I’m a dietitian — here’s how I feed my family of 3 for less than $200 a week

A common conversation at kindergarten pickup these days? How much everyone is spending on groceries each week. The numbers vary, but we all seem to agree on one thing: it’s getting harder and harder to stay “in budget” while still trying to make healthier choices. As a single mom with two young kids — who also cooks for a full table when friends or family are over — I made it my mission this past summer to find ways to cut back on groceries, even a little. My target: stay under $200 a week.

Turns out, I’m actually doing better than that. When I looked back at my spending over the last three months, I averaged closer to $154 a week (about $667 a month) — with $200 really acting more as my ceiling than my average.

The USDA publishes official grocery spending benchmarks every year, ranging from “Thrifty” (the bare-minimum tier SNAP benefits are based on) up to “Liberal.” For a household like mine — one adult, two little kids — my real average lands closer to their Low-Cost tier, not too far off Thrifty. So, no, I’m not eating rice and beans every night. But I am running a genuinely lean grocery budget, not just a “sounds good in theory” one.

So how did I get there? I’ll share my full list of tips below, but the two biggest game-changers were buying in bulk and freezing extras (especially proteins), and actually sticking to a meal plan instead of winging it every night. I’ve also tried to reduce our reliance on single-serving packaged snacks whenever possible. Here’s an example of what a week of meals and groceries looks like in my household, plus my go-to tips for cutting back on spending without cutting corners on nutrition.

Tip 1: Shop smarter, not harder

Know which store is best for which items. Depending on where you live, this might not be an option — but if you’re lucky enough to have a variety of grocery stores nearby, it’s worth taking the time to figure out a general list of what to buy where, and which items truly don’t matter where you buy them. Trader Joe’s, King Soopers and Costco are my main grocery stores. To keep costs low, I make a Costco run every three to four weeks and do the bulk of my regular shopping at Trader Joe’s, since it’s almost always cheaper than King Soopers. That said, Trader Joe’s can be limited in selection, and King Soopers is closer to my house, so it fills in the gaps. I’ve never had much luck with the frozen food section at dollar stores, but I have friends who swear by it.

Consider ordering groceries through an app for pickup. Again, this won’t be an option for everyone, but if your store offers curbside pickup, it can be a surprisingly effective way to save both time and money. I’ve found that ordering through an app cuts down on impulse buys and makes it easier to actually take advantage of deals and coupons — I’m simply not a good coupon clipper otherwise.

Buy family-size and freeze. Costco tends to be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of store. But I’ve noticed that people who don’t see the value in it often don’t realize how much they can save by buying in bulk and freezing what they won’t use that week. I do this regularly with chicken, ground meat, fruit, bread and butter.

Know when to splurge vs. buy generic. This one I can’t answer for you — everyone has different opinions on which brand-name items are worth the extra cost, and which generic swaps are impossible to tell apart. For me, that means buying generic canned beans, baking staples and frozen produce, while spending a little more on the items where I can taste the difference.

Tip 2: Make cooking from scratch easier

Invest in appliances and tools that do some of the work for you. One of the biggest barriers for me is time, so finding ways to cut down on prep or cooking time during the week has gone a long way toward helping me cook more at home (and DoorDash less). You don’t need every appliance, but owning at least one — a slow cooker, Instant Pot, air fryer or rice cooker — that does some of the cooking for you can make a big difference. Other handy items I’ve picked up over the years include a protein bar mold for making my own (store-bought protein bars get expensive fast), a food processor with a shredding disc, a personal blender (easier to clean), a pineapple corer and a steaming basket.

Do your best to meal plan — and actually follow it. Meal planning can feel time-consuming, especially at first, but once you find a rhythm, it makes cooking at home so much easier, since you already know what you’re making and have already bought what you need. It can also save you money if you’re strategic about it. Planning meals that share ingredients lets you buy in bulk instead of buying small quantities of a dozen different items, and building meals around what you already have on hand reduces what you need to buy that week.

