Budgeting and grocery shopping is one of the best ways to trim down your monthly expenses and daily spending- but there are dozens of challenges out there- especially the advice that is ultimately unrealistic. Here is a list of budgeting and grocery shopping challenges and how you can make them realistic strategies to save on grocery shopping! Challenges about Budgeting and Grocery Shopping Challenge #1- Unrealistic Research I've spent a lot of time scouring Pinterest and have not felt entirely satisfied with the results. Some articles seem too unreasonable to be applicable. More often than not, it comes down to unrealistic costs of groceries . For example, I cannot find 1 gallon of milk at my local Walmart for $1. And our Dollar Tree out in Montana doesn't have a grocery section- we do have a freezer section, but it is only 2-3 doors of frozen dinners. And our bread and produce is not as cheap as the other articles. What I have done to get around this challeng
Buying meat from Costco is one of the better ways we save on our grocery shopping. Meat is the most expensive item in a grocery budget- with dairy being a close second. So we try to save money (or in most cases, buy for the best value) by buying meat at Costco.
Buying in bulk and having a Costco membership can be beneficial for your budget-especially if you have the money, storage and can guarantee that you will use it up in time.
Perks for Buying Meat from Costco
Costco tends to have higher quality meat than our local stores and we get more for the price. For example, I see in some Pinterest articles that these people are buying meat for amazing prices at Walmart, we tried that once and we ended up with hardly any meat for the price. We also had really fatty cuts and you couldn't tell that that's what was in the package. What good is buying something cheap when you're getting very little of the actual meat? That's not worth it... but here is our list + the cost of the meat per pound + the estimated time I think it will take us to go through each "package" of meat. I estimate November/December range- we see if that happens that way on my Instagram!
My Meat Grocery List from Costco
Beef
Ground Beef- $10.57 Net Wt 5.31 lbs $1.99/lb. Divided into 7 chunks/freezer bags.
Pork
Pork Loin- $14.57 Net Wt 7.71 lbs $1.89/lb (7 dinners)
Bacon- 4 packages of bacon for $10-12 and they last forever when they're in the freezer. Perfect for Breakfast for Dinner, regular breakfast, baked potatoes, cream of potato soup...
Poultry
Chicken Tenderloins- $20.80 Net Wt 6.96 lbs
Already divided into 6 packages (= 6+ dinners) (approximate $6 per "dinner" when I first cook the meal)
1 Whole Chicken
I already cooked the other one a few months ago. I think the cost for the 2 was $10.83 and we have 1 more left. Each chicken makes 6 meals + broth
Ground Turkey- $18.99 12 lbs (12 dinners)
Fish
Bag of Shrimp $15.79
20 meals! (Mostly single meals)
Frozen
Chicken Nuggets $11.99 - mostly lunches
How Many Meals?
10 meals of ground beef
3 meals of chicken drumsticks
12 meals of ground turkey
2 small bags of beef steak “tip” ~$4 ($2 per dinner)
6 meals (1 whole chicken)
7 dinners from pork loin (at least)
1-2 meals of pork steaks
42 dinners! Excluding the shrimp.
Now that you have 42 nights of a meat-oriented dinner, it's time to start meal planning. Signup for my private Meal Planning Resource Library for free downloads, printouts and more.
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