Meal planning and prepping can feel more complex than they need to, but it doesn’t have to be a chore—especially if your main goal is simply lowering your weekly grocery spending.
With food prices on the rise, it’s an ideal moment to rethink how you shop for groceries.
Meal planning is straightforward: map out your meals for a week or so, then prepare some or all of what you’ll eat during that period. If spending Sunday night chopping vegetables isn’t your preference, don’t worry. You can still use these strategies to reduce grocery costs without becoming an extreme meal-prepper.
You don’t need to plan and prep every single meal, but having at least a basic plan helps you resist takeout and drive-thru temptations. Spend a few minutes several times each week planning meals. Sundays and Wednesdays work well because many stores release new coupons and start their weekly sales on those days. That’s another easy way to build savings into your food budget.
10 Meal Planning Strategies That Will Reduce Your Food Spending
- Track store sales
- Buy seasonal produce
- Shop for specific recipes
- Choose multi-use ingredients
- Try store-brand items
- Purchase spices in bulk
- Have a consistent breakfast routine
- Make entrees that serve multiple meals
- Cut back on snacks
- Avoid specialty containers
The secret to inexpensive meal prep is making it fit your current habits. What foods do you and your household actually enjoy? Can you double a favorite dish and use leftovers for lunch? Which ingredients can you buy in larger quantities (even if that means borrowing a friend’s wholesale membership)?
Answering those questions gets your money-saving meal prep rolling, and a few additional guidelines will keep your weekly prep both simple and affordable.
1. Track Store Sales
This might seem obvious, but shopping sales is one of the best ways to stretch your grocery dollars each week. Watch for ads in local circulars and keep an eye out for holiday bargains—like discounted canned beans around Cinco de Mayo or reduced BBQ sauces near Independence Day.
Purchase items you can realistically store in your pantry or freezer (hot dog buns, for instance, freeze well) and plan to use them later. Just make sure you’ll actually eat what you buy—stocking up on items you won’t consume won’t save you money in the long run.
2. Buy Seasonal Produce
Similar to chasing sales, buying seasonal produce is another excellent way to save while getting fresher ingredients for meal prep. Learn which vendors attend your local farmers markets and where nearby farmstands and pick-your-own fields are. You’ll get better prices on fresh fruits and vegetables that can be eaten fresh, frozen, or preserved for later.
Think about joining a farm-share program to receive a larger weekly portion of local produce. If that’s more than you need, consider splitting a share with a friend or neighbor to lower costs even further.
3. Shop With Recipes in Mind
One of the best routes to reduce food waste is shopping based on recipes. Choose a few meals you want to prepare before you head to the store so you shop from a clear ingredient list instead of grabbing items on impulse that may never be eaten.
Build your meal plan around what you already have—anything nearing its expiration or pantry staples. Pairing existing ingredients with a few fresh additions cuts spending and prevents throwing away perishable food that wasn’t used.
4. Opt for Versatile Ingredients
Picking ingredients that can be used across several meals helps keep your grocery list manageable. For instance, peanut butter works in smoothies, sandwiches, as a snack with fruit, and as a cooking component.
If you find a deal on a whole chicken, roast it for dinner and use leftovers for chicken salad. Use the carcass to make broth and add leftover meat to soups.
Making ingredients pull double or triple duty is a straightforward way to reduce costs in meal prep.
5. Try Store Brands
For many pantry staples, you’d be hard-pressed to spot the difference between a store brand and a pricier name brand. That’s often true for pasta, canned goods, dairy items, and legumes. When you shop, decide which products truly require a specific brand (non-dairy milks, for example, can vary in flavor by brand) and which can be swapped for the store’s version to save money. Remember, store-brand items are frequently produced by the same manufacturers as name brands and can be essentially identical at a fraction of the cost.
Small choices—like choosing a store-brand can of beans instead of a name-brand one that costs more—add up to meaningful savings.
6. Buy Spices in Bulk
Meal prepping often means making larger quantities of a handful of staple dishes and eating leftovers throughout the week.
That also increases your usage of common spices. Purchasing spices in bulk prevents you from repeatedly paying for small, expensive jars every few months.
Buying in bulk is handy for spices you rarely use—why spend $7 on a jar of star anise if you’ll only need a small amount occasionally?
Wholesale grocery stores are great for bulk purchases, but if you don’t have access, online retailers and many big grocery chains offer bulk options as well.
7. Stick to the Same Breakfast
Variety is delightful, but it can wreck your budget.
Eating something different each morning leads to more ingredients to buy. Keeping your breakfast routine consistent lets you exploit sales and reduce costs.
If you have kids and they resist eating the same thing daily, alternate between a meal-prep friendly option like breakfast egg cups and a preferred cereal. This reduces your grocery needs while still offering the kids some variety.
8. Make Entrees That Serve Multiple Meals
Choose two or three dishes a week that can be eaten more than once. A chickpea potato curry can feed dinner one night and reappear for lunch or dinner later in the week.
Look through collections of freezer-friendly recipes—like Taste of Home’s 137 freezer casserole recipes—and you’ll find meals the family will happily eat twice in a week. They’re marketed as freezer meals but can be consumed the day they’re made while saving the rest for later.
9. Reduce Snack Variety
We all enjoy snacks, but buying many different treats to satisfy every craving is costly. Pick one or two favorites and stick with them.
Homemade popcorn is economical and versatile—you can make it sweet, salty, or savory depending on what you want.
For protein-rich, budget-friendly snacks, try making hummus—just double or triple the recipe to last the week. Easy pinwheels are another low-cost, tasty option: ham and cheese pinwheels are simple to make and satisfying.
10. Skip Fancy Storage Containers
Finally, don’t overspend on high-end meal prep containers for leftovers and packed lunches. You don’t need to drop $20–$50 on specialty sets. Whatever you already have—hand-me-down plastic containers or cleaned yogurt tubs—will work perfectly well.
Repurposed jars are also ideal for transporting jarred salads, pasta salads, and other dishes. Plus, they look quite Pinterest-worthy.
The Bottom Line: Keep Things Manageable
Be honest about what you’ll actually do. If you want to order takeout once a week—fine—but budget for it (for example, pad Thai for four). Don’t resort to takeout simply because you didn’t plan a meal.
If you can realistically prepare one large meal that serves multiple purposes each week, start there. Don’t overcommit to three meals and then abandon the plan. Small, steady changes beat nothing at all.
Consider your family’s routine. Do several kids have evening practices or rehearsals? Plan slow-cooker meals on busy nights so everyone arrives home to a ready dinner. Walking into a house that smells like a homemade meal helps avoid the “hangries” and the drive-thru impulse.
Contributor Maya Halvorsen frequently covers finance, real estate, and lifestyle topics for Savinly. Writer Claire Monroe also contributed to this piece.
