought them with me to the store. But now that I can sit down at home and plan out our meals, I can go through them and use them. I have my spot where I throw my coupons and when the times comes to order I quickly go through and base our meals on the coupons. It also pushes me to try some new meals!!

Which has also encouraged me to find some good foodie bloggers out there and explore their recipes. Some of my favorites we’ve tried and want to share with you are.

• Oh So Delicioso| Sweet n Sour Chicken
• Fit Foodie Finds | Cashew Chicken Quinoa Bake 
• Pinch of Yum | Detox Rainbow Roll-Ups with Peanut Sauce
• Heartbeet Kitchen | Chicken Wings with Maple Chipotle Sauce
• Greens N Chocolate | Grilled Honey Sriracha Chicken Thighs