I finally got my grocery bill under $40 a week for a family of three, and the number that did it was 9

Jordan Hill · 2026-09-17T12:45:05.011719+00:00

For the past year my grocery trips were running me about $115 a week at the Kroger on High Street, and I just accepted it as the cost of feeding my wife and our 7 year old. Then in January I started writing down every single item and price in a little notebook, mostly out of boredom. Turns out 9 items made up almost half the bill every time: bagged salad, shredded cheese, lunch meat, juice boxes, frozen waffles, chips, soda, chicken breast, and those little yogurt tubes. I quit buying all 9 cold turkey and swapped in a head of lettuce, a block of cheese I shred myself, a whole chicken I roast on Sunday, and a bag of apples. My bill landed at $38.72 that first week and it has stayed between $36 and $42 since March. The weird part is nobody in the house has complained once, and my kid actually eats more now because the apples are sitting right on the counter. My wife says the Sunday roast chicken is better than the rotisserie one anyway. Curious what item on that list of 9 you would refuse to give up, because I miss the juice boxes more than I want to admit.

Librear

Loading…

I finally got my grocery bill under $40 a week for a family of three, and the number that did it was 9 | Cheap Eats Winners - Librear