Found a way to cut my grocery bill by automating my meal prep schedule

I was spending around $150 a week on groceries for just myself and it was killing my budget. The problem was I'd buy stuff on impulse without any plan, then throw away spoiled food three days later. I tried using a meal prep app for a month but it kept suggesting expensive ingredients I never used again. So I sat down one Sunday and wrote out a simple rotation of 8 dinners that all shared common base ingredients like rice, chicken, and frozen vegetables. Now I batch shop every Sunday morning at the Aldi in my neighborhood and I'm down to $85 a week. The key was sticking to recipes that cross-use things like buying one bag of onions instead of separate produce for each meal. Has anyone else found a food system that keeps them under a hundred bucks a week?

2 comments

2 Comments

verac492d ago

Oh totally! I do almost the same thing with my own meal rotation. It's amazing how much you save just by planning around the same cheap ingredients each week.

the_eric2d ago

Start by making a list of your most-used staples and build everything around them. @verac49 that's exactly what I did too, just rotating the same cheap proteins and veggies. One thing that really helped me was buying a big bag of potatoes and using them for breakfast hash, lunch wedges, and dinner sides all in the same week. I also freeze my bread and tortillas so nothing goes stale before I can use it. That weekly Aldi run with a set list is seriously a game changer for keeping it under $100...