The Consumer Price Index states that in the one-year period from November 2023 – November 2024 the cost of eating food away from home rose 3.6%. In contrast, the price of food at home (bought from the grocery store and cooked at home) only increased by 1.6%.
While the price of food increased across the board, the cost of going out to eat increased two-fold versus eating at home.
This year, we’re encouraging you to cook more homemade meals and eat out less because we believe homecooked wins every time! There are so many benefits to eating at home from eating healthier to getting more time with family to improving your cooking skills and (of course) saving money.
Eating at restaurants (which includes getting DoorDash or UberEats delivered) adds up quickly no matter the size of your household. You can save hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands, over the entire year by cooking more meals at home.
Here’s how to make it happen:
1. Start meal planning.
A meal plan is the first step. It gets you out of the restaurant booth and into your own kitchen. Review your schedule before you start so you make sure the recipes you choose will work on the nights you plan them. Your meal plan can be as simple or as complicated as you need it to be. If you have a full household with a busy schedule, then plan around everything you have going on. If you’re solo and don’t want to cook every night, then plan for leftovers!
Plan to Eat saves us so much money by not wasting food and not going out. Plus, we eat healthier! Win-win!
– Amy
2. Shop smart.
You don’t need to buy sale or clearance items to save money at the grocery store!
The first rule of shopping smart: only buy what you need. Before you go to the grocery store, “shop” at home and make sure you’re not going to buy double of something you already have.
The second rule of shopping smart is: shop with a purpose. This means every item on your shopping list has a purpose in a recipe or as a snack. The grocery store is designed to tempt you to buy extra items from the end-caps or entice you with bright colors and it’s your job to stick to your shopping list.
I spend less money by having a grocery list that reflects only what I need, spend less time planning, and my kitchen, pantry, and freezer (let’s just say our household in general) is more organized.
– Ivy
3. Make it work for you.
You don’t have to cook everything right before your mealtime! If you have a busy schedule, find pockets of time in your week to batch-cook a couple of recipes, prep ingredients, or freeze meals for the future.
On episode #83 of The Plan to Eat Podcast, Alli Powel talked about how she batch-prepped freezer meals on the weekends to help her family cut back on spending because it was the only time during the week when she could find the time to cook.
We can’t control inflation or the rising cost of food, but we can control what we prioritize. When we prioritize homecooked meals, we’re automatically saving more money on food which can relieve a lot of stress and frustration. Start with a meal plan, don’t get tricked into buying stuff you don’t need at the grocery store, and figure out a way to make it work for you!
Need more money-saving strategies? Check out some of our other posts about saving money at the store:
