Ready to create and stick to a food budget in 2025? In this post I share tips for grocery shopping on a budget in 2025. Learn how to create a food budget and a meal plan, as well as 24 tips from plant-based meal planners across the country for sticking to your food budget.

What is a grocery budget?

A grocery budget is the amount of money spent to feed one or more people over a period of time. A grocery budget can be per meal, per week, per month, or even per year. You can create a budget for one person, or multiple people.

At first it may seem like sticking to a grocery budget will be unpleasant, however what many people find is that it makes cooking and meal planning much easier. When you take some time to plan your meals and stick to a food budget, it’s like being on a cooking and show and having to cook with only the ingredients that are available to you. I like cooking this way because it makes me get very creative in the kitchen and use up all of the food that I have purchased.

Grocery shopping on a budget (and 24 tips for sticking to your budget in 2025)

Here’s how to grocery shop on a budget in 2025.

First, determine your grocery budget.

Decide how much your food budget is. For example, if you are on a set grocery budget for a family of four each month, divide your total grocery budget by the number days in the month.  This will be your food budget per day. Then multiply your food budget per day by the number of days you want meal plan for. This will be your grocery budget.

How to calculate your grocery budget

Here’s an example of how to calculate your grocery budget:

1. Your family of five grocery budget is is $1,350 per month. There are 30 days in this month. Your total budget divided by 30 days is $45 per day.
2. If you want to meal plan for a week, multiply $45 by seven days which equals $315. Your grocery budget is $315. This means you will have $315 to use at the grocery store that week.
3. If you meal plan for a month, you’ve already got your monthly grocery budget which is $1,350.

If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant you may have heard a lot about “food cost”. This is the cost of each meal. The best thing you can do is start to memorize the total cost of your favorite meals. This will help you easily add up your meal plan and stick to a food budget.

How to calculate the cost of an ingredient

To calculate the cost of an ingredient simply divide the cost of an ingredient by the number of servings it contains.

How to calculate the cost of a meal

Here’s an example of how to calculate the cost of a meal:

• A smoothie includes one banana, one tablespoon peanut butter, and one cup of soy milk. Here’s how to you would calculate the cost of this recipe:
• 1 banana costs $.19 cents
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter is equal to one serving of peanut butter in the container. There are 16 servings of peanut butter in the container. The container cost $4.99. This means the cost per tablespoon is $.31 cents.
• 1 cup of soy milk is equal to 1 serving of soy milk. One box of soy milk costs $1.79 and includes four servings. This means that the cost of 1 cup of soy milk is $.44 cents.
• The total cost of this smoothie recipe is $.19 cents plus $.31 cents plus $.44 cents which equals $.94 cents.
• I’m making this smoothie for four people so the total cost is $.94 multiplied by four which equals $3.76.

Read the nutrition facts on the package to determine the size of one serving, as well as how many servings in a container. Or, many recipes will also share the number of servings.

Next, make a budget meal plan.

What is a budget meal plan?

A meal plan is what you plan to serve at each meal over the time period you’ve chosen for your food budget.

Creating a meal plan takes some time but is very important for grocery shopping on a food budget. Many respondents to my poll emphasized the importance of creating a meal plan. Not only is it a helpful tool for cooking and grocery shopping, without a meal plan you may go over your budget unintentionally, or not be able to afford every ingredient you need to make the dishes you’re planning on making.

How to create a budget meal plan

Here’s step-by-step instructions for how to create a meal plan to meet your grocery budget:

Step 1: Choose your meal plan recipes

The best way to choose your recipes is to use the steps below:

1. Take an inventory of all of the food in your home.
2. Determine which food needs to be eaten the soonest.
3. Write a list of the foods you need to eat soon and the foods you want to eat during your meal plan.
4. Decide how you want to enjoy the foods on your list by choosing recipes for your meal plan.
5. Determine how many times during your meal plan you want to enjoy each recipes.

Step 2: Calculate the cost of your meal plan

Calculate how much each recipe costs. Then multiply the recipe cost by the number of times you want to serve the recipe and the number of people you will serve each time. This will be the cost of your meal plan.

Step 3: Make sure the cost of your meal plan does not exceed your grocery budget

Remove or add any recipes, or increase the number of times you serve a recipe to change your food cost. Once you have created the meal plan you want to use this will be your budget meal plan. When you are shopping for your meal plan use this as a guide for not spending more than you want to at the grocery store and you will not exceed your food budget.

Then, create a shopping list.

Write down everything you need to purchase to create your grocery budget shopping list. Then, decide and create a list of where you will shop for all of your ingredients.

And, grocery shop for your ingredients.

Finally, purchase the ingredients needed to make your meal plan for your grocery budget. Pay close attention to the prices of ingredients so you can avoid overspending on items. There are many places to find quality, organic, whole food plant-based ingredients for a great price both online and offline. Determine if you qualify for any financial assistance for food in your local area, this can be a great way to cut back on grocery costs while enjoying healthy and delicious meals each week.

