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Here are 20+ cheap easy healthy meals on a budget for when you’re meal planning and feeling stuck. I know I can always use inspiration when it comes to meal planning and this list will be there to help me too!

I think it’s about time for a food budget update! Saving money on my grocery/household/personal care products has been a goal of mine since March. I’ve been wanting to save about $500 a month and I added up my spending for the month of April and I did not do as well as I had hoped. I wanted to spend just around $1,000 and ended at… $1,400. So a mere $100-ish saved.

I won’t discount that though – $100 is a $100 and every dollar saved it good! I’m going to continue on my quest and hope that I do better and better each month. I’m in it for the long haul and to enjoy the journey!

A while back I put the question out on Instagram – how do you save money on your food budget? And I got some great answers! Here are the best tips I got:

12 food budget money saving tips

1: Become diligent about “sticking to the [shopping] list”!
2: The multiple stores thing is a pain in the butt but really the only way to save money.
3: Have eggs in dinner recipe 2-3 nights a week because it is such an inexpensive source for good clean protein.
4: Break up with stores where you always overspend – makes such a tremendous impact on the budget!
5: Always a meal plan. Always.
6: Shopping early to grab clearance meats.
7: Stockpiling when there is a good price on things that will get used.
8: Soak dried beans and package and freeze servings.
9: Save old bananas not just for banana bread but for smoothies and freeze in ice cube trays.
10: Give the job to the hubby!
11: Calculate the recurring cost of dinners and axe the more expensive ones.
12: Grocery Outlet’s organic section. (I’ve been doing this and it is already saving us moola!)
BONUS: I’ll add —> buy less single serving convenience foods (like nut butter packs, bars, individual yogurt/applesauce cups) and portion out your own servings.

To help me save money and make planning easier I also began creating a list that will help me out while meal planning – inexpensive dinner ideas! I figured, the less (over)thinking that I needed to do, the better. So I set out to list dinner ideas I could think of in various categories and I plan to incorporate a few a week. I created a list of egg, bean, fish, pork, chicken and ground beef recipes. I can typically find great deals on those items and if I have go-to dinner ideas I know I’ll cook them more often!