How to Beat Inflation at the Grocery Store: 11 Tips & Tricks

1. Learn to cook at least five to seven dinners

Learn to cook meals you love. Once you get better at making those meals, you can expand your repertoire. Cooking your own food will save you a lot of money, so learn to cook the food you like and are happy to eat.

2. Clear out your fridge

Before you go to the grocery store, clear out your refrigerator. You don’t have to eat or throw out everything in your fridge. Before you go shopping, take any leftover fruits and vegetables, chop them and freeze them.

This way you’re not wasting any produce. You're preparing and sorting them out before you even go shopping. This will also save you time later when you need to make a quick, easy dinner. You’ll already have vegetables prepped and ready for you in the freezer.

3. Plan your meals for the week

Before you go food shopping, plan the meals that you want to eat that week. That doesn’t mean, think of a meal you want and write it down.

Go through your kitchen and look at what you already have. See which meals you can make with what you have and add the few ingredients you need to your list.

I don't decide what to make on specific days. I decide which meals I'm going to make for the week. Then I choose what to make when depending on how much time I have and when foods are expiring.

Only buy what you absolutely need. Making a list will help prevent you from buying things you don’t need. If it's not on your list, you don't buy it.

4. Check out local food banks

Find out what your options are for local food banks. I get an insane amount of food for amazing prices. This is food that would otherwise go into landfills. It's what supermarkets are going to throw away because it's out of date but it's still perfectly edible.

If there aren’t any options in your area consider starting one. The people that started the one in our village were locals who wanted to prevent food waste.

5. Find out when the supermarket discounts food

Go to your local supermarket and ask what time they usually discount items. Every supermarket is different. Find out the schedules for all your local shops. You will be able to get so much food for such low prices.

6. Cancel meal subscriptions

Cancel your meal subscription services if you have any. Then, maybe once a month, spend a day doing bulk cooking and freezing day. You can cook loads of dinners in one day and freeze them for the days when you don’t have time or energy to cook.

Buy in bulk and cook in bulk. The more you buy the cheaper it tends to be. Always look at how much items cost by weight. If you have the extra money buy the bigger packages. Go for the cheapest by weight.

7. Try a more whole-foods, plant-based diet

Being vegan will not necessarily save you money if you are buying vegan versions of cheeses and meats. That stuff is more expensive than the non-vegan stuff.

But if you try to follow a whole food, plant-based diet, eating legumes, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, and unprocessed foods, you will save money. I'm not saying to follow a strict vegan diet, but trying to eat more beans and legumes in place of meat and dairy will save you money.

8. Switch to off-brand foods

There is no reason to spend more on name-brand foods. I don't think there is a single-name brand that I buy anymore. If you think you only like the name brand of a certain food, I encourage you to try a blind taste test. You might be surprised to find you can’t tell the difference.

9. Stop buying fizzy drinks

Fizzy drinks are just not necessary. This includes alcoholic drinks. If you can’t eliminate them entirely, try and limit them. Give yourself limits.

Maybe only have fizzy drinks once a week or buy one rather than four. Whatever it is, try and just rein it back and you will notice that you save money.

10. Only shop once a week

If you’re following my tips regarding clearing out the fridge and planning your meals, then you should only need to go shopping once a week. Do one big shopping and don’t go back to the shop at all.

Even if you just need one thing, you must be careful. Very few people can go into the shops for one thing and come up with only that one thing.

The more you go into the shops, the more tempted you will be to spend money on things you do not need. Instead, designate yourself a certain amount of money to buy yourself treats. that will help you get through the week.

Try and get all those things in that one food shop. That will help you resist temptation if you have to go back to the shop.

11. Compost

If you have the space, start composting your fruits and veggie scraps. If you start composting your scraps, you can start trying to grow your own food and then you're naturally saving money because you’re composting the food that you're buying from the shops.

Then you're able to grow more food with that compost and it creates a beautiful cycle.

How to beat inflation at the grocery store

Those are my tips for saving money on food shopping. I hope you found this helpful. If you have any good tips, I’d love to hear them. Leave them in the comments section.