There are days that even a dedication to coupons isn’t enough to keep your grocery budget where you can easily afford it. There are steps you can take beyond the basics, like meal planning, though that can help you cut your food budget. A little thinking outside the box can be enough to move you towards cheap, yet tasty eats.

1. Plan around staple ingredients: Planning out your meals for the next week isn’t enough — it’s too easy to wind up buying some ingredient only needed for one dish that you won’t use again until you feel like having that dish again. I try to plan meals that rely on similar ingredients: for instance, I’ll make chicken noodle soup and baked macaroni and cheese in the same week, so that I can just buy one bag of noodles.
2. Keep snack foods on hand: Getting into cooking at home can be a real boon to your wallet, but it’s easy to slip up when you just want a little rather than a full meal. Rather than grabbing something at the nearest vending machine or buying lots of unhealthy snack food, keeping simple snacks like popcorn or cereal on hand can help manage not only your food budget but your health as well.
3. Double your cooking: It may sound counter-intuitive to cook more food in order to cut down on costs, it’s a relatively simple approach. By doubling batches of favorite meals and freezing them, you can effectively have your own tv dinners on hand for a fraction of the cost. On days when you’re just too busy to cook, it’s just a matter of pulling something out of the freezer.
4. Invite friends over: Once a week, I share a meal with friends. We rotate responsibility for main dish, side and dessert — it’s easier to plan for all of us, and I’ve actually noticed that I wind up spending less on those nights, even when I’m responsible for the main course.
5. Stock up on spices: Buying in bulk can bring down the overall cost of your groceries — but trying to eat what amounts to the same thing every day can make it harder to stick to a meal plan and a budget. But it is possible to make each piece of chicken in the giant pack you bought (or anything else bought in bulk) seem like a different meal, if you have a variety of spices on hand to help you differentiate.

These tips are just a starting point, of course. Depending on how much you want to cut your budget by and how many family members you need to feed, you may get varying results out of each tip. But it is possible continue cutting your grocery budget after you’ve taken care of the low-hanging fruit, like making a shopping list and getting the right coupons. Each of these tips comes from something I actually do to help manage my grocery budget.

Do you have any tips that have helped you cut your grocery budget? Please share in the comments.

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