Grocery List on a Budget: What to Buy for a Week of Meals

Here’s a grocery list on a budget for a family of four, built to cover seven dinners plus simple breakfasts and lunches. The meals share ingredients, so almost nothing on the list gets used only once. Prices change a lot from one town to the next, so treat any numbers here as rough and check your store’s app or weekly ad before you go.

The budget grocery list

Start by checking what you already have. Cross off anything that’s in the cupboard, then shop for the rest.

Protein

• Two dozen eggs, or an 18-pack if that’s cheaper per egg at your store
• About 3 pounds of bone-in chicken thighs or drumsticks, which are often cheaper per pound than boneless breasts
• 1 to 2 pounds of ground beef or ground turkey
• A bag of dried black beans or 3 to 4 cans
• A jar of peanut butter
• A large tub of plain yogurt

Grains and starches

• A bag of long-grain white rice
• Two boxes of pasta, one spaghetti and one short shape
• A loaf of sandwich bread
• A pack of flour tortillas
• A canister of old-fashioned oats
• A 5-pound bag of potatoes

Produce and frozen

• Bananas and a bag of apples
• A bag of carrots and a bag of yellow onions
• A head of green cabbage, which keeps for a long time and stretches across several meals
• One head of lettuce or a bagged salad
• Two bags of frozen vegetables, like broccoli and a mixed blend
• A bag of frozen peas, or another bag of mixed vegetables

Dairy

• A gallon of milk
• A block of cheddar or Monterey Jack (shred it yourself)
• Butter

Pantry

• Two cans of crushed or diced tomatoes, or a jar of pasta sauce
• A jar of salsa
• Chicken bouillon cubes or paste
• Soy sauce

Most families already have oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder and cumin. If you don’t, add them this week and they’ll last for months.

Dried beans, rice, oats and cabbage tend to be some of the cheapest foods in any store, often under a dollar or two a pound at big grocery chains, depending on where you live. That’s why they show up so often below.

A week of dinners from this list

Here’s one way to use everything. Move the days around to fit your schedule, and put the quickest meals on your busiest nights.

Night	Dinner	Uses from the list
1	Roasted chicken thighs with potatoes and carrots	Chicken, potatoes, carrots, onion
2	Chicken fried rice	Leftover chicken, rice, eggs, frozen peas, soy sauce
3	Black bean quesadillas with cabbage slaw	Beans, tortillas, cheese, salsa, cabbage
4	Spaghetti with meat sauce and a side salad	Ground meat, pasta, tomatoes, onion, lettuce
5	Breakfast for dinner	Eggs, toast, potatoes, fruit
6	Taco rice bowls	Ground meat, rice, beans, cabbage, cheese, salsa
7	Cabbage, potato and bean soup, or leftovers night	Cabbage, potatoes, beans, carrots, bouillon

A few notes that keep the week running:

• Roast all the chicken on night 1 and save a cup or two of meat for the fried rice.
• Cook the whole bag of dried beans at once, in a slow cooker or a big pot, and use them for quesadillas, taco bowls and soup.
• Split the ground meat between the spaghetti and the taco bowls. Adding beans to the taco meat makes a pound go further.
• Make a big pot of rice early in the week. Day-old rice works better for fried rice anyway.

Breakfasts and lunches

Breakfast rotates between oatmeal with sliced banana, yogurt with apple, and eggs and toast. Lunches are peanut butter sandwiches, quesadillas and leftovers. On busy mornings, a hard-boiled egg and a piece of fruit is a fine breakfast. For more dinner ideas that use the same staples, see these cheap family dinners.

How to write your own grocery list on a budget

The list above is a starting point. Your family eats differently, and your store has different sales. Here’s how to build one that fits.

1. Check the fridge, freezer and pantry first. Write down what needs to get used this week.
2. Look at the weekly ad and pick your proteins from whatever’s on sale.
3. Choose five to seven dinners that share ingredients. If you buy cilantro for tacos, plan a second meal that uses it.
4. Fill in breakfasts and lunches with cheap repeats. Most families are fine eating the same few breakfasts all week.
5. Write the list by store section (produce, meat, dairy, pantry, frozen) so you’re not running back and forth.
6. Set a spending number before you go and keep a running total on your phone as you shop.

Pull that number from your budget before you leave the house. If you’re not sure what’s realistic for your family, the guide on how to budget for beginners walks through setting a grocery amount from your real spending. The Paycheck Budget Planner gives groceries their own line in each paycheck, so you know your number before you write the list.

Ways to keep the total down at the store

• Check the unit price on the shelf tag. Bigger packages usually cost less per ounce, though not every time.
• Try store brands for staples like rice, beans, canned tomatoes, oats and frozen vegetables.
• Buy frozen vegetables when fresh ones are pricey or might go bad before you use them. They keep for months, and you only pour out what you need.
• Buy a block of cheese and shred it. Pre-shredded bags often cost more per pound.
• Use grocery pickup if impulse buys are your weak spot. You can watch the total in the cart and take items out before you pay.
• Eat before you shop, and if you can, leave the kids at home.
• Stick to the list, with one exception: if a protein or staple you use every week is on a deep sale, buy extra and freeze it.

What to skip on a tight week

These are easy to leave on the shelf:

• Pre-cut fruit and vegetables
• Single-serve snacks, yogurt cups and chip bags
• Bottled water, juice and soda
• Name-brand cereal (oats are cheaper and more filling)
• Deli meat, which is often pricey per pound compared to cooking a chicken and slicing it

They’re fine on a normal week. You pay extra for the convenience, so they’re the first things to drop when money is short.

When the week goes off plan

Some weeks the soccer schedule changes and two dinners never happen. That’s normal. Move the unused meals to next week and shop for less. Freeze cooked chicken, beans and taco meat in meal-size bags so nothing goes to waste. If you notice the same meal getting skipped over and over, take it off the plan and replace it with something your family will eat on a busy night.

After two or three weeks you’ll have a rough idea of what your family really uses, and the list gets faster to write. Keep your best lists and reuse them. A saved list you can copy each week takes about five minutes to adjust.

More grocery ideas live on the grocery budget page.