Grocery shopping on a budget

Several respondents to my poll recommended ordering groceries online because it helped them stick to a specific dollar amount. This makes sense because you can add and remove items to your shopping cart according to your food budget. This also helps with meal planning because you can create a meal plan and then see exactly how much each dish will cost (or near to it).

Best online grocery shopping in 2025

Several respondents mentioned their favorite stores for online grocery shopping while on a budget. These included:

• Walmart.com
• Whole Foods at Amazon.com
• Instacart.com

All three of these companies offer:

• grocery shopping services
• grocery delivery services

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Tips for sticking to your grocery budget

In this post I share a big list of responses to the question “What are your tips for sticking to your food budget?” I recently polled a large group of anonymous plant-based eaters and this is what they had to say about sticking to a food budget while on a whole food, plant-based diet:

1. “Try not to “splurge” on too many premade dishes.”
2. “I eat lots of oats, brown rice and legumes.”
3. “Keep it simple!! There is NO other way!”
4. “Cook from scratch, avoid takeout and focus on beans, potatoes, rice and oats.”
5. “Frozen vegetables and fruit instead of fresh. 10 lb. bags of grains, potatoes and flour. I contend you can live a WFBP diet for one person on $80 for 4 weeks of food.”
6. “Take cash and buy most important things on the list. If you don’t have enough $ for everything it waits until next week. Rice and beans are inexpensive, onions, potatoes, etc. I am gluten free so it’s even worse (more expensive) for those things. Our store puts produce and bread on clearance. A huge bag of bagels for $1.99 from the bakery at the end of the day. And A big pot of soup can go a long way for not much money for ingredients.”
7. “We plan out what we are eating for the week and put thought into the recipes so if we buy an ingredient like a head of cabbage it can be used in multiple recipes, and we try to buy seasonal veggies from the farmers market, we are also lucky enough to have year round farmers markets in California.”
8. “I order delivery from Whole Foods to not buy what I do not need. I use money envelopes to meter out the monthly budget. Every week there is a spending cap, and if I go over it it is only going to make the next week even tighter. It will work.”
9. “Order online for pick up. I can see how much plus coupon and look at ad while shopping.”
10. “Eat before you go shopping.”
11. “I make meal plans based on what is on sale, also use coupons. Don’t go grocery shopping hungry. I cook once a week for the whole week . Roasted vegetables, quinoa, and some type of green , also some type of burger and some type of stew or chili.
    We make a menu for the week and make a grocery list for those ingredients, plus our staples.”
12. “Make a list, stick to it when shopping, and don’t buy more than you are going to actually eat (except things you buy in bulk like beans and rice). Buying things more than once because they went bad before being eaten is a drain on the budget we often don’t think of but it can really add up over time.”
13. “As long as I don’t buy processed junk or “vegan” food it’s super cheap.”
14. “We joined two farm CSAs for fresh organic produce that is cheaper than the grocery stores.”
15. “Eat fresh fruits and veggies asap so they don’t go bad…”
16. “Potatoes – so versatile and the most bang for your buck.”
17. “Peasant food – potatoes, beans. There are frozen veggie sales quite often and they last in the freezer. Load up on spices – onion powder, garlic powder, dry mustard powder, vinegar, curry. You can change the plate of potatoes and beans to be multiple different flavors and meals just by changing the spices.”
18. “If you put it in the cart. You must ingredient prep it when you get home. All… of… it.”
19. “Put cash in an envelope at the beginning of the month. Only use cash…..”
20. “Grocery deliveries. and Aldi. Also I have s separate account for food incl. going out. when its empty its empty for the month.”
21. “Make a grocery list according to the recipes you will use each day of the week.”
22. “I find sticking to a budget to be really easy when on a whole foods diet. Every week, I restock whatever staples I need and spend the rest on produce. I wouldn’t be happy spending less than $50 though, I need my special mushrooms, etc. When people ask me how to stick to a grocery budget, I usually say that they should try to find other places to cut their spending so they can spend freely on food. Not buying truffles and other crazy luxuries, but just being able to really purchase everything they need.”
23. “Using grocery delivery or curbside! Sounds silly but I buy soooo much less because I’m not tempted by everything in store. I make a weekly meal plan list, ad the ingredients to Instacart and have it delivered.”

Reasons for sticking to a food budget in 2025

There are many reasons to stick to a food budget, here’s a few examples you might have this year:

1. You have a savings goal and lowering your food cost will help you obtain it
2. You have a specific dollar amount you are able to spend
3. You want to lower your cost of living

Further reading:

THE Best Vegan Meal Delivery Service – of all time!

Big Dollar Tree Vegan Grocery Haul + Meal Plan for 2025