For me, the trickiest part is deciding what to make. Cookbooks and saving recipes from Instagram and Pinterest can all help. I also keep a running list of recipe ideas on my phone, so anytime I see something or my kids mention a meal they’d like, I jot it down for a future week. On top of that, I’ve found it helpful to assign a general theme to each day:

• Sunday: Soup or casserole

• Monday: Rice or grain night (stir-fry, fried rice, curry, etc.)

• Tuesday: Mexican or Tex-Mex

• Thursday: Breakfast for dinner

• Saturday: Grilling or takeout/restaurant

Tip 3: Small swaps add up

Go meatless a couple of days per week. One of the most dramatic ways to cut your grocery budget is to swap meat and fish for lentils, beans or other plant-based proteins a couple of days a week. Beyond the savings, it’s also an easy way to boost the nutritional quality of your diet — plant proteins tend to be rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Skip delivery pizza. I ordered pizza the other night for my family from a standard chain — nothing fancy — and was surprised by how much it cost for what we got, largely thanks to taxes and delivery fees. Especially considering you can pick up fresh pizza dough at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and many other grocery stores, along with some mozzarella and pasta sauce, for a fraction of the cost. My kids love it too — I’ve even gotten them to eat foods they’d otherwise turn down, simply because they wanted to decorate their own pizzas. What this taught me was to be more strategic about reserving delivery for foods I genuinely can’t replicate at home.

Use Costco or Walmart rotisserie chicken as a base ingredient. One of the best deals at Costco is the rotisserie chicken. For $5, you get a 3-pound bird that feeds about four people as a main, though I usually stretch it across two different recipes. Walmart has a similar deal at $5.97 for a 2.25-pound chicken. It’s not quite as good a value as Costco’s, but it’s still cheaper than my local King Soopers or Safeway, where rotisserie chickens typically run around $7 if they’re on sale and up to $10 otherwise.

Brew coffee at home. I technically keep coffee in a separate budget from groceries, but one of the easiest ways I brought my overall monthly spending down was by buying an Aeropress and coffee grinder to make a truly good cup at home. Love lattes? There are a surprising number of budget espresso machines to consider too.

What my family actually ate one week

Breakfasts

Breakfasts stay pretty simple and rotate through the same handful of options all week:

• Whole wheat English muffins with peanut butter and banana slices

• Smoothies using frozen fruits and vegetables

While I usually need to buy milk and fruit each week, I stock up on the rest — oats, baking items like flour and peanut butter — at Costco or Trader Joe’s when I’m running low.

Lunches

My oldest gets free school lunch, so lunch planning really only applies to my youngest and me. Most days, that means whatever’s left from the night before. On the days we’re out of leftovers — or he’s not a fan of what I served — I’ll send him to preschool with a sunbutter-and-jelly sandwich or a guac-and-cheese tortilla, plus some fresh fruit and a bulk-bought snack from Costco.

For myself, if I don’t have leftovers, I’ll often make a simple chicken wrap with frozen chicken tenders (I like Just Bare and Kirkland). After reheating them in the air fryer, I add them to a tortilla and top it with guac and any other leftover veggies in the fridge. Salad kits from Trader Joe’s work well the same way — wrapped in a tortilla with whatever frozen or leftover protein you have on hand.

The cost breakdown

So what did all of this actually cost? Here’s the full breakdown — including what I bought fresh that week, and what I was able to skip buying because I’d already stocked up.

Costco

Trader Joe’s

King Soopers (Friday grocery pickup)

Grand total: $144.79 (before taxes)

Already had — not counted in this week’s total

Of course, not every week (or month) looks like this one.

Some months are heavier on restocking — a bigger Costco haul for proteins, or a round of pantry staples and snacks that need replenishing all at once — and those weeks will naturally run higher. But when I zoom out and look at my average over time, sticking to these habits is what’s kept me at or under budget, even during the pricier stretches.

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