Over the past couple of months, my grocery spend has gone up quite a bit.

I realize this is obviously in part because my boyfriend moved in with me (we do split bills, fyi), but I also noticed I wasn’t really planning or budgeting. I just honestly wasn’t being mindful in some of my grocery purchases.

Here are some ways I am planning on saving money on groceries:

1. Shop sales: This is obviously a no brainer but I really wasn’t taking the time to do that. Each week, I grocery shop twice and rotate between THREE different stores. I try to purchase as much of the sale items from either store.
   • If something I like isn’t on sale, I won’t buy it.
2. Meal plan [not prep]: I know, I know you were expecting some magical solution but this is worth mentioning. It’s something that I honestly haven’t done really since I hired a nutrition coach.
   • You can obviously do both plan and prep, however I feel if you at least PLAN out your meals, you can budget your grocery list better for that week.
3. Swap meat for beans: Here me out; what I’ve been doing is using less meat (or no meat) and using some beans to make up for the lack protein. While I do follow a more lowcarb lifestyle, eating beans is where I choose to get carbs from.
   • Black beans and chickpeas are my absolute favorites.
4. Buy frozen: I like to purchase my berries and sweet potato frozen. That way I can use it as I please don’t have to worry about it going bad.
   • My kids LOVE fresh fruit, so I choose that for them and eat frozen for myself.
   • On another note, if for some reason they DON’T finish any fresh fruit, I’ll freeze it and save it for myself for another day.
5. Pre-portion your own snacks: For example, I used to buy a lot of pre-package nuts to have a more portion controlled options. Plus, it was just more convenient to grab and go for work and such.
   • Now, I just buy a bigger jar and pre-portion a serving myself.

These are just some of the things I’ve recently been doing to save money.

I’ll update y’all after my “low buy” and we shall SEE if I made any progress in reducing my grocery bill, plus by how much.One day at a time, of course.

-Sabs